break the flashlight?

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beek

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Do any of you the break the flashlight rule of toe in? How much? Seems like in my room the second inner third (from the inside edge) sounds better. I am finally listenin to female vocals and am amazed. Yma Sumac here we go........any female vocal suggestions from out there......
 
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Beek,

My experience is once you get "close", you need to make very minor adjustments in toe in / toe out and listen to decide if it's better or worse.

At this point, you should also recheck the distance from the back wall and panel azimuth to make sure the right and left speakers are exactly the same.

This is where it starts getting fun.

GG
 
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Thanx Gordon I have those parameters symetric (all in the middle third of the room). 30 ft wide. I agree it is where it starts to be fun or in my case crazy...
 
Hola Beek. To my ears, there is not a "right place" for them. Your stage always vary, when you do the toe-in toe-out. Just choose the one that you liked most. The one third flashlight is a starting point. The vertical dispersion, and horizontal dispersion is the clue. Remember that the Vistas or any ML electrostatic speaker is a true di-pole device, you have the positive transients going forward and negative transients backward. Your stage varies, as moving them only one inch toe-in or toe-out. Moving one inch, can destroy a wonderful and balanced stage. Mark the position of the speakers before you make a change... if you do not like what you are listening, you can go back to the previous nice sweet spot. If you have several positions, , then mark them with numbers, so you can go back. Do not do changes rapidly. Wait until your brain truly senses the stage and the size of the instrument(s), vocals. Have a notebook, and write your findings. Now my best advice: Just enjoy the wonderful sound of ML. Do not seek for what is wrong, seek for what it is good!!!. Trust your ears and not in specs. Specs are just another guide. Enjoy!!!
Roberto.
 
If you are really interested in playing with Toe In and Out, get a laser measuring device at Home Depot or local hardware store. Then you can find the exact 1/3 spot on your logans and when you hit it, the laser will reflect back with a sparkle. Much easier than flashlight and you get an exact distance to boot.

Then you can also measure left and right distances to the sweet spot within a 1/16 of an inch. It is fast and easy. Then once you have it dialed in to your taste, right down the distances measured and check them from time to time or after something is moved. It makes it easy to put things back in place or to experiment and then put things back to where they were.......or not:music:
 
After I performed the flashlight technique and started with the speakers 6 ft. out from the wall, my ML Vantages seemed too bright. With weeks of tweeking and 12 bass traps put in my room, I was satisfied with the sound. Surprising for me, I preferred the Vantages without any toe in at all and the speakers only 4 ft from the front wall. The soundstage from my Vantages sound like they are a ft. past the outer panels, very satisfied.
My Magnepan 1.7's in another room are toed in drastically. This is what worked in my room, every room is different. JMHO.
 
You're welcome, but remember it is different for every room. My Vantages sound best to me when I have 4" thick bass traps behind them. Other people prefer diffusion. Have fun experimenting with toe in and just as important to me is fixing the room. JMHO
 
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