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How to work out angle for hanging speakers?

jamington2004

pfm Member
Looking to wall mount (well ceiling hang) my new Kii Three speakers and wonder if anyone knows a way to work out the angle I should tilt them to compensate for the height of the tweeter

Or should it not really matter within reason? Either in general - or with these speakers (I heard the sweet spot was pretty wide)

They will be mounted 3ft above my ear height - 6ft apart - with me sat about 9ft away

I can adjust the toe in easily with the brackets - but need to decide on a fixed downward angle when I get the plate made for them to sit on.

Will def tilt them somewhat anyway so I am not looking at the bottom of the speakers :)

But not sure if I should go as extreme as the Devialet Phantom mounts I had before which tilted the speakers about 30-40 degrees at the same listening position. To be honest I generally couldn’t hear much difference if standing or sitting - which would make me believe it doesn’t matter, or they just had a very wide sweet spot.

Any advice or links to clever calculators would be great :) :)
Kind regards
Jamie
 
If you want them to fire directly at your listening position, the calculation is simple - you will know the height above your ears and the distance across the floor to directly beneath the speaker - two sides of a right-angle triangle, so you can calculate the angles and distances for the whole triangle.

Say the driver is 3 feet up and 8 feet horizontally from you, the angle you need is arctan 3/8 = around 20 degrees (from vertical).

If I have understood you correctly.
 
LLOL :)

I strongly suspect that 20 degrees will be about where you will need to be, changes of even a modest amount in either dimension won't have much effect, unless your room is HUGE, or you sit VERY close to the speakers.

The principle always applies - if you know 2 of the 5 variables in a right-angled triangle (2 angles and three lengths - you know one angle is 90 degrees), you can calculate the other three.
 
The Kii acts as a virtual point source positioned half way down the speaker, so it's that that you want pointing at the listening position, not the tweeter. Not that it's likely to make a great difference.
 
Thanks. Middle of speaker will about 3.5ft higher than my ears give or take, and my ears will be about 9ft away

So 3.5 / 9 = 0.38

So that’s 38 degrees right?? Probably I would go more like 25 anyway for aesthetics, and as i don’t always sit at the same height depending on how slouchy I am. Plus I as you say I don’t think I will hear a huge difference within a reasonable range :)

But I got the maths right??

Got to find something to do now I longer do proper box swapping like I used to do!! :)
 
I make that 21 degrees (or my laptop calculator does...………….)

I am a bit suspicious of 0.38 and 38 degrees...…………………

Try 0.388888 (0.39), arctan (the same as tan^-1) - that should be ANAD 21 degrees.

20 degrees, is going to be so close in most "normal listening rooms", I very strongly suspect
 
tl;dr; tape a torch or a cheap laser pointer/ laser level to the cab, get the bright spot it to point close to where your head will be. Adjust to taste, balanced either side.

Trig is obvs the finite solution, but really save interpreting it & just cut to the chase.
 
Aha - I knew it wasn’t that simple :) No clue what arctan means - was kind of ignoring it hoping it would go away!

20 degrees it is then :)

Martin only problem is I need to get the bracket made in the first place - would be pretty hard to balance the speakers up there at an angle with one hand - and hold the laser pointer with another, and measure the angle! :)

Thanks all think I am sorted then!
 
tl;dr; tape a torch or a cheap laser pointer/ laser level to the cab, get the bright spot it to point close to where your head will be. Adjust to taste, balanced either side.

Trig is obvs the finite solution, but really save interpreting it & just cut to the chase.

That is exactly what I did. I used a laser pointer and then adjusted a little. I can adjust the angle with a captive bolt on my brackets.
 
Aha - I knew it wasn’t that simple :) No clue what arctan means - was kind of ignoring it hoping it would go away!

20 degrees it is then :)

Martin only problem is I need to get the bracket made in the first place - would be pretty hard to balance the speakers up there at an angle with one hand - and hold the laser pointer with another, and measure the angle! :)

Thanks all think I am sorted then!

Excellent! Please let us know how it all works out...
 
or you could invest in a laser pointer ( £10) stick it on the top and point it at your seat? I do that for making sure when I set up my speakers that they are "level" aim it at the rear wall and make sure they hit the same height.
 
If any error is the right way you could just sit on a cushion:)

An error the other way is not so easily compensated for......

Jim
 
Brackets/plates ordered at an angle of 20 degrees from horizontal!

£144 quoted by my local metal shop - cheeky ****.

£50 delivered from a lovely chap in Northern Ireland

Will post pics when they and my long awaited speakers arrive :)
 


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