Sierra-1 NrT measurements and placement observations (off-axis). Maybe discovery?

[GirgleMirt]

ok last bump I highly suggest trying to angle up the Sierra NrTs! Some listening tonight again, and imho it sounds really good... I guess experimentation to find the perfect toe in & upwards tilt would be necessary for the 'perfect' position, but I'm fairly confident now that I prefer the sound (seems to sound better) pointing upwards...

Maybe I'll try to do more measurements with different tilts & off-axis combinations... At listening position too, see how all compare in practicality...

[hearing specialist]

Very interesting finds, i've been subscribed and reading pondering the thoughts of how, why, and what the heck???

Let me throw this at you, we have talked about spikes, we have talked about sound mats or benefits of decoupling so let me share a thought on something I experimented with. Stage set...burbur carpet on the thick side, spiked mains on said carpet my Advanced MCACC had a crazy 2K spike and a huge need for correction at 250hz as well. I place said mains with spikes on 2 2"x8"x12" mason pieces splitting the difference with each main so entire enclosure is sharing the 2 pieces each placing the spikes about 3/4's of the way on each outside mason piece butted up together. Now Advanced MCACC needs very little correction in any of the highs, my crazy 2K thing is gone and little EQ correction is needed and now 250hz also doesn't need very much EQ'n to correct. So now looking at the EQ screen shows less than 3db of correction at any available freqs with all setup the same and variables of change minimized. There is a sonic and measured difference especially within the high freqs that all sound needed less correction with this experiment. Go figure

[GirgleMirt]

I'd say "very cool! So I'm not crazy! ", but just to be clear, what did you do exactly?

I place said mains with spikes on 2 2"x8"x12" mason pieces splitting the difference with each main so entire enclosure is sharing the 2 pieces each placing the spikes about 3/4's of the way on each outside mason piece butted up together. Now Advanced MCACC needs very little correction in any of the highs, my crazy 2K thing is gone and

If I understand correctly, you just put the stands on granite slabs (or similar), and that was it? Or did you angle them up? Don't really understand that bit Or you put 1/2 the spikes on a slab to angle the speakers?

[hearing specialist]

Yep, they are concrete pieces painted black. Each tower has 2 each sitting still on spikes. The carpet with the spikes did give me an angle which I always thought was cool but with that type of thick carpet I always thought they tilted one way or the other and if I looked long enough I would start analyzing it way to much and measuring to see how much tilt or is it just my head playing games with my eyes. So, to rid the tilt in my case to ease my looking at it vs. watching tv I wanted to forever fix and especially after I saw the marks within the carpet they were leaving. Hockey pucks sounded horrible vs. spikes, no spikes with enclosures sitting flat on the carpet looked way worse and sounded bad as well and needed so much eq to smooth. So in reality the spikes on deep carpet did couple netting that aweful 2k and 250 hz. The clarity on these mason pieces was very obvious and since it needs less to correct makes one wonder which was correct to begin with. Logic got in my way maybe and my gut was telling to place on a surface that was never going to vibrate.

[GirgleMirt]

Hmmm! Ok I think I got it now! So basically, if you looked on top of one of your speakers [: :] (the brackets representing the towers looked at from the top, pointing to left lets say, dots representing the spikes), you took four pieces of granite, two for each speaker, and put the towers on top; So looking at the granite from the same angle: [ ][ ] and put the towers on top, with spikes. So you have the granite, no spikes, on carpet, and towers on top of granite: Somewhat like this: [[: ][ :]] And that improved things, and the angle of the speakers didn't change.

What are your mains btw? Sierra-1 NrTs or towers? If NrTs, Ascend stands filled?

I guess in my case, I have filled Ascend pedestal stands, on hardwood floor, and am using no spikes, simply some slim table mat that gets 'squished' between floor/stands. But a variable that gets added when angling the speakers back is the 1.5 inch foam placed in front to angle the speakers to angle them up... Maybe the foam itself has some impact...