Asymmetrical toe-in is working wonders

I know this has been discussed but I can’t find the thread:
Has anyone tried toeing speakers such that they aim directly at the listener?
What were your results with sq and soundstage relative to little or no toe-in?

That’s always been the way I do it. I met the designer of my speakers in the local audio store and he said he was surprised that so few people listen that way - my speakers were designed to be used that way (equilateral triangle of listener and speakers with the speakers toed in 30 degrees.)

In my room they measure the flattest that way and have the most correct tonality. My soundstage goes well behind the front wall and (to my ears) the width is correct given the depth. Some recordings have clearly been manipulated to extend the width well beyond the speakers (e.g. California Guitar Trio’s “Invitation” and other studio recordings.)

I currently have my GE triton 3+‘s toed pretty much right at me. I have adjusted toe in when changing cables and power supplies.

I always had quite strongly toe‘d in speaker placement (except maybe with planar speakers). I dont really understand those many suggestions also from people here to work with very little toe in. I personally never owned normal dynamic speakers which worked better like that. I also refused to use toe in or out to solve tonality problems. For me it always was a clear question of soundstaging, depth and focus/imaging and it mostly dialed in with seeing just a bit of the inner speaker side.

To your question:
Little toe in in my experience means wider soundstage but less focus, holographic, pin point imaging and depth. Too much toe in can mean a lack of soundstage extension outside of the speakers to the sides.

Thanks all for your replies. I must admit that I’m flummoxed by the result of going from barely toed in to direct at me. The soundstage is actually wider, in fact unmistakably going beyond the speaker positions. Right now, I’m listening at rather low level to a Blue Mitchell recording that I’m very familiar with and the center image is more distinct while the overall width is—wider. I’m going to have to ponder this for a while.

interesting! Which one?

I use “The Thing To Do” as one of my “familiar” audio test tracks for soundstage. :nerd_face:

Try going even farther so the ‘beam’ of the tweeters crosses about 2’ in front of you. A whole 'nother experience.

Cool! Thanks

“Blue Soul”. Love it.

yesssss.

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A favorite configuration of mine.

Thanks for the suggestion. Asymmetrical toe-in seems to work magic for me. The soundstage on my Maggie tends to shift slightly to the right, and I long suspect it’s due to the ceiling in my listening room being asymmetrical as the side wall to ceiling on the right is angled and the left is perpendicular. I just increased the toe-in on the left speaker and made the right speaker facing straight. Now the soundstage is not only dead center, the speakers also disappear as the instrument separation is much improved. I tested it using Yuko Manuchi Trio Vol 1.

In my experience asymmetrical toe in usually works or is necessary when you have strong asymmetries or one sided barriers in a room.

Asymmetric placement with mostly quite symmetric toe in as one option or symmetric placement and toe in orientated to the room corners instead of walls as another option can be a solution for strong room resonances.

I tried it for a few hours, tweaking a bit and my system seems to lose width.

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