[rebbi]

Hey,
You folks with Super Alnico monitors - I'm curious whether you are toeing your speakers in and if so, how much. So far, I'm finding my new Super Alnico's most pleasing with virtually no toe-in, firing straight out into the room. Wondering about your experience.
Thanks!

[Canada Rob]

Generally some toe in is recommended.  I've always toed in so I can just see the inside of each cabinet.  My seating position is in an equilateral triangle or a little further away.  The best thing to do Rebbi is experiment with what you like the best, as all our tastes may very, not to mention room acoustics.

[MarkR7]

10 to 11 degrees of toe-in works best for me in my room.  The speakers would come to a point about 10 ft. behind my listening spot.  As Rob mentioned though, different rooms and preferences will play a key role in the amount of toe-in that works best for you.

Hey,
You folks with Super Alnico monitors - I'm curious whether you are toeing your speakers in and if so, how much. So far, I'm finding my new Super Alnico's most pleasing with virtually no toe-in, firing straight out into the room. Wondering about your experience.
Thanks!

[DaveC113]

I prefer listening to my Super 3 XRS on-axis. Single driver speakers have narrowing dispersion as the frequency increases so as you move off-axis the high frequencies will roll-off. Many people prefer a rolled-off top end, nothing wrong with it, just personal preference...

[mrvco]

My 7XRS MKII's are only slightly toed in right now.  When I have some time my plan is to straighten them up and slowly toe them in more and more.  My listening space is more rectangular, so my triangle is an isosceles rather than equilateral with my current seating position.

I did have them toed in to cross behind my seating position,  but I've also been playing with the distance from the rear wall and felt like I needed a fresh start.

[rebbi]

I prefer listening to my Super 3 XRS on-axis. Single driver speakers have narrowing dispersion as the frequency increases so as you move off-axis the high frequencies will roll-off. Many people prefer a rolled-off top end, nothing wrong with it, just personal preference...

 Dave,

When you say "on axis," do you mean that they are firing straight at the listening position?

[DaveC113]

Dave,

When you say "on axis," do you mean that they are firing straight at the listening position?

Yes.

[doggie]

Yes. Toed in to nearly be pointing directly at me.

[newzooreview]

No toe in.

It's room and listener dependent.

Get a test disk (like XLO test and burn-in), and listen to the in-phase voice centered test and the out-of-phase test. Toe-in can be quickly figured out with those and then will work well for music.

[beowulf]

Toe in, in the same manner as Canada Rob above.

[hdrider]

7XRS's and 8'' sub…pointed at the sweet seat. BUT, the secret is to EXPERIMENT in YOUR room. No right or wrong answers. The music is what matters. Happy listening, Chris

[tabrink]

Super 3 XRS "not quite" but almost on-axis as soundstage grows exponentially immense when I toe-in. Vocals become front and centered with a little toe in. YMMV
 

[MarkR7]

Other observations with my Super Alnicos.... These are more susceptible to reflections than other speakers I've owned. I found them to sound best with absorbative material on the floor in front of them (e.g. rugs, blankets, etc.), and cover up a reflective hard surface on the wall between the speakers ( e.g. a TV) with something that doesn't reflect as well. Of course this is true for most speakers, but more so for Omegas.

[rebbi]

Hi, Folks,
Thanks to all of you for responding. This is all so interesting, and as a number of you have said, so much seems to depend on the room, the rest of the system, and your taste.
For me, so far (and I've got around 80+ hours on the Super Alnico monitors) the most pleasing results have manifested with very slight toe in - I'm talking about only a few degrees. At that position, the presentation is open and airy and the tonal balance is quite even. Also the speakers "disappear" completely. If I do a straight on-axis toe in pointed at the listening position, the soundstage collapses and much of the ethereal magic goes missing.
YMMV, as they say.   
I'll add that I was listening to "Chan Chan" from Buena Vista Social Club last night and the vocals were so real and joyful that I nearly teared up. Good golly!   

[dspringham]

I'm with Rebbi on this.

I started with my monitors pointed almost directly at my listening position and while satisfied with the overall sound I found that on occasion (ie poor recordings) the high's could tend to get a little harsh and strident.

In an effort to diffuse the highs a bit I readjusted to a roughly 10% (or less ) toe-in. The result - in my room - HUGE difference. No loss of definition or detail in the highs but the expansion of the soundstage was the most noticeable benefit. The centre image did not suffer at all, in fact the vocals became even more holographic along with a greater sense of instrument separation. As Rebbi mentioned the cabinets seemed to disconnect from the soundstage.

"Why Worry" from Dire Straits Brothers in Arms = WOW!

Overall I much prefer the "less is more" toe-in equation.

Front end is a Sony HAP-Z1ES into Wyred for Sound STP SE preamp.
My amp is a custom Eddie Vaughan effort tuned especially for the Russian 6p15p-EB in SE mode. (1.5 watts)

[rebbi]

I'm with Rebbi on this.

I started with my monitors pointed almost directly at my listening position and while satisfied with the overall sound I found that on occasion (ie poor recordings) the high's could tend to get a little harsh and strident.

In an effort to diffuse the highs a bit I readjusted to a roughly 10% (or less ) toe-in. The result - in my room - HUGE difference. No loss of definition or detail in the highs but the expansion of the soundstage was the most noticeable benefit. The centre image did not suffer at all, in fact the vocals became even more holographic along with a greater sense of instrument separation. As Rebbi mentioned the cabinets seemed to disconnect from the soundstage.

"Why Worry" from Dire Straits Brothers in Arms = WOW!

Overall I much prefer the "less is more" toe-in equation.

Front end is a Sony HAP-Z1ES into Wyred for Sound STP SE preamp.
My amp is a custom Eddie Vaughan effort tuned especially for the Russian 6p15p-EB in SE mode. (1.5 watts)

sdpringham:

First, yes, "Why Worry" is amazing!   

As for toe in, I had the opportunity to chat with Louis about this the other day. Turns out that he, too, prefers minimal toe-in with the Alnico's. He said that part of the advantage of the single driver, point source approach is that dispersion is so good, even off axis, that you don't need much toe in at all. Of course, associated equipment and room peculiarities will affect this.

As for the idea that single driver speakers beam as you go up the frequency ladder, Louis said that that's more true of large drivers, say, larger than 8 inches, but not as true with smaller drivers, which is why the Alnico Hemp driver is the size it is.

But, as the Brits say, "Horses for courses."   

[mrvco]

7XRS's and 8'' sub…pointed at the sweet seat. BUT, the secret is to EXPERIMENT in YOUR room. No right or wrong answers. The music is what matters. Happy listening, Chris

I was experimenting with toe-in last night and apparently I haven't been toeing my 7XRS MK2's in nearly enough.  I'd suggest starting VERY toed in and then working back out until you find the optimum position... as in toed to the point that you can't see the inside sides of the speakers from your listening position at all.

I did this and everything came together in a way that I hadn't heard the Omegas come together before.  It was basically the same experience that I had at a local hifi shop where they were showing me how big of a difference their setup and speaker positioning can make using a pair of Vienna Acoustics floor-standers.  With the Viennas it was a dramatic improvement, basically going from "who in their right mind would spend $5k on these speakers" to "oh yeah, that's what $5k speakers should sound like".

With the Omegas it was a combination of 2/3'rds better and 1/3'rd different, I could really hear the speakers working together and their sound waves intertwining... it was a fuller presentation with more depth, but with a bit less air and detail.  Until this point I've been very happy with the detail, clarity and soundstage with the Omegas, but I was feeling like they simply weren't capable of putting enough meat on the bone in my 3,840 cu ft space.  Now that I seem to be over that hump, I need to play with the placement some more tonight (and with a wider variety of music) and see if toeing them back out ever so slightly brings back a touch of the air and detail without losing too much of the fullness and depth.

Regardless, it was a very cool and unexpected moment.

[JLM]

After experimentation on and off for 10+ years with my 8" (whizzerless) full range driver floor-standers I've found the widest/deepest soundstage to be near-field (10'-4" apart, 5'-10" from the front wall, 4'-8" in front of the listening position) in my 8ft x 13ft x 21ft room with the drivers crossing 1'-6" in front of me.

[rebbi]

I was experimenting with toe-in last night and apparently I haven't been toeing my 7XRS MK2's in nearly enough.  I'd suggest starting VERY toed in and then working back out until you find the optimum position... as in toed to the point that you can't see the inside sides of the speakers from your listening position at all.

I did this and everything came together in a way that I hadn't heard the Omegas come together before.  It was basically the same experience that I had at a local hifi shop where they were showing me how big of a difference their setup and speaker positioning can make using a pair of Vienna Acoustics floor-standers.  With the Viennas it was a dramatic improvement, basically going from "who in their right mind would spend $5k on these speakers" to "oh yeah, that's what $5k speakers should sound like".

With the Omegas it was a combination of 2/3'rds better and 1/3'rd different, I could really hear the speakers working together and their sound waves intertwining... it was a fuller presentation with more depth, but with a bit less air and detail.  Until this point I've been very happy with the detail, clarity and soundstage with the Omegas, but I was feeling like they simply weren't capable of putting enough meat on the bone in my 3,840 cu ft space.  Now that I seem to be over that hump, I need to play with the placement some more tonight (and with a wider variety of music) and see if toeing them back out ever so slightly brings back a touch of the air and detail without losing too much of the fullness and depth.

Regardless, it was a very cool and unexpected moment.

This has proven to be an incredibly helpful post to me! Up until now, I have been using my Super Alnico monitors with almost no toe-in at all, maybe 2 or 3° at the most, in other words, hardly anything. It occurred to me that while I was getting a very large and broad sound stage this way, things sounded a little too diffuse and the imaging was a little vague. So I tried this suggestion, starting with a rather extreme toe-in position (not being able to even see the inside cabinet walls) and then gradually rotating them out. Somewhere around a 15 to 20° of toe in, everything just snapped into focus! Low-end response tightened up, imaging got much sharper and more "substantial" and the depth of the soundstage got much bigger. Golly!

Another thing I am pleased to say is that repositioning the speakers in this way has smoothed out a bit of "hotness" on the top end that had me scratching my head. Somehow, listening a bit more on axis to those drivers evened out the frequency response.

The result is that many recordings now sound astonishingly good. I am particularly blown away by well recorded live performances, in which the sense of the venue acoustics is conveyed in a way that is spooky-real.

Happy camper, here! Sometime during the next month, by the way, I am going to post a review of the Super Alnico Monitor on my audio blog, and I will post a link here when it's live.

Thanks a lot for the help, gang.

[beowulf]

This has proven to be an incredibly helpful post to me! Up until now, I have been using my Super Alnico monitors with almost no toe-in at all, maybe 2 or 3° at the most, in other words, hardly anything. It occurred to me that while I was getting a very large and broad sound stage this way, things sounded a little too diffuse and the imaging was a little vague. So I tried this suggestion, starting with a rather extreme toe-in position (not being able to even see the inside cabinet walls) and then gradually rotating them out. Somewhere around a 15 to 20° of toe in, everything just snapped into focus! Low-end response tightened up, imaging got much sharper and more "substantial" and the depth of the soundstage got much bigger. Golly!

Another thing I am pleased to say is that repositioning the speakers in this way has smoothed out a bit of "hotness" on the top end that had me scratching my head. Somehow, listening a bit more on axis to those drivers evened out the frequency response.

The result is that many recordings now sound astonishingly good. I am particularly blown away by well recorded live performances, in which the sense of the venue acoustics is conveyed in a way that is spooky-real.

Happy camper, here! Sometime during the next month, by the way, I am going to post a review of the Super Alnico Monitor on my audio blog, and I will post a link here when it's live.

Thanks a lot for the help, gang.

Glad you digging them.  I use about the same ° of toe in as your using with excellent results.