speakers upside down

[chefg1]

What is the reason for some people putting their speakers upside down?:scratch2:

 

[MunkeyQ]

Invert the phase? :lmao:

It's normally done when space is limited and you're trying to bring the tweeters as close as possible to ear level in order to improve imaging since you're listening on-axis to the tweeter.

Might also be done if the bass is too boomy from the woofer coupling to the floor, so turning it upside down reducing the coupling.

 

[Satch]

Some manufacturers, like Mission, have developed their speakers 'upside down'. Don't know the logic behind this, but they do sound good.

 

[RichPA]

There's a phenomenon called "lobing" which results in vertical dispersion tipped one way or the other due to driver interaction at the crossover. For a particular placement of a particular speaker, "upside down" may result in smoother response at the listening position. One of our speaker gurus should be along shortly to explain this better than I can.

 

[John James]

They live in the Southern Hemisphere?

 

[voltcontrol]

This SOS article offers some reasons why but no explanation;

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr07/articles/qa0407_2.htm

Speakers put sideways will often display a very different dipersion pattern because the high dispersion in normal position is (usually) wide vertically and narrow horizontally.
With this in mind upside down should display more of less the same dispersion field.
(please correct me if I'm wrong, this explanation is more assumption based than built on theory/measurement)