Mounting Monitors Upside-down...

I've seen some people with their monitors mounted upside-down with intentions of better time-alignment of the tweeter and woofer. I just wanted to hear some people's opinions on this technique to see if it might be worth it for me to do the same.

Cheers

upside down you mean with the tweet at the bottom?

Mission make their speakers like this as standard.

How does that improve time-alignment?

They might have done it to try to optimize the effects of the first bounce off of a nearby surface.

I can't see how this would improve time alignment, but if you are sitting too low, then it might align your ears to the tweeters a bit better!

[quote author="rodabod"]I can't see how this would improve time alignment, ...[/quote]
not saying I agree or dis-agree here

the sound might propergate from an eara between magnet and dome.
the tweeter is near the front panel
the woofer is behind the front panel

some would argue that with the tweeter above the woofer, time/distance is equal in a downward line out fron the front panel
hence the practice of setting the tweeter back behind the woofer

a diagram might help ... but alas ... no resources right now and I can't be bothered

The reasoning I have heard is that when your monitors are mounted on a downward angle (such as when they are soffit mounted), the tweeter is slightly in front of the woofer, which (apparently) throws out the time alignment.

Both my sets of monitors are mounted on the wall with heavy-duty speaker wall-mounts and are angled slightly downward, so I'm wondering if flipping them would be beneficial or detrimental... They are also a little higher than they should be so flipping them would put the tweeters closer to ear-level...

I really don't know though...

Here's a picture of my setup so you know what I'm talking about:



Thanks!

But surely you only tilt them down because they're above your ear height, no?

In which case you're not bringing the tweeters any closer in relation to the woofers than they would be if the speakers were at ear height & level.

Best thing to do is flip 'em and see if it works for you with your monitors in your room with your ears.

I guess that's true emtee. I probably should just try it... It's such a bitch though because I have to un-bolt them from the wall and screw in the mounts the other way, then bolt those heavy bitches back up there.

Has anybody tried this before who could share their results?

If you can correctly identify in a blindfold test which way up your monitors (given a reasonably unobstructed path) are from six feet away, I will PERSONALLY consider driving to your house and giving you ten thousand dollars.

Since this represents a fair bet that you can't tell the difference by listening, I say don't worry about it.

If your path is so obstructed or so degradingly reflected, you should really be monitoring elsewhere anyhow, so in all resonable honesty, don't bother.

Perhaps there might be an angular consideration if you're so close that the woofer bangs into your nose on long excursions, but -once again- if you can't hear a difference when you don''t KNOW of a difference by virtue of having moved them yourself, then it's one of those pointless things to consider, IME.

-Rather than hearing people's opinions on how such an easy thing to try would sound like, I'm sure that I'd much prefer to actually hear what it sounds like... It always puzzles me why people seem to ask for a blessing before they try!

Keith

I worked with Walter Dick, who designed the Urei 813, a ton of JBL monitors, Alesis Monitor 1 and 2, Events, etc. Anyway, I worked in Alesis customer service at the time the M1s came out, and there was a debate going whether they sounded better upright or on their side. So I see Walter one day, and my punk ass decides I'm going to ask the wise old engineer how he designed them to sound best. So I ask the question, "are they designed to sound better upright or on their sides?" and I can still hear his response in his scratchy, nicotine-stained voice:

"I can't hear the difference... can you?"

Aside from the fact that your monitors are too high up, isn't that G5 too noisy to have so close to your ears? Mine certainly is. I can see how having all the rack gear in front of you like that could be convenient, but by forcing the speakers up too high the convenience might come at a price. Maybe you could try putting the speakers at ear level and see if that gives you a noticeable improvement. If so you might want to reorient the rest of the gear.

[quote author="synthetic"]I worked with Walter Dick, who designed the Urei 813, a ton of JBL monitors, Alesis Monitor 1 and 2, Events, etc. Anyway, I worked in Alesis customer service at the time the M1s came out, and there was a debate going whether they sounded better upright or on their side. So I see Walter one day, and my punk ass decides I'm going to ask the wise old engineer how he designed them to sound best. So I ask the question, "are they designed to sound better upright or on their sides?" and I can still hear his response in his scratchy, nicotine-stained voice:

"I can't hear the difference... can you?"[/quote]

Hahahahaha! :green: :green: :green:

GENIOUS!!!!

Reminds me Peter Walker (some random guy, who made Quad ESL57) was asked: "Mister Walker, what kind of cables would you recommend to feed your ESL57 from the Quad 33/303 system?"
Mr. Walker answers:
"The ones would reach from the amp to the speakers".

On a serious note, back to the original question...

Lets think logically...

The bass waves are considered to be thicker...

Means... they whould be heavier...

Meaning... if the woofer placed above, the waves would fall on the fragile and lighter waves coming from a tweeter thingy...

And crash them down :shock: :shock: :shock:

No :?: :?: :?:

Wait a second...

I am confused...

I can't see what all the fuss is about....

You've got 2 loudspeakers and you don't actually listen to the sound that comes from either of them..... the image is somewhere in the middle.....

Is that right?? :?

If you don't want the agro of trying out new configurations, wait till you get old, then you won't care anyway. :guinness: :guinness:

Thanks for all the advice. I'm officially not going to bother with the whole thing.

[quote author="jrmintz"]Aside from the fact that your monitors are too high up, isn't that G5 too noisy to have so close to your ears? Mine certainly is. I can see how having all the rack gear in front of you like that could be convenient, but by forcing the speakers up too high the convenience might come at a price. Maybe you could try putting the speakers at ear level and see if that gives you a noticeable improvement. If so you might want to reorient the rest of the gear.[/quote]

The G5 is actually the biggest problem in my studio, although it's much much better than any other tower I've come across. My partner and I are planning to move the studio into it's own building in 2007, and we will most likely build a small machine room when we do. Either that or get one of those iso-rack dealies to put the G5 and hard drives in.