[fado]

My question assumes that everything remains unchanged except listener orientation with respect to speakers. What sound differences, if any, might I expect if I change my usual facing-the-speakers orientation and rotate 180 degrees so the speakers are directly behind me? Just looking for some input. I hear a difference in, for lack of a better word, the "fullness" of the music when I face away but I have not tried this position for more than a few minutes. Our eyes make all kinds of accommodations - would my ears be likely to adjust over time.? All observations welcome.
Thank You

[rooze]

If your speakers are far enough off the front wall, do what you're suggesting but step back behind the speakers and look forward towards the rear wall. Works best with dipoles but can be interesting with most designs...

[jimdgoulding]

My question assumes that everything remains unchanged except listener orientation with respect to speakers. What sound differences, if any, might I expect if I change my usual facing-the-speakers orientation and rotate 180 degrees so the speakers are directly behind me? Just looking for some input. I hear a difference in, for lack of a better word, the "fullness" of the music when I face away but I have not tried this position for more than a few minutes. Our eyes make all kinds of accommodations - would my ears be likely to adjust over time.? All observations welcome.
Thank You

Interesting name, fado.  Is that after the music by the same name?

[kevin360]

...look forward towards the rear...

That's pretty tough to do.

[rooze]

"forward towards the rear wall"

What a difference a four letter word makes 

[Elizabeth]

I do this sometimes.. I sit in a swivel recliner, and can lean back, or rotate 180 degrees and watch my pet birds, and recline with my back to the speakers.

(My listening position is about in the middle of the space, so half the room is behind me anyway..
I first note the sound is louder sounding for the same chair position because reclined my ears are actually about five feet closer to the speakers.
Also i agree the sound is slightly warmer..
I think due to the way our  ears are formed with the lobe cupping to pick up more hf from the front.. So with the speakers behind, the mids/lows  seem louder..

[fado]

Jim:  Yes, "fado" is taken after the Portugese music of that name. I can't say that I am a fado aficionado but I was enjoying it when I first signed up with Audiocircle.

Rooze:  I have the Daedalus Audio DA-RMa speakers and use a Bolder Cable Co modified Eastern Electric DAC with Modwright LS 100 preamp and KWA 150 SE amplifier. Right now the speakers are about 26" away from the wall - it seems like they would have to much further away to do what I think you are saying.

Thanks

[jimdgoulding]

Jim:  Yes, "fado" is taken after the Portugese music of that name. I can't say that I am a fado aficionado but I was enjoying it when I first signed up with Audiocircle.

Rooze:  I have the Daedalus Audio DA-RMa speakers and use a Bolder Cable Co modified Eastern Electric DAC with Modwright LS 100 preamp and KWA 150 SE amplifier. Right now the speakers are about 26" away from the wall - it seems like they would have to much further away to do what I think you are saying.

Thanks

I hope you'll try this marvelous little fado singer and disc:  Cristina Branco- Ulisses (Decca).  Superb small group playing and arrangements, too.  In fact, I'm just putting her on .  For another thing, she does a nice little cover of Joni Mitchell's A Case of You, in english.  Cheers.

[jimdgoulding]

I do this sometimes.. I sit in a swivel recliner, and can lean back, or rotate 180 degrees and watch my pet birds, and recline with my back to the speakers.

(My listening position is about in the middle of the space, so half the room is behind me anyway..
I first note the sound is louder sounding for the same chair position because reclined my ears are actually about five feet closer to the speakers.
Also i agree the sound is slightly warmer..
I think due to the way our  ears are formed with the lobe cupping to pick up more hf from the front.. So with the speakers behind, the mids/lows  seem louder..

And I for one think you're right, madam doctor.  Been thinking about some Magnepan's lately.

[Letitroll98]

If your speakers are far enough off the front wall, do what you're suggesting but step back behind the speakers and look forward towards the rear wall. Works best with dipoles but can be interesting with most designs...

rooze is a very famous person in planar circles, nice to see you over here.  There's a speaker placement strategy called "The Rooze" that calls for listening behind planar speakers, I believe it was Maggies to start with.

I haven't tried it with direct radiating speakers, sounds interesting.

[jimdgoulding]

rooze is a very famous person in planar circles, nice to see you over here.  There's a speaker placement strategy called "The Rooze" that calls for listening behind planar speakers, I believe it was Maggies to start with.

I haven't tried it with direct radiating speakers, sounds interesting.

Do you mean that literally, Let?  As in the speakers are front firing into the room and you are seated behind their plane looking in the same direction?

[fado]

Thank You All for the discussion and CD suggestion. I guess my next step is to start moving furniture and see what happens.

[josh358]

Do you mean that literally, Let?  As in the speakers are front firing into the room and you are seated behind their plane looking in the same direction?

It's listening to them edge-on, at the ends of a "V" with you at the apex. Since they're dipoles, you get complete cancellation and hear no direct sound from the speaker. Instead, you hear the first reflections from the left, right, and front walls. This has the effect of doubling the acoustic separation of the speakers and eliminating the first sidewall reflection from the proximate wall (actually, eliminating the direct sound, but this is the first sound you hear so it's sonically the same). The brain uses the time difference between the direct sound and early reflections to calculate the size of an acoustic space, and this prevents the early sidewall reflections of the listening room from shrinking the size of the acoustic space. At least, that's my take on how it works. Another way of looking at it is that it's similar in effect to the Beveridge line source side wall placement, which was known for its inimitable imaging, but with an even wider placement and acoustically wider room.

Results? Spectacular. I hit on this when I was toying with the little Monsoon planars on my computer -- I was just amusing myself by seeing how effectively I could cancel the sound with the dipole null -- and my jaw dropped as the image from these tiny speakers, which were only a few feet in front of me, opened up into a vast space much wider than the room. When I mentioned it on the Planar Asylum, Dawnrazor did a search and found that Rooze had introduced this setup several years previously, hence the name. A number of people now listen to their Maggies this way. It only seems to work in some rooms, though -- the one I had success in was a nice rectangular shoebox. I tried it in my listening room upstairs, and couldn't get it to work.

[josh358]

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