S E T U P D E T A I L S
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this is to leave the speaker turned off for 15 minutes or so, turn the control all the way
down, then increase the level until you are satisfied.
Exaggerated Bass
If you find that it is necessary to place the speakers very near walls or into corners, the
bass will be reinforced by the nearby surfaces. The first thing to try is a lower numbered
preset. If this proves inadequate, and your equipment has a bass knob or low frequency
equalization control, or your file player has some DSP capabilities, that will be the next
best way to handle the situation. Otherwise, if your speakers are equipped with an
electrostatic panel level control that is not all the way up, set it so.
Note that there is no file player software at this time that can perform DSP directly on
DSD files, i.e., your player EQ will only work on PCM files. If you need your player to
EQ DSD files, you’ll need to set it to convert the streams to PCM.
Room Boom and Suck Out
Room resonant modes can cause certain bass notes to be greatly exaggerated and others
to be nearly missing. Properly tuned and positioned bass traps are the ultimate solution,
but no one will blame you if you don’t want to bother or will be surprised if you suffer
restrictions on décor.
You can make some headway against these effects with no additional hardware by
decreasing the setup symmetry. This is done by placing each speaker a different distance
from each side wall and for the ultimate effect, rotating your entire listening triangle 10 or
15 degrees relative to the walls. Fore and aft adjustment of the listening triangle will also
have an effect.
Also, by changing one’s seating height, one can get one’s ears more or less away from
where the floor/ceiling mode has its strongest effect.
Anti-node trick
There’s a trick we use at audio shows, where the room is usually a concrete box with
practically no bass absorption from the walls and a generally inconvenient ratio of room
dimensions. You can minimize how much your room’s most prominent bass modes are
excited by finding their anti-nodes, placing the speakers in two of them, and perhaps also
sitting in one of them.
You’ll need an RTA with a resolution of at least 1/12
th
octave.
