REGISTER NEW USERLOST PASSWORD? WELCOME, Logout

Measure and connect

Paul's Posts — 14 August 2012

By

Measure and connect

In our quest for the best stereo setup within our room we’ve managed to find where the effects of the sidewalls are minimized and placed our loudspeaker pair just outside this boundary.  This is the starting point we’ll begin the process of dialing in the sound.

I’d like to point out something that may be controversial about this method.  It is not formulaic in its approach and ignores several other revered setup techniques that use a precise “recipe” worked out over many years of experience.  This may make some of you uncomfortable so I want to just touch lightly on the subject and then move on with our own technique.  The problem I have with adhering to a strict formula for room setup is it ignores the quirks and uniqueness of the room itself.

If you’ve ever spent any time cooking (I admit to being a foodie) you’ll know that rarely is there a recipe that doesn’t include a simple instruction that can make or break the end result: “salt to taste”.  This often is overlooked or under appreciated by wanna be chefs.  The salt content in most recipes makes or breaks the dish going from bland, to perfect, to salty.  Perfection in a recipe can only be achieved by tasting and working with the environment.  So it is with stereo setup in a room which must be done by ear.  You have to “taste” the sound to get it right.

Our next task will be to get our tape measure out and make sure we are perfectly symmetrical in our distances from the rear of the loudspeaker to the rear wall, perfectly parallel to the wall behind the listener and side-to-side with our sidewall measurement.  This too is a bit controversial because there’s another camp of folks who want the room/speaker placement to be asymmetrical – but this approach drives me crazy and never works with the rest of my approach.  In fact, this is a critical step in our setup procedure because millimeters matter to achieving our goal.  Let’s keep it measured and symmetrical from here on out.

Take some of that blue painter’s masking tape and mark a two-sided area defining the outer front edge of each loudspeaker.  Next, connect your stereo system up so you can play something.  This is a great moment to make sure everything is properly connected, polarity of the speakers to the amp is correct, left and right is perfect, etc.  Take your time and get it right.  We don’t care about cable lifts, spikes and cones right now – in fact, make a point of getting rid of any of these crutches for this phase of our setup.

Remember the setup CD I asked you to get?  Now is the time to grab it and play the first three tracks.  These identify the channels and the phase (or polarity) of the system.  As careful as I am with setup I am sometimes surprised that something’s wrong here despite my best efforts to get it right.  If there is something wrong track it down to the source to fix it.

If, for example, the left and right are incorrect don’t just swap the speaker cables, find out where the error is.  Get everything correct and then we’re ready to begin dialing it in.

email Measure and connect Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers

Get new and fresh stories like this each morning by joining the folks reading Paul's Posts. Click here

Related Articles

Young turks Get that mole! Treat the cause or the symptoms? Jelly rolls

Share

About Author

Paul McGowan

Paul McGowan is the CEO and co-founder of PS Audio Inc. a Boulder Colorado design and manufacturing company of high-end audio products and services. McGowan has been designing and building high-end products for nearly 40 years. Hobbies include skiing, music, hiking, artisan bread baking, kick boxing and cooking. He lives in Boulder Colorado with his wife Terri and his 4 sons.

(4) Readers Comments

  1. bas

    August 14, 2012 at 5:21 am

    Hi Paul

    This series of articles has been of particular interest primarily because my knowledge of the earlier “technical stuff” such as resistors, diodes,conductors transducers etc etc is sadly deficient and I have relied mostly upon professional reviews and local availability of components when assembling my system.
    While I felt that my sound set up was pretty good and that the speakers had in fact “disappeared” I am nevertheless following your set-up procedures to the “t” in the hope that it will improve the acoustics…..
    Until now it has been straight-forward but…. My challenge is that my listening/music room is interestingly asymmetrical with 2 angled walls and rows of book cases. So getting speakers parallel with the rear wall is an impossibility and because of protruding book cases, the side wall formula if applied seriously constricts the central space. I shall however “play around” with what I have and may just hit on the sweet spot set-up as the result.
    Keep the articles coming they are much appreciated.
    I am looking forward to your views on cables and interconnects and of course on styluses….
    Kind rgeards

    Basil Smith
    I can’t wait until you start upon such controversial aspects as wiring and styluses….

    • bas

      August 14, 2012 at 5:22 am

      Sp “regards” as well
      LOL

    • August 14, 2012 at 5:55 am

      Thanks. What’s really interesting is, of course, the thousands of room shapes one has to deal with. Which is why I hope the ideas I am presenting here will be taken to heart in the spirit of what they are trying to accomplish rather than literally. By understanding the intent of each step and then applying that same intent to your specific situation you’ll have great results.

      If your speakers already disappeared then you’re off to a good start. Tomorrow we’ll work on getting placement of the image properly – and let’s see if we can make some progress.

  2. johnalgodones

    August 14, 2012 at 5:45 pm

    Since I’m in the midst of re-setting my system, someof practical points:
    1. If you have room adjustment digital processing (Aydyssey, for example), you still need to follow Paul”s advice. DSP can only do so much, and that does not include adjusting for improper placement of speakers For example, putting speakers too close together results in congested sound, no matter how powerful your DSP.
    2. Similarly, if you are setting up a multi-channel system, start with Paul’s advice for setting up a stereo system. it is much easier to get good multi-channel sound if you start with good stereo sound.
    3. If you have a choice, start with the speakers as wide apart as possible. Then listen to the image for a week or so before starting to move the speakers closer together. Wider is usually better.

Leave a Reply