Fine Tuning

Tips and Secrets

These are my collection of tips and theories to improve sound.  I hope you will find these points helpful in your quest for perfection.  In no particular order:

1. Sweet Spot - The key to a good soundstage is speaker positioning.  If you sit slightly to the left, you'll notice the "singer" may also move slightly to the left.  This is due to the phase and time nature of sound.  In order to hear the full potential of your speakers, I would point the tweeters directly at the corresponding ear.  (Left main to left ear)  If you pictured the tweeters as lasers pointing directly away from the speaker, you may want the lasers to intersect 1-2 feet behind the head in order for the tweeters to aim more at different ears.  In addition to setting up the speakers this way, you may also want to sit at a height in which the tweeter is ear level.  The result of this is you are directing as much sound as you possible can from the speaker to your ear.  To some, this may result in too bright of sound, in which case you may actually enjoy listening to a speaker "off-axis" or with them not pointing directly at the listener.  By pointing a speaker slightly off axis you can take off that hint of brightness from a speaker while some speakers may even be designed to face straight forward due to their good off-axis response.  The common term used for "angling" speakers inwards towards the listener is Toe-in.
2. Speaker Placement (Spacing for sound) - Speakers close together will result in a narrow soundstage.  In other words, the separation of sounds on a "distance" scale may not be big.  What some people may also not realize is that some of the sound "couples" when moving 2 speakers closer to each other and can result in an added warmth in bass.  Some people believe that by placing the speaker against a wall adds bass but what they don't realize is that it could be simply making the bass appear boomy (not accurate, bloated).  Most speakers are designed to operate with smooth response away from walls so by tuning one with a wall can be like simply adding bass boost.  Some people may like this while others may find that the added bass boost is nothing but reflected sound from the walls and actually thins out the details.  This is why I like to place speakers at least 12 inches from any walls and if I want to add more warmth, I simply bring them closer together for "coupling" rather than move them closer to any walls.
3. Speaker Placement (Spacing for imaging) - Think of the two front speakers as forming a triangle along with the listener.  Once you find the distance between the speakers you can then move the listener forward or backward for good imaging.  A common rule of thumb is to form an equilateral triangle with all angles equal to 60 degrees.  Some people like to sit a little closer than that so they adjust the side angles from 40-60 degrees.  I find that if a speaker gets too spaced apart, the mono sounds of a vocalist begin to sound too spacious and unfocused.  As you bring the speakers closer together the vocal source should become much more pinpoint and will allow the listener to locate specific sounds in the soundstage.  Finding the best location may take some playing around and there certainly is no "right" answer out there.  I like to put my speakers as far apart as possible while maintaining the most precise image possible.
4. Vibrations - Vibrations can be the CD and turntable's worse enemy.  Isolating them with pads or small stress balls can certainly help, but there are also other ways to prevent vibrations.  Bass is essentially moving air and can be quite violent in the corners of a room which is why you should place equipment where the bass gets strong.  The wall behind the listener is also bad as it is susceptible to the direct sound of the speakers as well as being in a high bass area.
5. Acoustic Treatments - Absorbing or diffusing sound can almost certainly help a reflective room.  If the wall behind the listener is within 4-6 feet, this could result in a lot of reflected sound off the back wall to compete with the direct sounds of the speaker.  A solution to this is to absorb or reflect sound at locations such as the side walls, ceiling, and back wall.  A common place for such treatments are in the "mirror" locations.  If you picture the side wall as a mirror, then picture looking into that mirror from the listener position.  The location on the wall where you see the reflection of the tweeter is where you'd place the acoustic panel.  Some houses have objects with high reflective surfaces such as coffee tables or tile floors.  These can also degrade the sound quality which can be solved by covering them with a rug or towel.
6. Lighting - The purpose of light is to see.  While listening to music it is sometimes much easier to focus on the sound when the light is decreased in the room.  You're senses may also become more tuned to hearing which can result in an overall improvement in enjoyment.  Playing music at night makes it even better since the power line is cleaner, the ambient noise outside is quieter, and the room can get darker.  Another time I like to listen to music is early in the morning.  You're ears have rested and have heard nothing but silence throughout the night.  One more tip is if you notice a lot of glowing LEDs on the television and equipment you can simply block those out with a small dab of kneadable eraser.  I found that the knead erasers come off clean and can block 100% of the LED's light.
7. Volume - Keep that volume control in hand since different music often calls for different volumes.  I found that even my own mood determines what I'll enjoy the music at so I can't even write down "reference" volumes on some of the CDs I have.  However, once you can find the right volume, it can make that much of a difference in the enjoyment of music. 
8. Bass Equalization - First off let me say to NEVER boost a frequency to fill in a gap in the response.  Always decrease the volume to equalize.  Reason is it requires more than 10 times the power to increase sound 10 decibels and even then the sound may still be too low.  Reason for this is because there are cancellations that are occurring due to the bass frequencies that interact with the room.  With precise parametric equalization and measurements, one can equalize the bass quite well.  I suggest using fine increments to isolate the problems such as 1/10th octave increments or better.  Using one of those graphic equalizers to try and solve bass problems is useless as they are wide range and not designed for such detail.
9. Speaker Break in - I recommend 50 hours for the average commercial speaker, and as long as 200 hours for some of the more picky loud speakers.  As for amps, preamps and source components, I haven't been too convinced that break in makes that big of a difference but what you can do for breaking these in is to use an 8 ohm wire wound resistor that simulates the resistance of a loudspeaker and wire it between the positive/negative tips of the receiver.  As for breaking in speakers, If you put one speaker out of phase and make them both face each other, the result will be a dramatic decrease in bass and mids due to the speakers canceling each other out.   The tweeters will still probably be loud but it's still a lot quieter than breaking in speakers LOUD while setup normally.
10. Is Bass Omni directional? -  You'll probably hear many people that will use this statement to back up their decision to go with one sub in a corner.  I on the other hand am a firm believer in stereo subs.  Here are some reasons why one sub isn't enough:  Direct and reflect bass will arrive at each stereo microphone at slightly different times.  Therefore, stereo subs can play these time related notes in each channel.  Bass provides a good sense of space due to the different timing of how bass reflects of walls and ceilings.  Our brain picks up these spatial "cues" of bass and interprets them to make the performance more real.  With a mono sub you get no "bass stage" and the sounds can even begin to sound like they are shifted closer to where the sub is.  Reason for this shift is because the subwoofer has a crossover and tapers down the loudness as it plays higher frequencies (to seamlessly blend with the mains).  This taper involves a sub playing frequencies that can be localized which then affects the overall sound stage.  Also, if you've ever listened to two speakers with one out of phase you'll hear an odd cancellation of sound.  Now imagine bass as having tendencies to sound in/out of phase during recordings to give spatial cues for room a size.  What happens with a mono sub is the in/out of phase bass gets combined to mono and gets canceled out into nothing.  The listener of a mono sub can not experience the same kind of sound as a person with stereo subs.  Stereo subs are capable of playing "out of phase" with each other while a mono subs can not.  Now remember that for 5.1 movies the LFE track IS a mono source so this only applies to stereo 2 channel formats.

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Copyright © 2003 Chris Tsutsui
Last modified: 06/25/03