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A recent thread on speakers seemed to indicate that people placed speakers facing them, but I wonder if this is usual. I have Presonus Eris 5 speakers which sit on the floor inside the ES7 stand - touching the sides - facing outwards. My reasoning is that, apart from the immediate sound directly from the action, sound radiates outwards from a grand piano, albeit out towards the player's right hand side. Having played grands for many years, hearing the sound come at me would feel like hearing someone else playing really close to me. I did try, before buying the Eris 5s, feeding the sound to my domestic speakers, which actually fire across the front of the ES7, some distance away, and it sounded weird. Outward facing speakers also help to listen critically to my playing from about 20 or so feet away, when it does sound, as it should, like hearing a piano from that sort of distance.

Welcome others' thoughts.

I'm kind of new to this, but it's my understanding that it depends on the type of speaker that you have. I think with most powered monitors you will want them facing toward wherever you are sitting for optimal sound. I can be wrong in this, but it just seems that is the case.

As far as what would be best for playing piano, I personally would like it to mimic as much the position as if I'm playing rather than as the listener's perspective. I don't think there's a right or wrong in this, I just prefer to make it sound like I'm actually at the piano when I'm playing.

Yes !

In any speaker, the woofers aren't terribly directional, but the tweeters _are_ directional.

If you listen from the back or side of the speaker, you're losing a lot of high-frequency sound. Some of it will come back to you as "room reflections", but a lot will just be absorbed.

If you don't believe it, set up the speaker(s) and play, with them facing you. Then turn them around . . .

That's one of the reasons that bands use "stage monitors". The PA system feeds sound outward, to the audience. The band gets low frequencies, but not the high frequencies of the audience-facing tweeters. So they need a speaker (or several speakers) aimed _toward them_.

. CHarles

Mnay thanks for your replies. I'll try it!

Sandalholme,
The usual advice is to create a triangle, with the speakers at about ear level. Your head and the two speakers forming the corners of the triangle, with the speakers facing you. Also, there is generally a distinction between speakers and monitors, the latter having a flatter frequency response -- Monitors generally are designed to faithfully produce the sounds that the instrument is making (the frequencies you put in are the frequencies you get out -- that's what a flat frequency response means) whereas speakers (the kind you'd find in home entertainment center) are generally designed to produce a more pleasing sound (which means some parts of the frequency range coming out might be amplified or diminished compared to the actual signal going in). With monitors, the sound can seem a bit harsh, but there are reasons why they are preferable in certain situations. In general, if your sound seems off to you, you might try adjusting some of the parameters on your digital piano (EQ, reverb, etc...).

One small addition to the triangle fizisto mentioned, I have found that the best placement is to have the intersection of the two speakers to be a point just about 15 centimeters behind your head. The stereo image seems more natural than a speaker angled to point directly at your ears. And if the intersection is in front of you or at your face then you get some phase cancellation that doesn't sound quite as natural.

Thanks for the responses. I have turned the monitors around to face me, still on the floor. It makes about 1dB difference in volume, ie I have reduced the output from Pianoteq by 1dB and there are gains in clarity, especially in the treble. Whilst I agree with head height listening in general, I cannot see myself buying stands: it still seems like receiving music from someone/somewhere else and with the monitors on the floor, there is still the sense that the sound is coming from out of the piano. (Also, it's not long since I literally scrapped speaker stands when I bought floor-mounted speakers for the domestic system)

Doesn't placing the monitors on the floor make the sound boomier? Perhaps as an experiment, set them up on books or tables or something just to see what ear height would do to the sound.

I currently have mine hooked up to my laptop for production stuff so they're sitting on my desk. When I use them with my MP11 this summer, however, I plan to make some stands so that they can be at the ideal height for me.

One question I have regarding height: Do you want it so that the woofer is at ear-level, the tweeter, or split the difference?

My ES7 is in a 25 X 12 foot room, at one end, on a wooden floor which is suspended about 2 feet 6 inches above an original brick floor. So, a big sound box. No boom, but a good bass response which I suspect would decrease significantly on a solid floor. (The room did cause problems for my Kawai RX2 which was there before) As it happens, just before I turned them round to face me, I listened to a practice session of the Chopin Op27 No 2 and at the left hand octave passage before the recapitulation, I could feel the sound vibrating through my body. In other words, quite close to experiencing an AP played fff 20 feet away in a small room.

FWIW, the tweeters are at eye level in my domestic floor standers. Also, the Eris 5's give a very clear, dry, edgy sound, so you can really hear, and wince, at what you're playing; the floorstanders, having normalised and added a touch of reverb to the sound in Audacity, give a much more "rounded" piano sound, comparable, though not as good, as commercial recordings.

I have the JBL LSR305 monitors. I have found that by placing the monitors on either side of my music rest (I use a large 32" rest) and pointing them slightly away from the center gives me the best "presence" of sound. The LSR305's have a wide sweet-spot and allows for good sound without having the monitors facing the pianist. This is why I choose the 305s in the first place, the wide sweet-spot. It took me awhile to figure it out, but I am very happy with the current setup. But I do understand that more directional monitors may require the typical triangle formation.