Reviving this old thread......again.
I've owned my HT2-TLs since mid Feb 2011 and am still tweaking their position (not very fun to do considering how heavy they are). Up until now it seems I've been having trouble getting my HT2-TL's to "disappear" in the soundstage and really open up to my satisfaction (my ADS L1290's easily disappeared in a very open sounding soundstage).
I do have placement/seating limitations, especially how far out into the room I can place speakers; about 30" max from the front of the speaker to the wall behind them, which places them about 8ft from my prime listening position. So I'm pretty much limited to playing with speaker width and toe in.
I started by placing the HT2-TLs in the same position as the ADS, but I wasn't entirely happy with that. Some here suggested limited or no toe in. This seem to help a little, but still not there. I tried more aggressive toe in, but still not satisfied. I tried some formula I found about listening distance in relation to how far apart to place the speaker. The results were good, but not great. I was beginning to think they just weren't going to open up that much in my room (dang room
) and by mid May settled on having them 7ft apart (center to center) with 1.25" toe in and 8ft from my listening position. They sounded pretty good in this position, but I can't say I was thrilled with them.
Last month I heard a setup at the Capitol Audiofest that I really enjoyed. It was a pair of monitors that were set up pretty wide with quite aggressive toe in. I would have thought that such aggressive toe in would produce great imaging, would would limit the width of the soundstage and have a very narrow sweet spot. But in this case the result was a very wide/open soundstage with great imaging and a wide sweet spot/area. I just figured it must have to do with that particular speaker design and drivers used.
I was thinking about this setup the past few days and wondered if the result wasn't so much the speaker design/drivers as it was the wide stance combined with aggressive toe in. So tonight I spread the HT2-TLs apart as much as I could (8.5ft center to center) and pointed them directly at the center seating position 8ft away (this resulted in 4 inches of toe in). This certainly was visually appealing as it opened up the space between the speakers and with the aggressive toe in the sides of the speaker are no longer visible from the center seat, making them visually slimmer/less obtrusive. I put on some of my favorite CDs, including the great sampler that came with the Salks
, and was quite surprised at what I heard; a wide/open soundstage while maintaining great imaging and a bit wider sweet spot. The speakers also "disappear" better into the soundstage. Now this is more like it!
Everything I've played so far sounds great. Time will tell, but I think I might have finally found my HT2-TL's sweet spot in my room.
The moral of this story? Sometimes the best tweaks are free and as much of a pain it may be, keep experimenting with speaker position and forget about the "rules".