This is the chair I have always wanted for listening, but at that price it will be a while: http://www.highbrowfurniture.com/seating/products/5569/
Good luck!
Gasp, splutter!!! $3599 for a piece of foam rubber and a thin metal frame ??? Is this a cable manufacturer that has branched out?
I'm no expert but thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth FWIW...please filter and/or ignore accordingly. BTW, this applies to 2-channel only.
Someone mentioned that a high back chair was like listening against the back wall and that this was bad. Yes and no. Bass is at its strongest at room boundaries so the two will differ in this respect. They will be the same in terms of a lack of delayed reflection (ambience) from behind though. However, the delay period of reflections off the back of the chair (or back wall if sitting against it) is so tiny (compared to direct sound) that it falls within the critical time window and is perceived as part of the direct sound ....no smearing. You can even drape a rug over the top of the chair to absorb some of the higher frequencies reflecting to your ears. A high back chair can also block nasty reflections from the rear wall in cases where you cannot acoustically treat the back wall (eg. WAF issues). Those of you who have treated the back wall (absorption and/or diffusion) will know that it makes a substantial improvement ....the lack of strong reflections promotes a quieter, more relaxed room and imaging, soundstaging, dynamics and palpability usually improve significantly. And, unless the chair back is so soft that your head sinks into it, you are likely to receive reflections from the side walls at positions a little behind the listener anyway. So, unless your rear wall is properly treated, high back chairs can be a good thing.
Unfortunately (for comfort), my listening is currently done from a (low back) leather couch (WAF issues, formal lounge). I find that I very quickly get a stiff neck and occasionally a headache as a result. Instead, I tend to slide down so that my head rests against the back of the couch and is supported, my ears are just below the top of the couch. In a well setup room I find no significant loss of ambience or involvement. I believe this is because the real ambience of the original performance is largely captured on the recording and delivered to the listener directly from the speakers. Our listening rooms should largely be passive and not impose their own signature onto the original. It is amazing just how much of the recording is lost (masked) by reflections in untreated listening rooms. Aside from issues with tonality, timbre, thinness etc, it tends to reduce the palpability and emotion of the performance. I didn't think I had problems here until I experimented further with room treatments. IME the viewpoint that listening in a high back chair is like listening with ear muffs is simply not true. My speakers are ribbon hybrids (upward firing woofer, 4' long ribbon) so I have no problems with ear-tweeter vertical alignment when altering my ear height. However, owners of some point source speakers may have issues.
I also attended a demonstration several years ago (in a well damped room) where a special processor was used to derive "ambience" from the 2-channel recording for a pair of "ambience" speakers. These speakers were placed at the left and right of the listener, slightly in front of the listener, and driven at a very low volume level ....you would have absolutely sworn they weren't even in use until they were switched off. This was the most convincing performance, in terms of surround ambience, that I have heard and it didn't use speakers behind the listener or reflections/diffusion from behind the listener to achieve it.
FWIW, Audio Physic highly recommends a speaker/listener setup with the listener positioned against the back wall. This is (partly) to eliminate the reflections/delays/smearing issues normally caused from the back wall.
Everyone has different rooms, equipment, ears and taste. The best bet is to try it for yourself. If you currently have a low back couch/chair, try sliding down until your ears are below the top. If you currently have a high back chair/couch, try moving it to the side and try a low back chair from the kitchen ...or simply place it in front of the high back chair to test. Too often we get bogged down, reading every scrap of info on the Internet and trying to decipher who is right and who is wrong, when often a simple no-cost test in our own rooms can be a good indicator of what is best for our ears in our room. It doesn't matter if our individual preference is opposite to general conscensus, if it is what gives us the greatest pleasure then it is right for us. Trust your own ears!
