In an average household setting, what would be the size of “sweet spot” for stereo and or multi channel set up? From time to time I have friends over for auditioning my audio gear and since I plan to add a few more gadgets, I’m expecting more visitors in the future. When they do sit down and go thru a CD or DVD, I’m some what concerned that only one visitor out of the bunch is getting the benefit of the system unless they rotate the seat at given interval which can be distracting. Is it far fetched to say that there can only be one true “sweet spot” and its about the size of a needle point? If so, then one can also say that due to the nature of acoustical properties, home audio is a lonely hobby.

Those of you seasoned gunslingers, what are your opinions on this? At the most, I may be an audio enthusiast but just wondering where I may possibly be headed. Also, is there such thing as enlarging the “sweet spot”?

Thanks.

I've got a 7.1 set up in a fairly traditional configuration, except I've got bipoles for surrounds and rears. While it may not be perfect, for DVDs in DD of any kind, the sound is great from about anywhere. For stereo, sure I'd rather be sitting front and center, but, if you've got good material, the sound comes from where it comes from in the soundstage. It still sounds great, at least to me. I'm, though, you'll get lots of different opinions from people. I'm running the 950/770 combo w/a Denon 2200 and Def Tech 7001s for mains, 3000 for center and BPVXs for surrounds and rears.

The "perfect" sweet spot would only be big enough for one person. Any more than one person present and a direction from which the sound travels from the speaker to your ear would be blocked by the other person.

Home audio is a lonely hobby if you consider that no one else will hear for you.
However forums like this one can help make that lonliness bearable, especially when a significant other fails to appreciate the finer points of our passion.

------------------
The answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is 42. But what IS the Question?

One set of headphones per person?

I can sit in dozens / hundreds of different seats in a well-designed movie theatre and enjoy very good sound, regardless of the number of people in the theatre. In fact part of the attraction of going to a theatre is that it is a shared, rather than solitary, experience. I see no reason why the principles used in such a large application cannot be scaled down such that several people can enjoy very good sound in a home theatre. I don't buy into the "lone-listener gets the sweet spot" approach. Nor would I ever want to turn this hobby into anything other than a shared experience.

Jeff Mackwood

Jeff:

Thank you for the input however, based on my own experience, the headphones do not provide the same experience as conventional speakers do. The depth and width of sound stage is not the same. Also, there is no presence of bodily feel when using headphone and I don’t mean just the bass. Am I wrong on this?

As far as I know, good headphones are not cheap. Multiply that by the number of guests and it may become impractical. Plus, I know some ladies who’d rather not wear these bulky high quality headphones because it may mess up their hair or just don’t like to be seen with it on (appearance may be?).

As much as I want this hobby to be a shared experience, if there is more than one picky person in the room, someone will loose and not be happy about the visit. I was just wondering how other gunslingers deal with this issue.

Spiker,

My "headphones" suggestion was to simply illustrate that there are always different ways of tackling a problem.

But to pick up on it just a bit more, I imagine that I could find some form of headphone amp unit that would allow several (or at least a few) headphones to be plugged-in at the same time - with individual volume controls. I also know that there is a wide range of headphones (there have been other threads discussing this) available - to suit mosts tastes (and maybe even hair styles.) Pretty good headphones can be had for as little as $100. While the sky's the limit you can also get i) noise cancellation-type phones, ii) "surround sound" phones, etc. The total cost is likely to be far less than for a good set of speakers and power amps. Not that I'm advocating this per se. Just saying that it's a possibility.

As far as the bass portion goes, you could always still run sub(s) - but I can see how balancing relative levels might be a bit of an issue (especially with multiple listeners using a variety of volume settings.) Why not tactile transducers under each person's seat, connected somehow to the volume control? Most headphones give reasonably good bass response - the tactile transducer would deliver something akin to the LFEs.

And as to the question of that very picky listener: I do movie nights fairly frequently and usually have two other couples over at a time. I do a ten minute demo of my theatre for anyone who has not been there before - basically a sound and vision appreciation intro / highlights. I walk them through mono, stereo, surround - progressively adding speakers / subs / equalizers etc. - with a variety of demo material. I show them composite video, S-video, component 480p (line doubled by the monitor / line doubler / progressive scan DVD), and then HD. By the time we watch the movie they've gotten over the wiz-bang capabilities of the system and they are able to focus on the movie's content, and not be distracted by the technology that's delivering it. And surely that's the real purpose - at least it is for me.

Regards.

Jeff Mackwood

In my experience, while the stereo listening "sweet spot" may be somewhat localized, the reasonable listening area for movie watching is larger. Movies are about the entire experience, not solely the sourround channel effects. Dialog in particular is anchored to the screen by the center channel, and the always-popular low frequency rumble of the sub is omni-directional. I think groups can enjoy a movie in a home theater system. The sweet spot may rate as the optimal place to listen from, but I think even the other seating areas in the space (except perhaps ones located directly against a speaker or in an alcove off to the side of the room) are still getting significant benefit from the sound system.

Jeff - that's a pretty cool idea for introducing folks to a home theater system.

------------------
gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

IMHO there is a “sweetest spot” with only room for one. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a larger, good sweet spot.

One of the main reasons for a center channel is to anchor center material in the center even if one is not sitting exactly half way between what would have formerly been a stereo setup. So in a 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 situation that centered effect is not lost from any position.

In a movie theater, the surrounds are usually mounted quite high. That way there is less neighbor-to-neighbor trouble with the sound and no one is seated immediately adjacent to a surround speaker.

To some degree, the same principles used in a movie theater can also be used at home.

For listening at home or in a theater, I still prefer the center third of the room left-to-right, and the center half front-to-back. That leaves me with a sweet spot that is about one-sixth of the room.

I find the sweet spot quite small for stereo, just right for one person or two very friendly ones. Moving to the side still sounds great, but you lose the "phantom speaker" a few inches from the center position.

For HT however, all seating positions seem more equal. I have dipoles mounted to the side and above the listening position, no closer than 5 feet to either edge of the couch, and the whole couch offers excellent sound in 5.1 or 7.1. I perceive a "sweet bubble" when using the system for HT, that surrounds the entire listening area.

950/M200 7.1, Rocket 750, 200, 300, 150, JBL PSW-12 sub

Recently I swapped my speaker stands with a pair of taller ones so I can put my CD cabinet below the speakers. This made the tweeters to be at my ear level and noticed an improvement on soundstage.

Distance from floor to ear of an average adult male sitting on an average height chair is around 48 inches. Most of floor standing speakers are 40 inches tall or less and the location of tweeters on them are a few inches below that. Also, those speakers don’t come with height adjustable feet or tilt up brackets of any sort. What do you gunslingers make of this? Is this a design flaw of many floor standing speaker manufacturers or the height (alignment) is not much of an issue?