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Listening Height Adjustment -- Is This Why Two People Don't Hear the Same?

Just wanted to pass on a recent experience, and surprise, in my system

My room (https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/5707) is set up for one person to listen. I have a medium height arm chair at the listening position and had always assumed that it left me with my ears broadly in line with the tweeters in my Magicos (i.e. 42-43" off the ground)

Well I checked and I was actually at 38-40" depending on how upright I sit. Wondering how much of a difference getting it just so would make I purchased a set of add on feet, each 3.5-4" tall and added them to my chair -- not a good look!

But wow, what an improvement in sound. Tonally the speakers take on a very different balance, upper mid range and vocal intelligibility is substantially improved, bass is lighter but better defined and overall integration across the frequency range is much much better than before

The odd thing is that I don’t have the tweeters pointed directly at me -- they’re angled about 2’ off to either side, so what would a couple of inches in the vertical make such a difference assuming the tweeter drop off is uniform in all directions? Is it more a matter of driver integration?

This experience leads me to wonder
a) how many of us have actually measured and adjusted our set height to optimal/tweeter level, and do we do this every time we audition a new speaker, and
b) if two individuals are not the same height do we adjust for the difference in height between them sitting -- say a 5’6 vs 6’ person that’s probably a 3" difference sitting -- unless your chair has adjustable feet the experience of the two individuals may be completely different
folkfreak
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 
We’ve been all over this before. There are many reasons people don’t get the soundstage height or any other dimension the way the big boys do. For starters, the speakers are almost always too far apart. One big reason is everything’s all messed up is the speakers are too far apart and the middle is MIA. To compensate, people toe the speakers in, making things even worse. You have to start with the speakers close together and slowly move them apart until the sounstage suddenly appears, like a bolt out of the blue⚡️. The height specifically isn’t there because of two things mostly, acoustic anomalies and not enough vibration isolation.

Trial and error without a methodology is like trying to solve some simultaneous equations in too many unknowns.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.
mindlessminion
57 posts
 
I prefer speakers with a wide listening arc, or I guess off-axis listening.  Often times I have friends over and I like to share in the great tunes. Moreover, I do not like to pinned to a specific spot in the room.
stevecham
3,298 posts
 
The room matters greatly in this discussion. There will always be null and standing wave nodes that can vary greatly from one another, dependent of course on room dimensions and speaker placement. And why not? It’s simply a function of wave physics. Of course, we do our best with finding the overall optima, but it is always a compromise. A position that is ideal in one spot may be horrible two feet away. The key is to find the overall sweet spot in set up and room treatment while not driving yourself bonkers. At some point, one can overreach in the search for "perfection" and then the law of diminishing returns takes over. Whenever frustration enters the process, it’s time for a break and clearing of the head, and only then pick up where you left off with fresh ears.

Also, for low bass, two subs are much better than one.

And, this is why those vertical and horizontal response measurements, that John Atkins is fond of, are so informative relative to the OP’s topic.
folkfreak's avatar
folkfreak OP
1,149 posts
 
Well this seems to have wondered off into a discussion about speaker placement in the room in general which is fine ...

The only point I was trying to make was to observe that, in my room, with my speakers, even when they are optimally positioned the listener themselves must also be located to within +/- 1-2" in the vertical and lateral dimensions, with the ability to adjust front-back to taste

My room is basically set up as a near field system, truly a large set of headphones. It's not big enough to even have a second chair so allowing for more than one listener was never even part of the design. I will in future however try to ensure that if I have visitors I make sure their ears get to the perfect level!
samhar
1,034 posts
 
This is from a Michael Fremer review of the W/P 7.                                           "Wilson's excellent setup guide includes specific vertical angling requirements for the WATT, based on the height and distance from the speaker of the listener's ears. Wilson provides four sets of rear spikes for the Puppy so that you can adjust the system's height to ensure that the WATT's tweeter and midrange driver are at the correct height relative to your ears. Guesswork is eliminated: Plug in the numbers, and Wilson tells you which set of spikes to use".

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