Stephen Mejias

My speakers haven't moved very far from where they first landed on the night that John DeVore visited Jersey City. The Arros, after the Gibbons, found a similar home — a comfortable spot, if nothing else, which works fine enough for me. It's a spot that allows me to walk into my bedroom easily, without having to brush up against a side wall or trip over any turncoat cable. A spot that appreciates symmetry and cleanliness and my apartment's obsession with order.

While I was sick, though, for all those many days, I began to feel daring and bored, and so decided to:

exper
i
ment

with
toe-in

as they say.

I started with the DeVores, toeing them in so that, if you were to draw invisible lines from the center of each tweeter, they'd meet at a space about two feet in front of my listening position.

Why?

I shrug my shoulders at why. Why not? I figured a drastic change in placement would result in a drastic change in sound — something I'd actually be able to hear and document — and all I really wanted was to be able to hear a difference. Good or bad didn't matter.

Music. There had to be music. I started with The Wood Brothers' "That's What Angels Can Do." Because I love it.

Initially, I heard no difference at all, and I was all like:

WTF, man? This blows.

Once the voice came in, however, I heard something. The image seemed higher and a bit more to the left, and, generally, a bit farther away — distant, not muffled, but curtained, so to speak.

I preferred the sound of the original placement. Though, I must admit, I kinda dug the way the speakers looked, all toed-in and angular, as they were. Tough.

Next, I cued up "Mockingbird" by Ryan Adams. Because I love it. I always thought Ryan Adams was an asshole until I started listening to his music. He can't be that much of an asshole, it seems to me, and still be able to write such beautiful songs. Right?

Listening with the speakers drastically toed-in and spread farther apart, I thought I heard a tightening of the band: as if they'd been practicing all night long, and finally learned how to play the song. Voices, too, were better separated, each living in their own special space, more independent and distinguishable.

So it seemed. When I returned the speakers to their original positions — back to where they first landed on the night that John DeVore visited Jersey City — I could detect no difference.

And I was all like: