I experianced the center of the mix like I never have before...

ah, you are hearing the differentiation between pro recording and home recording!

I think what made the difference in my suddenly hearing it that way was adjusting the placement of the monitors and laying them down rather than standing upright.  I noticed it before running the correction as I put in a Cd I am familiar with to set a good volume for my sub before running the correction measurements, but I still percieve it that way afterwards too.

Chuck, that's ARC giving you the proper "phantom center". It corrects things so well that things that are centered, literally sound centered to where your eyes are looking in between your monitors trying to figure out how it's happening. If THIS is what you mean...like you have picked up a monitor in the center of your monitors....that is how it should be and how it should have been for you all along your mixing endeavors.

ARC fixes all sorts of issues and literally balances your monitors level wise as well. For example, I ARC'd a room one time where the engineer was behind his monitors. I asked him to make sure the levels on each monitor were the same as well as all eq's set to flat. Well he thought he had both monitors the same level...but low and behold, we found out later that he didn't. ARC compensated for this and adjusted the levels perfectly. We noticed when we killed ARC that the left side was louder than the right. Kick ARC in...perfectly even with an incredible Phantom center.

So, I'm thinking it fixed all your issues, Chuck and did some leveling and correcting that has allowed your phantom center to be where it should be. It's pretty awesome isn't it? :)

-Danny

It also depends on the speakers. I've had some that the manufacturer explicitly recommended laying on their sides, and they sounded good that way. The maker of my current pair, which feature ribbon tweeters, explicitly warns against it. I'm guessing the tweeters' dispersion pattern is not symmetrical on the vertical and horizontal planes.

But mainly what you're doing when you lay speakers horizontally is increasing the distance between the tweeters. Since we perceive position primarily by high frequencies, that's going to widen the stereo image while at the same time accentuating the phantom center.

The danger in doing this is the same as when mixing with headphones: the stereo image you're hearing will not translate to other playback systems. You may think you've achieved a nice wide mix, only to discover that when played in the car isn't really as wide as you thought. Furthermore, it tends to mask phase issues that cause mono incompatibilities.

ARC may indeed be having an effect, too, although I wouldn't expect it to be too dramatic.

Frequency anomalies are not uniform within a room. A peak in one location will be a null in another location. If you have a peak that one ear hears louder than the other, and that peak is in the low-frequency range, then the phantom center will be skewed. However, the severity of this effect depends on the wavelengths involved. Anything below around 500Hz has too long a wavelength relative to the distance between your ears to be dramatically different from one ear to the other.

Most (massive overstatement and generalization) good speakers have phase aligned driver arrays... if you mount the speaker in an unintended position you will be customizing the alignment. As bit says, moving you tweeters further out creates a wider field.

I think the simple act of confirming you are in the sweet spot is the best way to realize the *center*.

The problem I see so often is that guys casually run their speakers on a shelf or desk right up against a wall and then place a massive array of display monitors on the desk to really make the sound messy.

Then they start trying to fix an inherently nasty situation.

It doesn't surprise me that people have found a complicated way to make something that starts out so bad seem better.

What surprises me is that so few people do it the easy way. Why not just set up the gear as if the listening part is the most important part? Place the speakers far away from the walls and off the desks and get the big displays out of the way.

Info about how to do that, for free, has been out since before I was a little kid hanging out in stereo stores.


Lately I've been enjoying single driver cabinets for entertainment playback... the imaging is remarkable.

best,
mike

 This is the first  I have heard any explanations on why NOT to put monitors on their sides. Thanks for bringing this up.I have seen pictures of pro studios with the monitors on the sides but maybe these were specifically designed to be on their sides.

Well that is my issue, Laying them down has seemed to better align them with my ears with the desk that I built and the Aurelex Mopads.

Hey ChuckC, good to see the KRK 5,s. I have exactly the same. Mine are in a bad position against the wall and in a corner. Needless to say I know its wrong but the only oriantation that will work in my room has a large window at one end and I have not worked out how to block it as yet.

Glad to "hear" yuo heve the pro sound happening. 
Good job.