Toes and No Toes

In the wacky and arcane world of audiophilia, there is a little something known as "toe-in." Even if that sounds like some kind of nifty dance step, it's actually downright prosaic.

It refers to the amount that your speakers are pointing inwards towards your listening position. Depending on the speakers, toe-in can have a dramatic impact on the sound system's overall quality.

My main workroom system provides a case in point. This is a combination affair in which the speakers sit a few feet behind my desk, with a large computer monitor in between. Because of the shape of the room and my overall room setup, the speakers are really rather closer to me than they ideally should be.

This is what is called 'near-field' listening—i.e., close to the speakers. In near-field listening every tiny nuance of positioning can have a strong impact on the sound, given that the room acoustics are less important than they would be if I were sitting farther back.

Adding to the complication is that the speakers are really too big for the room. They're lordly Bowers & Wilkins 803D models, tower speakers featuring three woofers, a Kevlar midrange, and a synthetic vapor-deposited diamond tweeter. They are true audiophile speakers, used in some of our finest recording studios. Those 803Ds are powered by a Luxman integrated amplifier, which is fed its audio from a Bryston BDA-3 digital-to-analog converter. My computer delivers all the digits; an external hard drive contains over six terabytes of audio files, which I access via JRiver Media Center, the whole tied together by meticulous tagging so nobody gets lost.

Anyway. We're talking about toe-in here. One of my handiest tools for determining the overall soundstaging and balance of the system is a Chesky test disc. One particular track really tells me the tale I need to hear: it's an exercise in artificial stereo imaging in which a simple side drum is played center, left, right, far left, then far right. If I have the speakers positioned properly, there will be a dramatic difference between plain old 'left' and 'far left.' The 'far left' will wind up sounding as though it's coming from a spot about 3 feet or so in front of the speaker—quite dramatically to my left, almost as though I had a surround-style satellite speaker there. The same thing will happen with the right channel.

Here's the funny thing. If I do a 'classic' toe-in for the B&Ws, that is, with the speakers pointing more or less right at me, not only does the soundstage not work all that well, but the sound becomes a bit shrill as those diamond tweeters overdo the high end.

In fact, the way to position those speakers for the absolute best soundstage and overall imaging is with absolutely no toe-in at all: I have both speakers pointing resolutely forward with me sitting there in the middle. The treble is properly balanced, those far-left and far-right drum taps are placed perfectly, and the sense of three-dimensional depth in the system is palpable.

The system with its untoed speakers

So there you have it. Sometimes toes are helpful. Sometimes they get in the way.