Tilting forward the Renaissance ESL 15A

[stereoman]

Hi:
I’m experimenting with tilting the speakers forward and liking what I hear. The Renaissance’s are 9 1/2 feet apart, measured from the centre of each panel, and my listening chair is 11 feet back. I purchased the speakers last August, and am still playing with their position. I wonder if it works due to the significant height of the panel.

 

[twich54]

interesting, I've never seen them tilted forward(beyond vertical). Perhaps your liking has something to do with all your 'reflective' surfaces ?

 

[asindc]

Hi:
I’m experimenting with tilting the speakers forward and liking what I hear. The Renaissance’s are 9 1/2 feet apart, measured from the centre of each panel, and my listening chair is 11 feet back. I purchased the speakers last August, and am still playing with their position. I wonder if it works due to the significant height of the panel.View attachment 20641View attachment 20642

Have you tried them at vertical?

 

[sleepysurf]

Unless you have an extremely low seat, I suspect you're just changing the angle of the reflected rear wave (off the windows).

How far are the stat panels from the windows? Have you tried keeping them vertical, but pulling them further out (>48" if possible)?

Other options might be to add more diffusers or absorption (? retractable drapes) behind the speakers, or trying a bit more "toe-in", either of which would diminish any rear wave interference.

 

[stereoman]

The panels are 69” out from the window. Roll-down blinds are tucked away at the top of the window, but I enjoy the view too much to use them. In any case, they only made a small difference. When the speakers were vertical they sounded amazing, but tilting them forward brought them to another level. I was wondering if there’s a downside to tilting them forward, but I guess I should trust my ears and not worry about it. One other aspect that made a difference was placing Stillpoints Aperture panels in the corners behind the speakers, and centred in front of the window.

 

[AuBrisbane]

So, what is it that you like about tilted ML, is it noticeable uplifting of HF or something else?
It looks like serious kind of tilting, wandering if it may fall as it is way out of balance, despite rear end of box is loaded with heavy electronics block. Very interesting experiment. I remember, years ago ML owner experimented with toe-in of 2/3 instead of 1/3 of the panel width.

Keep experimenting.

Cheers from Australia.
Zoran

 

[peacefulcargo]

Lovely view, funnily enough I have never tilted the Logans I had forward only backward.

 

[R.I.P]

I have my 9’s, rear pointed feet from complete close to two complete revolutions open.
Try using pointed feet for 15’s. Toe in 15’s but not so much that they form a straight line to the listening position. Disregarding the flashlight rule, loudspeakers should not point towards listening position.

 

[ttocs]

Yes, experimentation!

After watching a video all about throwing out the book about speaker setup and using your ears, I tried what was suggested and that led to my current setup. Waaay toed-in, slightly past the one-third, so it's a little less than 1/4 (edit: That's 1/4 from the outside edge, not the inside edge). So basically, whatever works for the room.

 

[stereoman]

Hi All:
I quickly realized the speaker tilt was too extreme, so I found another set of footers that weren’t so high. The speakers are now tilted forward by 1”. The improvement is most noticeable with vocal music. When listening to Kathleen Battle singing Mozart arias, I can imagine her standing between my speakers at the appropriate height.

 

[Hear Here]

I found that the 13As sounded better tilted forward compared with their standard 5 deg backwards tilt and reduced this back tilt to 2-3 deg. I'd certainly not want to go forward of vertical, so I'm surprised that the 15As that start life vertical need to be tilted.

The test I would suggest is using the flashlight (as per toe-in adjustment) but to look at the reflection vertically rather than horizontally. I found best results when the reflected light from ear height at the listening position was just below the middle of the panel. If you tilt the 15As forward as much as your photo suggests, most of your panel will be reflecting its sound from the floor up to your ears! Or are you sitting on the floor? Peter

 

[spkrdctr]

Stereoman, do not forget to keep or set your speakers to what you hear to be the best sound. There are so many variables in every different room that speakers will sound different from room to room. Just do what you find to work. There is no one single "right" or "wrong" way to toe them in or out or tilt them. Keep up the good work and enjoy. Those are some seriously big and powerful speakers you have. I could easily reproduce concert level music without even straining the speakers. That's some serious horsepower or well, soundpower there! Great setup.

 

[AuBrisbane]

Dear Stereoman,

It looks like you are chasing HF out of your ML speakers.
Rather than tilting forward your ML speakers, try this instead and see how your sitting position changes your audio perception.
Set your ML speakers as advised by ML.
If you can get hydraulic bar chair ( one which can lift up high and go down to normal sitting position) and if it have castors, even better as you will have choice of changing you sitting heights and distance from ML speakers and would be free to experiment and find best height and distance from ML speakers to the point your ears (brain) will forget that there are Left and Right speakers in front of you.

Give it a try.

Happy experimenting.

Zoran from Australia.

 

[zigman]

How close are you sitting to the speakers? From my experience when you sit too close to the speakers you loose some of the higher frequencies since they come from the top portion of the panel. Tilt the speaker too far forward and you lose a bit of the mids/mid-bass.

 

[Brad225]

Bill congrats on you 15A's.

I too, am going to give you a suggestion on positioning your speakers.

I would suggest that you should be listening to the center of your panel top to bottom.

If you were to take a construction square and locate it on the front of the panel with the top of it in the center of the panel. I would suggest that you adjust the panel so that the imaginary line following the top of the square should hit your ears.
With that you will be listening to the center of the panel with the sound from above and below will be hitting your way equally timed.
If you are listening to the top of the panel of the panel, you will have sound waves from the balance of the panel arriving later and later than the first sound. That is never good for the image and stage.

 

[R.I.P]

I once tried tilting Classic 9 forward beyond vertical. I was not satisfied with the sound because bass not reach me directly, rather got reflected off the floor and therefore not sound good.

 

[Hear Here]

Bill congrats on you 15A's.

I too, am going to give you a suggestion on positioning your speakers.

I would suggest that you should be listening to the center of your panel top to bottom.

If you were to take a construction square and locate it on the front of the panel with the top of it in the center of the panel. I would suggest that you adjust the panel so that the imaginary line following the top of the square should hit your ears.
With that you will be listening to the center of the panel with the sound from above and below will be hitting your way equally timed.
If you are listening to the top of the panel of the panel, you will have sound waves from the balance of the panel arriving later and later than the first sound. That is never good for the image and stage.

That's what I was suggesting a couple of posts back, although there's no need for the square - just use a flashlight held at ear level to reflect its light. Adjust tilt for reflection half way up (or slightly below) the centre of the panel. Fine adjust if necessary from there. Peter

 

[stereoman]

Thanks Brad, Peter and all for your advice. With old copper pennies under the spikes, speaker tilt is minimal. The biggest improvement resulted from moving my listening chair back 14’ from the speakers. After adjusting toe-in and the position of the Stillpoints Aperture panels, I’m happy with the results. I’ve been enjoying beautiful music all day. If it gets any better, I’ll never leave my condo. In the 2nd photo, note the small speck in the centre-upper window pane, about 1/3 in from the right edge. It’s a plane from Dubai arriving in Toronto. Nice to see quite a few flights today.

 

[user 49475]

Thanks Brad, Peter and all for your advice. With old copper pennies under the spikes, speaker tilt is minimal. The biggest improvement resulted from moving my listening chair back 14’ from the speakers. After adjusting toe-in and the position of the Stillpoints Aperture panels, I’m happy with the results. I’ve been enjoying beautiful music all day. If it gets any better, I’ll never leave my condo. In the 2nd photo, note the small speck in the centre-upper window pane, about 1/3 in from the right edge. It’s a plane from Dubai arriving in Toronto. Nice to see quite a few flights today.
View attachment 20720
View attachment 20721

Stereoman, I am curious what type of footers are you using on the Renaissance? How are they working (i.e., do they replace stock footers nicely? Do you have to screw in, etc.? Thanks

 

[stereoman]

Hi: I’m using the Stillpoints Ultra 5, with the appropriate screw adaptor.