What makes A Good Chair for Listening?

A good chair for listening is essential if you want to optimize your listening experience. Music lovers/audiophiles shouldn’t ignore the need for listening chairs as they ensure their comfort and health while enjoying their pastime. So, what makes a good chair for listening?

A good listening chair should quickly get your ear nearer to the tweeter height. Not only that, it is vital that the chair offer maximum comfort if you have to spend long hours in it. Therefore, your listening chair shouldn’t be too soft either because the quality of the chair can greatly influence your listening experience. This article will discuss what makes a chair suitable for listening to music and its benefits.

Read on to learn more!

What Makes A Good Chair for Listening?

Reclining on a comfortable chair for listening to music is the best experience you can ever have. It is all thanks to the seating posture, padding, and ergonomics that ensure a maximum listening experience. Investing in a chair like that can provide an unbelievable Hi-Fi experience. However, the price may be a bit on the high side. But no matter the quality of your listening chair, it should consist of the following;

1. Erect Posture

Any good chair for listening should offer comfort in a full erect comfortable posture. The chair can enable you to sit erect with your head upright. There’s nothing that makes a system sound better to an audiophile than when your head is vertical.

The angle of your head plays a vital role in the accuracy of your hearing, no matter the type of system you’re using. From experience, you’ll hear sounds clearly when the head is vertical than when it is tilted back.

Moreover, using reclining chairs may be too relaxing. As a result, it may cause you to sleep off very fast. But keeping your posture erect will surely keep you awake and alert.

2. Appropriate Sitting Height

A good listening chair should have the appropriate sitting height that you can even adjust easily. If it can’t be adjusted, at least its position should allow you to place your ear at a height above the ground. That will enable you to listen to the speakers with maximum benefit.

Appropriate sitting height is crucial for near-field music listening. It is much better than listening from 10 – 12 feet or more back from the speakers. Furthermore, if you own accurate line source speakers, it may not be essential for near-field listening. Overall, the best position is your head vertical, speaker vertical, and ear position on your speaker’s upright design axis.

3. No Actual Headrest

Most audiophiles usually use chairs with higher back or real headrests. Sometimes, the headrests may be very wide. But, speaking from experience, you can hear the distant aspects of a 2-and-multiple-channel program clearly when nothing is at the back of your head.

When you have a headrest behind your head, it is similar to placing your head very close to the wall while listening. That is, with regards to reflections. Making such an arrangement can create early reflections evidently at the back of your ears. It may even scramble at least some of the staging and imaging capacity of your system.

The fact that the majority of the most precise binaural recordings come with microphones embedded in the shoulders and full head, known as an Aachen Head, is not a joke. The link between a person’s ear to the shoulders and head is essential to spatial insight. To initiate more surfaces nearer to the ears reduces its natural insight of space. As a result, a good listening chair is supposed to have a relatively low back and certainly no headrest.

4. Adjustable Height

A listening chair with adjustable height is crucial to near-field listeners than those that listen from 10 – 12 feet back or more from the speakers. To simplify adjusting a listening chair height, you have to get a chair with a high adaptable seat height.

You can also use other ways like; detaching the seat cushion, placing boards beneath the cushion, but things like pucks below the chair legs, etc. However, pneumatic lift renders every other method crude regarding accuracy and ease in adjustment.

5. Listening Height Stability

Regarding listening height stability, it is better to use unpadded metal and a wooden seat. Though it may feel a little uncomfortable initially, it is only temporary. An overstuffed, soft down-filled seat looks very comfortable. However, it can only allow you to position your ears in the same upright position with some inches from the start of your listening session to the end.

6. Floor Position Stability

Apart from having the capacity to offer constant listening height, a good listening chair should also remain stable on a particular spot. Its stability should be consistent no matter how regularly you use it. If your chair wobbles during usage, your ears are likely also to shift. That is why; it is not advisable to use listening chairs with casters, glides, or low-friction floor-contact covering.

7. Chair Covering

You may not be aware of it, but the coverings of a listening chair are also important. It is a fact that any chair with some stuffing and fabric covering can appropriately model an individual than metal or uncovered wooden chair.

Leather coverings may seem a bit sumptuous, yet, it is somehow more reflective at a high frequency than in a person’s clothed body. So it is recommendable to use soft material coverings for listening chairs.

8. Arm Rests

It is debatable whether you need an armrest for your listening chair or not. The decision lies on the user. However, if you may want armrests, it is better to make them a bit small. To avoid increasing the chair’s size and mass.

What Are The Benefits Of Listening Chair?

The most important piece of furniture in the listening room is the listening chair. Your body comfort is basic to your music enjoyment. So if you are an audiophile or a music listening lover, the benefits of a listening chair cannot be overemphasized. They are as follows;

More Enjoyable experience: Sitting on a good chair for listening to music will make your experience more enjoyable, much more than when you sit on any other seat. After all, a listening chair is exclusively designed to ensure that your sessions go smoothly without hassles no matter how many hours you spend doing it.
Heightens your Musical Experience: Lying down on a good chair for listening, which is positioned appropriately in accordance with the speakers, is a sure way to intensify your musical experience. It can turn an ordinary listening session into an out-of-this-world experience.
Additional Pleasure: With the best listening chair, your pleasure in the music is increased. To be precise, a good listening chair can upgrade the sonic standard to a new height.
Deeper Absorption In The Music: A good listening chair is a solo operation, especially the single type. Thus, there will be no room for distractions while listening. This can help you experience a deeper absorption of the music.

Final Words

The listening chair is a vital part of the equipment. Its importance is comparable to the electrical and physical setup of your audio gadgets. A comfy chair positioned to appropriately match the speakers for a listening session can intensify your musical experience. It can transform an ordinary listening session into a mind-blowing experience.

But unfortunately, most people often neglect using a good listening chair positioned in the ideal place. They don’t know that when you have a good listening chair for your session, the sonic heights can escalate to new levels. That’s why you must invest in one of the best ones today. But make sure you understand what makes a good chair for listening, as we discussed above, before you buy it.