The Advantages of Floor Coupled Up-Firing Speakers

Mmm, it seems to depend on the recording. I found with the speakers higher I was losing top end. More central images are higher, hard panned they drop towards the floor

Yes, that's how it seems to be. On dry recordings. In the nearfield.

Outside the nearfield it happens less often, even with single mono loudspeaker, unless the recordings is very dry. But it happens as well.

a kind of summary
 
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I've put pieces of 10mm glass against the sides, they're only 18" square but have helped the treble. I'm only getting the image collapsing to the floor with very hard panned instruments, it's interesting how as soon as they're panned even slightly away the image comes back up to a normal level. I haven't noticed the effect yet with any live recordings.
 
yeah, for live recordings, including real height cues, the FCUFS works great

same can be said about another non-standard setup that is Stereolith-like, where any closely miked sound source, with no recorded distance cues, collapses into the loudspeaker position, that in that case is the center - in this case sufficiently strong lateral reflections help pull it back to the side, so to speak

Perhaps similar principle works for FCUFS at greater listening distances - reflections, in particular sufficiently strong ceiling reflection can pull the hard-panned sound source up, especially when the loudspeaker is increasingly directional in the highs:

obviously most of the energy of the 1<4 kHz frequency band reaches the listener via the ceiling reflection - so the ceiling reflection effectively becomes a virtual ceiling tweeter - a virtual one because it generates no its own early 1st order floor reflection

the frequency of the "crossover" between the floor coupled "midwoofer" and the "virtual tweeter" is determined by listener's distance, ceiling height and the angle at which the fullrange unit fires upwards
 
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When I built my VTL's I made the backs removable so I could see how they sounded in OB and have that option. They worked to a degree and I liked the effect but, of course, being full range speakers they didn't make good dipoles. Experimenting with them on the floor firing upwards I'm getting that ambience back, the sound is more balanced and obviously the bass is much better, so much so that I'm listening to them without the subs for the first time in a while. I've moved them away from the walls again.........
 
Experimenting with them on the floor firing upwards I'm getting that ambience back

That's UF part of FCUFS - there is a body of research suggesting that ceiling reflection contributes to spaciousness, eg: Effect of early reflections from upside on auditory envelopment


the sound is more balanced and obviously the bass is much better, so much so that I'm listening to them without the subs for the first time in a while.

That's FC part of FCUFS - floor coupling
 
And the degree of constant directivity (not perfect) would help the reflections not screw up the imaging? I'd like to experiment with omni, using some kind of deflector cone. I still can't get used to the fact that the sound isn't coming from the floor :) Have you ever heard ceiling speakers?
 
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No I haven't. My father was going to install some in the house he built, made decent cabinets between the joists but never finished them, I don't know where he got the idea, whether it was a new concept for the time, he was into that kind of thing. I always imagined they would sound weird but now I'm not sure.