Toe in with the D3 series vs. Previous Series?

[Birdy1062]

Originally Posted by Greg Gale

My audiophile friend and I just finished an extensive listening session with my 802D3 with more aggressive toe-in to see if this would improve the soundstage and 3D effect.

The listening position is around 10 1/2 feet from the speakers that are around 9 1/2 feet apart. I have a 3 person couch and we typically both sit on the outside position with the center seat empty.

I had the speakers originally with the toe-in to cross around 2 feet behind my head when sitting in the center position and then we changed to have each speaker on the opposite side with the tweeter pointed directly at the person.

I have read with more directional loudspeakers this should improve the soundstage and center image. We listened to the speakers like this for an entire day and it felt like we were sitting in the near field and the sound was more focused, although it seemed like the bass was a bit lower in level. We both really liked it.

The next day we decided to go back to the original position and found the soundstage seemed wider and not quite as focused and the bass levels slightly higher in intensity.

After listening with the original set up in our outboard sitting positons, we decided we preferred this set up as it was more relaxing overall for extended listening sessions.

One point that was clear is no matter if you are sitting in the outboard or middle seat the sound stage was excellent. I believe that due to the wide dispersion characteristic of the speaker vs one that has narrow dispersion, that the toe-in is not that critical. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer but personal preference.

Would love to hear experiences from anyone else who has tried this.

Not sure I understand correctly what you did….
Did your right speaker point to yiur left ear and vice-versa?

I did it like that, both tweeter lines crossing slightly in front of my head.
It give me a more focused 3D center image but I lost in width…
Now I’m back with very little toe in.
Way better soundstage but I miss the very defined center image….

Impossible to get the best of the 2 worlds it seems….