Mirror image speakers, tweeters in or out.

[Seth=L]

I acquired a pair of older, very obscure pair of speakers. They're Amrita Amrit-Logos and they're a mirrored pair of standmount monitors. I had always assumed that you would ideally want the tweeters further apart, especially if you have the speakers in a smaller space. Would there be any advantages to placing them with the tweeters closer together by swapping speaker positions?

 

[Dennis Murphy]

I acquired a pair of older, very obscure pair of speakers. They're Amrita Amrit-Logos and they're a mirrored pair of standmount monitors. I had always assumed that you would ideally want the tweeters further apart, especially if you have the speakers in a smaller space. Would there be any advantages to placing them with the tweeters closer together by swapping speaker positions?

This question comes up fairly regularly, and the usual response is that you want the tweeters inboard closest to each other. I don't think there's any theory behind that. Maybe it just looks like they will image better that way. My best guess is that it doesn't make any doo da difference--at least I can't hear any. But, in principle I think you would want to orient the tweeters for the smoothest off-axis response between the speakers. My Affordable Accuracy monitors, which have mirror-image offset tweeters, measure flatter off axis to the left when the tweeter is on the right, and vice versa. So that would argue for placing this particular speaker with the tweeters furthest apart. Other speakers? I have no idea. Glad I could help.

 

[j_garcia]

IMO, it will depend on the speaker and my default answer for this type of question would be TRY IT and see if it is better or the same. It may also affect what you hear depending on how far apart they are from each other. Closer together and it may not matter as much. As Dennis notes, a particular speaker may image a certain way and that could make a difference. I only had one speaker that was offset like that and they sounded pretty close to the same to me either way.

 

[lovinthehd]

I have some Ascend 200SEs (small mtm) and my intuition was to spread the tweeters to the outside but the recommendation from Ascend is to the inside...

 

[Seth=L]

This question comes up fairly regularly, and the usual response is that you want the tweeters inboard closest to each other. I don't think there's any theory behind that. Maybe it just looks like they will image better that way. My best guess is that it doesn't make any doo da difference--at least I can't hear any. But, in principle I think you would want to orient the tweeters for the smoothest off-axis response between the speakers. My Affordable Accuracy monitors, which have mirror-image offset tweeters, measure flatter off axis to the left when the tweeter is on the right, and vice versa. So that would argue for placing this particular speaker with the tweeters furthest apart. Other speakers? I have no idea. Glad I could help.

Thank you for the insight.

Does the name August Bertram ring a bell? Apparently he has been in loudspeaker design for many years but I can't find much about him. My research indicates he may have had involvement in the design of the Amritas I now have.

IMO, it will depend on the speaker and my default answer for this type of question would be TRY IT and see if it is better or the same. It may also affect what you hear depending on how far apart they are from each other. Closer together and it may not matter as much. As Dennis notes, a particular speaker may image a certain way and that could make a difference. I only had one speaker that was offset like that and they sounded pretty close to the same to me either way.

I'll probably try it out tomorrow. Thank you.

I have some Ascend 200SEs (small mtm) and my intuition was to spread the tweeters to the outside but the recommendation from Ascend is to the inside...

Have you tried it both ways? If so what about them sounds better to you with the tweeters on the outside?

 

[lovinthehd]

Have you tried it both ways? If so what about them sounds better to you with the tweeters on the outside?

That was a long time ago but I did eventually change them and no, it didn't make an obvious difference but wasn't really trying to determine one either.