Your measurements hopefully look spot-on. The speakers are equidistant. The triangle probably checks out at 60 degrees. Imaging seems stable. Vocals sit center. Everything appears “right”—but not quite close. You hear space, yes—but too much of it. Instruments feel pulled apart, like the mix is stretched instead of joined. There’s separation. But not intimacy.
Sometimes, the solution isn’t more distance—it’s less.
What to Do
Try narrowing the angle between your speakers. Keep your seat where it is, and move each speaker inward by an inch at a time. Aim for a final angle closer to 50–55 degrees, rather than the standard 60. Maintain the same toe-in, targeting a point just behind your head. Use something with left-right energy—like panned hand percussion, a double-tracked acoustic, or a small jazz ensemble mic’d wide.
What you’re listening for isn’t more focus. It’s more coherence.
Here’s Why That Works
A wide triangle tends to spotlight extremes. Left and right cues arrive further apart in time, and off-axis behavior becomes more influential. Phantom images between speakers can thin out—especially those that depend on subtle phase alignment. Pulling the speakers slightly inward reduces that spread. It narrows interaural time differences, aligns more wavefronts in-phase, and strengthens the image along the centerline.
You don’t lose width. You gain glue.
Because the goal isn’t isolation—it’s unity. When the angle tightens, the stage doesn’t collapse. It locks. The band doesn’t move closer—it plays more together. And you don’t just hear separation—you hear interplay.
Sometimes that last 5% isn’t about space. It’s about pulling the performance back into one room. Yours.
