Hi,
By and large I think most speakers would place the mids below ear level with the tweeter at ear level. However if you think about it, most of the time the source of sound will be above you. In a jazz bar, you are sitting down and the singer is on stage and the PA speakers are on stands. In an orchestra the you are sitting below and the musicians are on top of a stage. So in most cases the sound source is above ear height. To achieve most accurate imaging. I believe speakers should be slightly above you
What are your thoughts and arguments for or against this?
By and large I think most speakers would place the mids below ear level with the tweeter at ear level. However if you think about it, most of the time the source of sound will be above you. In a jazz bar, you are sitting down and the singer is on stage and the PA speakers are on stands. In an orchestra the you are sitting below and the musicians are on top of a stage. So in most cases the sound source is above ear height. To achieve most accurate imaging. I believe speakers should be slightly above you
What are your thoughts and arguments for or against this?
The usual tweeter at ear level design is because the highs often beam.
But in many speakers the woofer runs fairly high up in the range.
I prefer being farther back in the hall, and a little above the orchestra. Try it.
But in many speakers the woofer runs fairly high up in the range.
I prefer being farther back in the hall, and a little above the orchestra. Try it.
Not many people experiment with height as they do with toe in or out. Most just use the rule of thumb that the tweeter should be at around ear level. The problem with this is that not every speaker are the same. Even a slight tilt upward or downward can change the way they sound. Nothing is set in stone you just have to experiment with different positions that suit your taste as thats what matters the most.
Yeah, plenty of things, how the speaker was designed so what is the "timing" and frequency response at the listening height. The speaker can always be tilted to aim at ears with elevation, but elevation also affects timbre per HRTF. All speakers with non-coincident drivers (more specifically non point sources) have good timing on quite narrow height where both drivers sound arrives to ear simultaneously. It depends on the designer which listening axis is the design axis where timing (and frequency response) is correct, as designed.
Other things that change with elevation is room acoustics, path lengths for ceiling and floor reflections change which affects early reflections but not sure how much these would affect in the end as they are only singular reflections amongst many and anyway best treated with acoustic treatment. Furnishing and acoustic treatment is something that affects, I mean if speaker stands low below furniture level so that its not between bare walls but between sofa and bookshelf for example early reflections are reduced, so is flutter echo. If speaker was raised above, between bare walls with no acoustic treatment there is much more effect on reflections like flutter echo, difference in perceived clarity. Basically furniture works acoustic treatment for the early reflections if speaker stands low.
Few things I found trying various heights, speakers elevated above ear level did place the sound image bit too high, felt bit weird in the end. On the other hand speakers below ear level seem to still sound natural, image stays at nice height, about front of me. I can only speculate this is due to HRTF and perhaps change in speaker / room interplay.
With simulator I can freely adjust heights of a multiway speaker ways and it looks like mid driver above tweeter can enable smoother response with direct sound and first reflections of one side wall, front wall and floor / ceiling combined response, but not sure if this has any benefits for the sound as there are plenty of reflections and power/DI is probably better indicator for the net effect, not singular first reflections. Haven't tested mid higher than tweeter yet, would need to build rig to hang up the speaker like that. I tested with bass box on the floor while mid and tweeter were both elevated mid room, which kind of stretched the image and also wasn't too natural sitting on main listening position. Standing up this sounded good though.
I suggest testing it all out in your room with your equipment and ears, no other way to find out than hearing it yourself. Lesson for listening, if nothing else 🙂
Other things that change with elevation is room acoustics, path lengths for ceiling and floor reflections change which affects early reflections but not sure how much these would affect in the end as they are only singular reflections amongst many and anyway best treated with acoustic treatment. Furnishing and acoustic treatment is something that affects, I mean if speaker stands low below furniture level so that its not between bare walls but between sofa and bookshelf for example early reflections are reduced, so is flutter echo. If speaker was raised above, between bare walls with no acoustic treatment there is much more effect on reflections like flutter echo, difference in perceived clarity. Basically furniture works acoustic treatment for the early reflections if speaker stands low.
Few things I found trying various heights, speakers elevated above ear level did place the sound image bit too high, felt bit weird in the end. On the other hand speakers below ear level seem to still sound natural, image stays at nice height, about front of me. I can only speculate this is due to HRTF and perhaps change in speaker / room interplay.
With simulator I can freely adjust heights of a multiway speaker ways and it looks like mid driver above tweeter can enable smoother response with direct sound and first reflections of one side wall, front wall and floor / ceiling combined response, but not sure if this has any benefits for the sound as there are plenty of reflections and power/DI is probably better indicator for the net effect, not singular first reflections. Haven't tested mid higher than tweeter yet, would need to build rig to hang up the speaker like that. I tested with bass box on the floor while mid and tweeter were both elevated mid room, which kind of stretched the image and also wasn't too natural sitting on main listening position. Standing up this sounded good though.
I suggest testing it all out in your room with your equipment and ears, no other way to find out than hearing it yourself. Lesson for listening, if nothing else 🙂
Last edited:
With any luck you manage to build a speaker where the sound localises to the tweeter and it makes no obvious difference.
Well in the studio setting, most of the time a recording is monitored mid to far field from above ear level with soffit mounted speakers.
The exception is near field monitoring, typically done at ear level to speakers in horizontal driver orientation 99 percent of the time. Thats typically going to be with a fullrange driver (Auratone) or some kind of NS10 type 2 way. Most mainstream nearfield setups won't use 3 way speakers. That's mainly because a 2 way system is more than adequate close up with lower drive levels and also due to physical size limiting placement options.
The exception is near field monitoring, typically done at ear level to speakers in horizontal driver orientation 99 percent of the time. Thats typically going to be with a fullrange driver (Auratone) or some kind of NS10 type 2 way. Most mainstream nearfield setups won't use 3 way speakers. That's mainly because a 2 way system is more than adequate close up with lower drive levels and also due to physical size limiting placement options.
Last edited:
I haven't owned a speaker yet that didn't benefit from some amount of tilt and/or toe in. This can be accomplished from, any elevation depending on how elaborate you want to get with placement.
I've heard and owned a few bookshelf type designs back in the day that were usually placed above ear height, either in shelving or hung on a wall (as designed for and intended by the manufacturer). A few managed to actually sound/image very well, almost as good as dedicated floor standing models. Thats how it used to typically be done back in the 70s and 80s in an apartment setting. As a teenager, I had a set of larger B&Os sitting in a wide bookshelf that sounded very good compared to some higher priced floor standers. They weren't that sensitive to placement and acoustically disappeared in the room, which told me they were decent speakers.
I've heard and owned a few bookshelf type designs back in the day that were usually placed above ear height, either in shelving or hung on a wall (as designed for and intended by the manufacturer). A few managed to actually sound/image very well, almost as good as dedicated floor standing models. Thats how it used to typically be done back in the 70s and 80s in an apartment setting. As a teenager, I had a set of larger B&Os sitting in a wide bookshelf that sounded very good compared to some higher priced floor standers. They weren't that sensitive to placement and acoustically disappeared in the room, which told me they were decent speakers.
To my ear, speakers always sit too low, whether floorstanders or on stands. Correct placement - in three dimensions, not two - can have a truly dramatic effect on imaging and in helping the speakers 'disappear', even with absurdly cheap systems. I find that side reflections are hugely detrimental to this effect unless dealt with, preferably using diffusion, not absorption; our ears are not used to spaces having very low reverberation and making a room too dead often sucks the life out of music.
Having a speaker at any fundamental mode is a bad plan IME, so need to think in 3D IME for best overall performance.
Hi davidsrsb, Do you have more on it?
Here are some observations about mid height and vertical early reflections, but no idea what is prefered by perception. Are you thinking about the reflections piling up or something else?
We usually listen at ~90cm from the floor when seated or ~180cm from the floor standing up, depending on person height of course. If room is ~250cm high the listening height in sitting or standing is usually asymmetric, path length through floor and ceiling are different which makes vertical reflections asymmetric. Basically, listening setup and vertical reflections are asymmetric regarding room height even if the speaker is symmetrically mid height. Vertical early reflections are asymmetric until we elevate the speaker quite high up, above mid height, ~90cm from the ceiling when listening seated ears ~90cm from the floor.
Last edited:
Seas R 12 rcy/p - Aurasound Whisper - Dayton mini 8
Ps. I was thinking today, as yesterday, that building a 3 way speaker is EASIER than a two way, contrary to what I read everyday here.
Once you set the correct levels of the woofer and midrange, just dial-in the tweeter for a correct Moeller curve and it's done.
Much more difficult is to deal with cone break-up and tweeter crossing low.
This thread is about modern component speaker placement, not vintage source placement 😉, though having grown up with a large hand cranked Victrola with built in horn in my extended family it was one of many types of speakers that 'fueled' my nearly lifelong audio hobby.
In my more typical Western height dining room, my ears are close to half way, so with a driver also half way, you have maximum room height modes excitation and also floor and ceing reflection arriving at the same time.
My living room is 3m high, so my sitting ear height is about 40%.
Yeah its function of height of the room and height of the listener and two things at play, modes of low frequencies and reflections / localization of mids and highs. Perhaps two different objectives which begs for multiway system so one can optimize both separately, position low frequency source independent of mid/high sources, if needed.
Having bass speaker mid height does not excitate the lowest height related mode so its depatable if its better or worse position, about room acoustics and dimentions, position of listener and other low sources, DSP and what not, what the end result is after all the modes, not just height related mode. I do not know what is better, I suspect it is different for different setups.
I wanted to write all this its not automatically obvious what works better, everyone should experiment, listen and measure, what works better. Its fun!🙂
Having bass speaker mid height does not excitate the lowest height related mode so its depatable if its better or worse position, about room acoustics and dimentions, position of listener and other low sources, DSP and what not, what the end result is after all the modes, not just height related mode. I do not know what is better, I suspect it is different for different setups.
I wanted to write all this its not automatically obvious what works better, everyone should experiment, listen and measure, what works better. Its fun!🙂
Its interesting topic, for example the HRTF alone without any room acoustics involved!🙂 Play white noise on cell phone, for example this one from YT, hold it in your arm perhaps foot away from your face, then move the phone up and down front of you and the timbre changes. When the sound source is elevated above eye level or so the sound seems brighter.
Same effect happens when speakers are at ear level and head is tilted forward, sound gets brighter. I bet many do this when critical listening, lean forward to get bit closer to speakers and tilt head some, eyes looking the floor.
The HRTF effect connects the speaker with room acoustics and to our personal taste. If the speaker or room is too bright the speaker probably sounds better lower down where HRTF tones it down and also furniture helps with acoustics. If the speaker is bit on the dark side (like big throated horn) or room acoustics well in control (like in studio), perhaps it works better higher up. Well, just reasoning what seems logical and encourage everyone to test stuff like this, experiment where their speakers sound best in their room to their ears.
ps. Tuning the brightness could be left for DSP/xo tweaks when the speaker is acoustically performing great (smooth DI). In this case speaker height can be utilized solely for other purposes like for practical positioning (like in studio with tools on arms reach and windows to see the screen or musician) or room acoustics related things like early reflections. Or adjust height to balance the room modes if its a fullrange speaker playing bass as well.
Same effect happens when speakers are at ear level and head is tilted forward, sound gets brighter. I bet many do this when critical listening, lean forward to get bit closer to speakers and tilt head some, eyes looking the floor.
The HRTF effect connects the speaker with room acoustics and to our personal taste. If the speaker or room is too bright the speaker probably sounds better lower down where HRTF tones it down and also furniture helps with acoustics. If the speaker is bit on the dark side (like big throated horn) or room acoustics well in control (like in studio), perhaps it works better higher up. Well, just reasoning what seems logical and encourage everyone to test stuff like this, experiment where their speakers sound best in their room to their ears.
ps. Tuning the brightness could be left for DSP/xo tweaks when the speaker is acoustically performing great (smooth DI). In this case speaker height can be utilized solely for other purposes like for practical positioning (like in studio with tools on arms reach and windows to see the screen or musician) or room acoustics related things like early reflections. Or adjust height to balance the room modes if its a fullrange speaker playing bass as well.
Last edited: