i've been monitoring horizontal

[no drama]

i've been monitoring with my mackies on a horizontal plane with the tweeters on the INSIDE

I just found out that this is a no no .

Can some one expand on why not to have them this positioned this way ?

thanks in advance

[Jack Ruston]

It isn't necessarily a no-no. I know of a very prominent mastering engineer who has his tweeters on the inside. I asked him about it and he said that experimentation had proved that to be the best position. I expect though that it was a factor of the directional nature of the highs in relation to the distance at which the speakers sat...which is likely to be greater in his case than in most of ours. Try flipping them over and see how it works out. The main thing overall is that the speakers are the correct distance apart. If they're too wide it all goes wrong.

J

[no drama]

thanks for the reply i did flip them and could not not hear any real difference .

thats why i posted, the mixing book i am reading says "this ensures a wider stereo image and better bass response"

[StereoPari]

Originally Posted by no drama

i've been monitoring with my mackies on a horizontal plane with the tweeters on the INSIDE

I just found out that this is a no no .

Can some one expand on why not to have them this positioned this way ?

thanks in advance

Of course, if it sounds good and you get good results by positioning them in that way, all the counter-arguments are basically meaningless. However there is at least one reason which suggests that the tweeters should not be placed on the inside: bass frequencies are not as easily localized as the highs. That is one reason why people pan only the high-frequency stuff hard left/right. So when you have the tweeters placed so that they are closer to each other than normally, you may find it harder to judge the proper localization of different aspects in your mix.

[no drama]

I did find that i had to turn the speakers in a little bit more to get a better sound or should i say similar to what i had prior to flipping them .

[Capstan Cappy]

Originally Posted by no drama

thanks for the reply i did flip them and could not not hear any real difference .

thats why i posted, the mixing book i am reading says "this ensures a wider stereo image and better bass response"

that is correct btw, from 300hz down it sounds more homogene and builds up more pressure when bass-drivers are placed next to eachother with tweeters on outside then the otherway around. you want mono in the middle anyway...stereo itselve is a 3d effect cause of timesomething difference between channels (cant think of the english word) widening the experience of perceived sound and since most stereo sounds we hear is from 300hz up it makes sence to put them on the outside enlarging that effect even more

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by no drama

Can some one expand on why not to have them this positioned this way?

Other than speaker models with concentric drivers, when speakers are on their side the tweeters are either closer or farther from your ears than the woofer. So frequencies around the crossover frequency that come from both drivers arrive at different times. This creates peaks and dips in the response.

--Ethan

[Bassmankr]

Ethan, have you considered that you are just making an imaginary triangle from a speaker to your ear (one triangle for each speaker) with one leg of the triangle between the tweeter and woofer and the other two legs from those drivers to your ear. By flipping a speaker to any of it's four positions means that triangle only changes orientation (horizontal or vertical) but the geometry of the triangle is exactly the same as the leg's distances is unchanged (besides whether the tweeter is closer or farther for the four positions). How the speaker is placed WILL effect how it interacts with the room it's in and how big the sweet spot is. That's why I tell people to try ALL four positions (tweeter up/down/inside/outside) and use a combination of your ears and a LEDR test for balance and imaging. Don't forget to move your head around to see how big the sweet spot is with each orientation. I've got a pair of Sony's upside down vertical and I've got a pair of JBL LSR32's horizontal tweeters inside (in fact the JBL's have a plate the tweeter/mid/port are in so that you can rotate them along with the speaker). That's just what worked better for the room they are in.

[Ethan Winer]

Upside down or right side up doesn't change the woofer / tweeter timing, and I have my NS-10s upside down because that puts the tweeters at ear level for the kludge speaker stands I have.

--Ethan

[Audiop]

It's easier to maintain even off axis sound when the tweeter and mid's are lined up vertical. The speakers should then be aligned (heightwise and angle) for the listening height.

This way you can move left to right and also have several listeners but still keep a proper balance from the speaker.

Frankly it's not professional to do it the other way even if some cool big names use their crappy NS10 on the console lying on the side.

Get real speaker, set them up right!



/Peter