What s in front of your chair?

Elwood: Eyeglasses do change the sound considerably (not for the better, IMO). I always take mine off when doing other than casual listening. Think about it, you are creating two areas of reflection two or three inches from the ears (depending on how fat the head is) and they (the areas of reflection) are between the speakers and the ears. No kidding.

I have Apogeen Mini-Grands, and my leather Ottoman is very detrimental to the sound. I would think that would be true with any planar or planar-hybrid speaker. It does not severely compromise my Von Schwiekerts, but the drivers are not nearly as close to the floor. It really depends on the type of speakers and how close the ottoman is to the speaker. Obviously if you listen in the nearfield and the ottoman is blocking a driver it would be very bad. Just put a box where the ottoman would go and have a listen for yourself

........actually, the effects of wearing glasses on listening to music was written up in Stereophile several years ago-- don't remember if was tongue-in-cheek or not, or the effects. It seems to me Dick Olsher, a tube man, was involved-- that was back in the days when Stereophile was a good mag. Craig

I used to use a small ottoman in front of my listening chair, it had a tube frame consisting of a circular base and a single straight tube, with a leather top portion. The accompanying chair had a similar tube frame and circular tube base. Without or without the ottoman, I could not notice much of a difference.

Recently, I replaced the 'tubed' furniture with a 'solid state' recliner, a massive thing which much more comfy. It has a higher back, and something in the combination of the high back and more solid chair made a difference in the sound. Overall, the 'solid state' solution is more comfortable than the 'tubed' one.

(Sorry, just couldn'r resist...)

the s'phile author who wrote of the tweek of removing your glasses was none other than that epitome of tweek-geekness, jonathan scull.

re: having an ottoman in front of ewe, it wery vell *could* have a detrimental efect, but i'd tink not, if it were small-n-low enuff. any coffee table i've seen in front of a listening position has *always* had a wery noticeable effect on the sound, & it's always been bad. on more than one occasion, i've gone to a friends' house, spied the coffee-table in front of the *sweet-spot*, immediately proceeded to remove said coffee table to the consternation of my friend, only to have him, w/in minutes, agree that there was a noticeable improvement in soundstaging/imaging w/said offending coffee-table removed. i've often wondered about the possibility of making a table w/different widths of slats, similar those rpg diffusors, to break up the reflections...

doug s.