Oversized Bookshelves as Floorstanders... anyone else into this?

CrawfishKing

Active Member
Hi guys,

I'm just curious if anyone else has tried this with success.

I used to love my Klipsch Tangent T200's on the floor angled up at me. There was even an era where my listening chair was also 2 ft off the ground. It filled the room in a pretty incredible way. I always attributed this to the horns...

Recently I pulled an old pair on Yamaha NS-430's out of storage... They have been really blowing me away!

As I'm get used to them I was surprised to feel the returning itch to put my speakers on the floor and angle them up. What a difference! The tweeter has probably about twice the soundstage height and disappears very naturally at the top... The low end still sits nice a lot lower and overall I get a way bigger image! My listening triangle has aprox 3ft sides, so I'm pretty close but the room is pretty small too (forget the dimensions offhand but its an average sized bedroom).

I'm do some rearranging, I'll get some pics up in the next day or two!

Any others with these kind of results?

Cheers,

Matt
 
Traditional system setup requires the tweeters to be at ear level when seated/lying/whatever. For most "bookshelf' speakers and rooms this means some sort of stand to get the tweeters high enough to be at ear level while listening. Tilting a speaker might seem like a good thing. However it does not put your ears on axis to the tweeters. In addition, stands tend to make the bass clearer/cleaner as the stands get the woofers away from the floor (good idea).
 
Hi Joe,

Everything you've said I completely agree with. The tweeters are pointed at my ears (they are bigger than a bookshelf - note the 3rd picture, the pillow is a tiny bit lower than where my head sits), and the speakers are on pucks to isolate from the floor. Good points for anybody wanting to try this though.

Thanks for the input Bob! What kind of speakers are you using?

I'm going to refinish the front baffles on them when the weather gets nice, a good friend has polished up his spare Thorens platter too so I'll get a mirror finish platter shortly :) Debating on a recap, does anybody have any suggestions for what to use wanting to keep the warmth these guys have? I don't want it to get to sterile. The tweet cap is film, I'm thinking of making both film caps, any thoughts?

Really enjoying this system right now, can't wait to get it the rest of the way to audio nirvana!

Cheers,
Matt
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Yamaha has a pretty liberal interpretation of 'bookshelves'. My NS-690's are considered bookshelves by Yamaha, and I have them very much like yours tilted back on low stands. Even the NS-1000's I believe were listed as bookshelves which is pretty crazy given they're close to 90lbs each.

Angling them like this does mean you have a more constrained distance that you have to be at to really have the tweets pointed at your ears, but it's never bothered me and I've never found the bass to suffer from being closer to the ground.

As far as recapping, film caps (like Daytons) don't have to be expensive, but if it changes the character too much, you can always replace them with non-polarized electrolytics. Regardless, the caps in there are probably old and out of spec, so you're likely to improve the sound by replacing them with newer caps.
 
Interesting, I certainly wouldn't have thought on NS-690's or NS-1000 as bookshelves!

You're right about needing to stay pretty close, The Klipsch being horns were able to cover a much bigger area, but this setup is working well because I'm in a much smaller room. At the time of the Klipsch I was in a living room where as I am now in a bedroom. I find in these angled configurations the distance sacrifice is made up for by the vertical size of the image.

Matt
 
I find the pucks work great when they're not stacked or are just two stacked. Right now I have 3 stacked and while it's still effective I don't trust them as much with the dog around lol (the big guy on the right of my avatar).

I started on stands with the tweeters at ear level. I was very impressed with the sound, but the more I got used to them I started hearing that they could image in a way that my old klipsch did. Its a lot bigger vertically and much more 3 dimensional. I would say the hard left and right are pretty comparable detail wise to on stands, but the middle is leaps and bounds better than on stands. Ideally I think the speakers should be about a 1/2" higher with the same angle that they're on. The pucks were the best I had lying around, now that I know I'm moving forward with this setup I'll find something more permanent and stable. Short guitar stands are a really good idea, I have a couple lying around I might try out!

There's no guitar amp in this room (I use a Deluxe Reverb), are you talking about the cab in the left corner? It's a Wharfedale 1950's omni - mono cab. Theres an amp in the console that I use to power it. You can see it in the second picture.

Cheers,

Matt
 
Sure,

The top section of it has a super 3 tweeter and super 8 mid pointed upwards while all sides are vented. The bottom cab has a 15" woofer with the sides facing the wall open.

Matt

Warfie.jpeg
 
Traditional system setup requires the tweeters to be at ear level when seated/lying/whatever. For most "bookshelf' speakers and rooms this means some sort of stand to get the tweeters high enough to be at ear level while listening. Tilting a speaker might seem like a good thing. However it does not put your ears on axis to the tweeters. In addition, stands tend to make the bass clearer/cleaner as the stands get the woofers away from the floor (good idea).

Do you think an older tradition might have been simply on the floor? As an orchestral stage is usually lower than the seating position, while in many rock concerts, one looks up at the stage, above eye/ear level...
 
Haha yeah Gilbert Briggs had some pretty out of the box ideas. Right now in the bedroom it doesn't get used much but someday when I have my own place it'll be a great piece for background/dinner music or what not.

Matt
 
Do you think an older tradition might have been simply on the floor? As an orchestral stage is usually lower than the seating position, while in many rock concerts, one looks up at the stage, above eye/ear level...

Although I moved away from box speakers in 1976, I easily remember that raising "bookshelf" speakers so that the tweeters were at ear level and the woofers were away from the floor always resulted in better high frequencies and much smoother (less boom) bass. If it wasn't designed to be a floor stander it will almost always sound better on stands.
 
many 70's bookshelf speakers weighed over 30lbs each
i too have the yammie NS-690, and i had avid 103 at 40lb each
need a helluva bookshelf for those.

but i also have speakers like energy 22 and mission 770 that were not sold as bookshelf yet are smaller,and came with their own stands
 
My large Advents are a little larger than bookshelves but getting them up off the floor and slightly tilted back and slightly toed in a bit with the tweeters about ear level did wonders for imaging and sound stage.

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