Musical Chairs

​I have a series of short takes I wanted to add to this section and finally have a chance to share a few insights with you. I will keep things short.


I spend some time addressing speaker placement and toe in our owner's manual. One thing I have not addressed is the postponing of the listening seat.

Many owners plant a chair or sofa in one location and determine the positioning of their speakers in a location that is based on where they are seated. I have found that this does not always optimize the performance of the speaker/stand/room combination.

Sometimes dialing in the positioning according to our manual and subsequently moving the positioning of the listening seating can help harmonically balance bass performance where bass peaks and reinforcement can blurt definition and focus. Alternately leanness in the bass can be addressed by moving the listening chair closer to the rear wall behind it. 

Sometimes an inch or two adjustment of your seating (musical chair) can totally change the sonic signature. You may also need to address the toe in of the speakers once a preferred and more natural harmonic presentation is dialed in. On occasions the separation between the speakers may also need to be slightly tweaked for minor seat adjustments and more for major relocations of your sofa or chair.

It is a little like a game of musical chairs, but it is worth the added effort as many owners never consider moving their seating because of spousal concerns, traffic patterns or simply the fact that they never considered doing so. Nonetheless when I change over to alternate models in Riser Room One going from our 1.7i to 2.7i and 3.7i each placement requires different speaker locations as well as seat adjustment. Our 20.7 has its own dedicated location and once in place the seating placement is a once done type scenario.