Move your listening chair and hold on for the ride!

[DaveyF]

Today while I was enjoying a long listening session, I did what IMHO few of us do enough of. I moved my listening chair even though I had thought that I already had the best position, this time I was surprised to hear further improvements.
My room is very small, so I generally listen in the near space, however, I had the chair as far back as possible in the room up till today. After a little more experimentation, I ended up with moving my chair up towards the speakers and even more into the near field. Since I have recently rolled in NOS Mullards into my preamp, I was enjoying a greater sense of depth than before this upgrade... moving the chair closer towards the speakers did two things...1) this position pulled me away from the back wall more ( usually a good thing) and 2) the stage extended even deeper as the classic equilateral triangle was preserved better.

After my experience today, I wonder how many of us could benefit by re-positioning our listening chair..an easy tweak that's very correctable and could prove beneficial. My advice, if you haven't done this recently, try it again, you might like it

 

[Robh3606]

Mines on wheels I do it all the time

Rob

 

[NorthStar]

Mines on wheels I do it all the time

Rob

Wise axe! .... Mine is spiked to the floor! :b

 

[JoeyGS]

An audiophile friend of mine who has been in this hobby for a long long time has scratch marks on the floor where his listening chair is. He always moves his chair depending on the recording material. He does this in order for him to enjoy the moment of each and every record material he has, be it vinyl, CD or ripped music. He says that not all recordings are made the same so he also moves his sweetspot depending on the recording.

 

[NorthStar]

Joey, that makes total common sense. :b ...I fully agree with your audiophile friend.

 

[thedudeabides]

Perhaps one should put something on the bottom of the chair legs to avoid scratching the floor.

Just a thought.

 

[andromedaaudio]

I have moved mine 5000 times and measured the corresponding FR (at earheight) a 1000 times as well , and yes moving the speakers is very worthwhile , and measurements correspond to that

 

[RBFC]

The geometry of different miking techniques certainly would make a case for changing the speaker/listener triangle dimensions!

Lee

 

[FrantzM]

I have often mentioned it.. The positions of the speakers in the room are in relation to your listening/seating position. it is good to not seat too close to the back wall and not in the middle of the room.. Even room treatment is somewhat dependent on the listening position. If for example one wants to treat a room for first reflection in the mid to high frequencies it should be done with respect to the seating/listening position... itself somewhat determines by the required loudspeaker to listener distance... itis the distance at which all drivers beam coincide in one... Some manufacturers are pretty specific about it. Most aren't There is some rule of thumb for a speaker with two to three drivers and 3 feet or higher, it is roughly 10 feet. I can't remember where I read this number but it stuck and has been verified in my experiences... It is less for line sources and (of course) single driver speakers .. You can practically listen to the Quad ESl-63 like headphones with almost no change in tonality... Moving the listening position changes the distribution of peaks and nulls with respect to the listener... There is nothing worse than seating in a null, something that is best determined by measurements ... . Another , often repeated mistake is sitting too close to the back wall ...

 

[NorthStar]

The rule of thirds (1/3, 1/5, 1/7, 1/9) still applies to the main listening position. :b

 

[DaveyF]

I have often mentioned it.. The positions of the speakers in the room are in relation to your listening/seating position. it is good to not seat too close to the back wall and not in the middle of the room.. Even room treatment is somewhat dependent on the listening position. If for example one wants to treat a room for first reflection in the mid to high frequencies it should be done with respect to the seating/listening position... itself somewhat determines by the required loudspeaker to listener distance... itis the distance at which all drivers beam coincide in one... Some manufacturers are pretty specific about it. Most aren't There is some rule of thumb for a speaker with two to three drivers and 3 feet or higher, it is roughly 10 feet. I can't remember where I read this number but it stuck and has been verified in my experiences... It is less for line sources and (of course) single driver speakers .. You can practically listen to the Quad ESl-63 like headphones with almost no change in tonality... Moving the listening position changes the distribution of peaks and nulls with respect to the listener... There is nothing worse than seating in a null, something that is best determined by measurements ... . Another , often repeated mistake is sitting too close to the back wall ...

While I agree with what you are saying Frantz, the issue becomes a little more complex in a very small room such as the one I am utilizing. Sitting 10' back from the speakers is not possible unless the speakers would be placed against the rear wall and one would sit with their back to the opposing wall.
Nonetheless, I do think that even in a problematical room such as mine, much experimentation is warranted with the seating position. I think in a larger room, the seating position might be in some ways less critical. For one thing, in the larger room the ability to get the seat away from the rear and side walls is probably easier and the same could be said for the speaker positioning.

 

[jpv]

"An audiophile friend of mine who has been in this hobby for a long long time has scratch marks on the floor where his listening chair is. He always moves his chair depending on the recording material. He does this in order for him to enjoy the moment of each and every record material he has, be it vinyl, CD or ripped music. He says that not all recordings are made the same so he also moves his sweetspot depending on the recording."

and I bet your audiophile friends frequency response in the bass region is not smooth.

 

[JoeyGS]

"An audiophile friend of mine who has been in this hobby for a long long time has scratch marks on the floor where his listening chair is. He always moves his chair depending on the recording material. He does this in order for him to enjoy the moment of each and every record material he has, be it vinyl, CD or ripped music. He says that not all recordings are made the same so he also moves his sweetspot depending on the recording."

and I bet your audiophile friends frequency response in the bass region is not smooth.

Well.... my friend is a local manufacturer of acoustic products and he fully understands acoustic treatment. It's more of the recording rather than the room interaction.

 

[JackD201]

While I agree with what you are saying Frantz, the issue becomes a little more complex in a very small room such as the one I am utilizing. Sitting 10' back from the speakers is not possible unless the speakers would be placed against the rear wall and one would sit with their back to the opposing wall.
Nonetheless, I do think that even in a problematical room such as mine, much experimentation is warranted with the seating position. I think in a larger room, the seating position might be in some ways less critical. For one thing, in the larger room the ability to get the seat away from the rear and side walls is probably easier and the same could be said for the speaker positioning.

You do tend to get more of a sweet zone than a sweet spot in a larger room.

 

[FrantzM]

Well.... my friend is a local manufacturer of acoustic products and he fully understands acoustic treatment. It's more of the recording rather than the room interaction.

Well jpv has a point the response will be all over when you move your seat around like that .. The recording doesn't change the physical characteristics of the room .... THe bass repsonse of the speakers doesn't vary with the recording .. It stays the same .. There is one ideal seating position in a room with respect to its dimensions, shape and speaker positioning and characteristics .. These are the parameters...
Wrong approach .. An Equalizer would have been a better solution

 

[NorthStar]

There could be more than just one great listening position in many rooms. :b
It depends too of the recordings ....

 

[DaveyF]

There could be more than just one great listening position in many rooms. :b
It depends too of the recordings ....

This is my basic point..I had assumed that my prior listening position was the best to be had in the room, now I think that while that position was and is very good, the new position is in many ways superior.
Possibly depending on the music playing, this yet to be determined.

 

[JackD201]

The human hearing mechanism is a wonderful and amazing thing. I'm a bit of an anthropology nut so I enjoy observing myself and others as I/they listen. You'll notice all sorts of movement performed by a person engaged in highly focused listening particularly when a listener is zooming in on particular musical lines. Practically all lines (I'm actually playing very safe, I'm so tempted to say ALL lines) are dominated by mid and high frequencies. The area of movement can be quite large at low listening levels sometimes more than a foot forward or back and a few inches side to side. As SPL goes up I noticed that the area of movement shrinks unless the line followed is buried pretty deep and movement becomes more of subtle shifts of the head to give each ear snapshots from different positions. The amazing part is how this is all happening in the background while the brain is focused at the task at hand.

With movements having the potential to be large relative to a sweet "spot" or in this case "point", logically it follows that changing the central point to a location with a greater usable range of motion would be beneficial.

As for being recording dependent, I guess to a point it is but IMO only, the volume control should take care of that for the greater part, unless one wants to homogenize the perceived projection of the various recordings to some extent. It's analogous to moving around so you're always in row F. Personally, I get a kick out of having the recording perspective change from recording to recording.

 

[mullard88]

I think a lot of preference and perhaps mood comes into play in picking the position of the listeniing chair. Myself, I prefer any position halfway to three quarter into the back half of the room. But my guests all have their favorite spots. I remember one of them was so forward he was almost at the plane of the speakers.

 

[NorthStar]

The human hearing mechanism is a wonderful and amazing thing. I'm a bit of an anthropology nut so I enjoy observing myself and others as I/they listen. You'll notice all sorts of movement performed by a person engaged in highly focused listening particularly when a listener is zooming in on particular musical lines. Practically all lines (I'm actually playing very safe, I'm so tempted to say ALL lines) are dominated by mid and high frequencies. The area of movement can be quite large at low listening levels sometimes more than a foot forward or back and a few inches side to side. As SPL goes up I noticed that the area of movement shrinks unless the line followed is buried pretty deep and movement becomes more of subtle shifts of the head to give each ear snapshots from different positions. The amazing part is how this is all happening in the background while the brain is focused at the task at hand.

With movements having the potential to be large relative to a sweet "spot" or in this case "point", logically it follows that changing the central point to a location with a greater usable range of motion would be beneficial.

As for being recording dependent, I guess to a point it is but IMO only, the volume control should take care of that for the greater part, unless one wants to homogenize the perceived projection of the various recordings to some extent. It's analogous to moving around so you're always in row F. Personally, I get a kick out of having the recording perspective change from recording to recording.

Great post Jack, and I fully agree with you;
and particularly the part I emphasized in darker & larger letters. :b