What s in front of your chair?

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.

Nothing. Is it unconfortable without anything to rest your legs on? Sure. Did I try an ottoman an found it sucked up enogh freq to effect soundstahe and ambience? You bet. In fact, I have found out the best listening chair type is the beach chiar with couple of pillows to bring your ears to the tweeter height. Beach chair is open underneath, sides and behind your ears. The later feature especially very very important if you want really open sound. If you guys have been listening with comfy closed-in high back chair, just once try a beach type chair and you will thank me for it. Meta, Try first with bunch of pillows .

A director's chair works well unless you are, like me, er..gravitationally challenged (hence the "elgordo"). And yes, glasses make a difference as does one's nose! This is why Michael Jackson took Quincy Jones' advice and had all that plastic surgery done. That surgeon's mask he wears was actually designed by Michael Green and is filled with Sonex. See, Jackson isn't weird he's an audiophile. Wait a minute...what's the difference ;>)

Rhljazz made the comment "Just buy a good comfortable scandanavian recliner and matching ottoman and sit back and enjoy." Bear in mind that if you do this, your system will sound different at each position of the recliner. Sitting straight up, your head will be higher (maybe not a bad thing!) than if you have the chair reclined. What's more, in the reclined position, your head is closer to the back wall, and sound can dance off your feet, so to speak. Even the angle of your outer ear in relation to the drivers will change. EVERYTHING makes a difference! I have a ceiling fan in my listening room, and even though I turn it off before I listen, I'm sure my system sounds different from one session to the next depending upon the orientation of the blades in relation to the speakers and my ears. What's an audiophile to do? Construct Sonex sleeves to slip over the fan blades before listening? Years ago an audiophile friend of mine had little pencil marks on the edge of the shelf his components were on, next to his listening chair. In retrospect, having the nice, shiny, hard, reflective components on his right side and open air on his left was not a good arrangment, but the fact is, he actually used those pencil marks as a guide for the positioning of his head in order to achieve differing results while listening. No wonder he gave up the hobby and took up computers. Now, THERE'S a hobby you don't have to be neurotic about. Right.