Why are speaker stands so low?

[Julian]

OK, a bit of a generalisation in my subject line but I read all over the place that the ideal level for speakers is to have the tweeter roughly at ear level however I just bought a pair of speakers with matching stands (stands alone were £500 so fairly high-end stuff) and the stands put the speakers at about 30cm below my ear level when I’m sitting on a sofa that if anything has a slightly lower seat height than average. I’m wondering why. I have two theories...

1 - All the best-level-is-at-ear-level stuff that I read is wrong or at least there’s scope for a fairly high level of deviation from the ideal without significant reduction I’d audio performance.

2 - It’s a compromise since increased height means decreased stability if a fairly high-end hence heavy (reduced cabinet resonance) speaker is held heigh so, in order to not make the footprint of the base overly-large to maintain stability, the height is set slightly lower than optimal.

Any audiophiles out there that can provide some insight?

- Julian

[Lanark]

24 inches + spikes seems to be a common size for Hi Fi speaker stands.

I just measured mine and they put the centre of the speaker 30 - 31 inches from the ground, theres actually 2 drive units inside each speaker, so one will be slightly higher and one lower than that.

I used to have a much larger and lower set of speaker stands and I don't think the height makes a huge amount of difference, nothing like the change you get by moving closer to or further away from the wall.

I wonder if some are being made lower so that they can fit in with an AV setup and not get in the way of the screen?

[uspaul666]

I think you’ll find that when spending that kind of money you should be removing the sofa (and other extraneous items such as shelving, TVs, children, slippers, partners, etc) from the listening room and investing in an expensive Scandinavian designer leather recliner. This will lower your ears to the correct level.

[Howard]

I think you’ll find that when spending that kind of money you should be removing the sofa (and other extraneous items such as shelving, TVs, children, slippers, partners, etc) from the listening room and investing in an expensive Scandinavian designer leather recliner. This will lower your ears to the correct level.

And, if you are over 30, you probably need to lower your age back to around that figure or less so that you can hear the high frequencies .

regards

Howard

[Julian]

Thanks all. It was more curiosity rather than a desire to correct any height issue. All the other suggestions are duly taken on board - get rid of all human and non-human clutter in the listening room sounds sensible although I'm shocked to hear anyone suggesting a leather recliner, wouldn't that be too acoustically reflective? I think I'm going to go for a suede recliner. I've also realised that my glasses might be creating unwanted acoustic reflections so I'll be putting in contact lenses when I listen to my system in the future.

Seriously though, I definitely take the point about not having the sofa too close to the back wall. I noticed that last night in terms of what a difference to the imaging it makes just leaning forward a couple of feet. I'll need to experiment some more with that because there are room layout considerations as well; I'm not sure how far from the wall I'm willing to tolerate. Unless one is an audiophile obsessive, and I'm not, there are always compromises.

- Julian

[PhaseThree]

You could try tilting the stand backwards slightly to point the tweater upwards in a more ear aligned manner. As a technique it works very well with my Quad electrostatics - Try it and see if you like the sound, it will cost you nothing.

[ReformedCharacter]

As a technique it works very well with my Quad electrostatics

Very nice speakers

RC

[Lanark]

I think you’ll find that when spending that kind of money you should be removing the sofa (and other extraneous items such as shelving, TVs, children, slippers, partners, etc) from the listening room and investing in an expensive Scandinavian designer leather recliner. This will lower your ears to the correct level.

I actually think its the opposite to that - you want to remove all hard straight edges, add cushions, books, throws, tapestries and remove glass coffee tables, any pictures on the wall framed with glass and of course brick up all the windows.

[quelquod]

My B&W 801s are large enough that the tweeters are almost exactly level with my ears when seated. Sadly my hearing range has long ago dropped to the point where tweeters are scarcely contributing much. ;(

[DrFfybes]

It always used to be the case that tweeters were at ear height.

I bought some Sonus Faber bookshelf speakers in the 1990s and as I was living in a rented room I ordered stands slightly taller as I listened sat in bed most of the time and wanted them to project over the soft furnishings. I just checked and they are 90cm from the floor to tweeter on 60cm stands and they work great al low volume.

The floorstanding Dynaudios in the lounge are 88cm from floor to tweeter, although the mid/bass drivers are much lower down than on standmounts.

Another consideration is that furniture does seem to have gotten lower, looking for a suite last year we struggled to find anything that came high enough to lean back in and rest your head.

TBH I found moving speakers out from the wall a foot helped massively, and also getting then spaced correctly for the distance I was sitting away, and buying speakers that were correct for the room so they worked at the volume you tend to listen at in. Easy to sort out when you are single and can arrange/dedicate a room around your kit, less so when the room has to be shared with TV/bookcase/wife.

Paul