Angled speakers in studios, PA's and even home systems is not on. Heaven forbid but the person who "Angles" or "Tilts" their speakers inward for "Better" stereo imagery is only proving to the rest of the world that they have a limited understanding of acoustic principles and even less practical knowledge. This concept may have come about by somebody trying to replicate the effect of headphones (maybe) but it is certainly not the way to achieve acoustic phase coherency. In our experience, most people who set their speakers up in this fashion only do so because they saw somebody else (or even a few other people) do the same trick. It's an incorrect action and simply perpetuated with the "Monkey see, Monkey do" principle.

Never, and we repeat, never angle your speakers inward. Always keep your stereo pair mounted as a straight wall. Treat the speakers as if they were linked by a common baffle. You can tilt them up and tilt them down but always as if they were joined by the imaginary common front baffle. If you feel you are loosing top end because the high frequency drivers dispersion is narrow then move the speakers closer together until you are happy with the result but resist simply tilting them inward. Any positioning of speakers other than on a common horizontal plane will instantly create phase distortion. There will be an increase of sibilance and the sound will become more harsh.

Perhaps the odd deaf sound engineer might perceive this harshness as an increase in intelligibility but the truth is that it's simply incorrect symmetry resulting in poor phase coherency. It's generally fairly easy to notice. If you are sitting at an audio console in a studio and you slide from left to right, the level should change from left to right but the sound quality shouldn't change. If you are sitting in a studio and moving from left to right changes the tonal character of the sound, take a quick look at the monitors. You will generally find that some fool has angled them inward.

Aside from studios, this same problem exists with PA operators in venues. It's one of the large contributors for pubs and clubs that have "Dead spots" or even worse "Thunder pockets" where the base combines in an additive effect and rattles everything to pieces. We have been to a lot of gigs and seen "Big name" operators make this same mistake. So do yourself a favor, become a little more acoustic savvy and stop blindly copying your peers just because you saw them do it.

Before you hang us up by the gonads, let us just explain that 5.1 surround sound rooms are another kettle of fish. In our opinion they are not a sonically pure environment and as such should not be considered for the music enthusiast. They were and still are designed for the movie world and used more for dramatic effect rather than focusing on quality sound reproduction.

Taking into account the design criteria for today's 5.1 rooms, a properly setup stereo room will always have a far greater sonic purity. It is simply your choice whether you are catering to the gimmick market or serious performance. Sadly, the gimmick market probably pays more.