Tech Tips
PS Audio Learning Center
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Could your chair or sofa damage your system’s performance?
You may not have this problem, but you might know someone who does! As the guy who wrote the owner's manual for the ARC/Magnepan Tympani 1Ds, I thought I pretty much knew it all when it came to installing these speakers and getting the most from them in any room.
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Choosing a good listening room size
There are some basic listening room sizes that work well. You can find them on the Internet. But it's also possible to build rooms that have been designed on some mythological dimensions that have issues in the bass.
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Over 50 and wondering about your hearing?
Age, and even exposure to lifelong loud levels, seems not to be the only indicator as to whether a trained listener can still hear. Don't worry if you're past 50. It just means that you're experienced!
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Avoid a large sweet spot
A wide sweet spot is almost like having your own harmonic distortion generator! There's simply no way a serious listener should be satisfied to sit more than a foot away from the 'equal path length intersection' (center point) of sound from a pair of loudspeakers. Inter-channel phase and timing information has just been badly compromised, destroying instrumental timbres.
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Fine tune your tonal balance
Most audiophiles know that - by aiming a loudspeaker a bit off-axis (perhaps to crossfire behind you a foot or two) - they can take the 'edge' off the sound. Especially when compared to aiming the speakers directly at the primary listening seat. Here's a method of fine tuning your system's tonal balance with a few minutes of speaker setup, by Jim Smith.
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Setup a speaker “grid” for placement
Stereophony depends on precise time arrival from each channel to a centrally located listening position. So, as you move your speakers around in the room, you’ll need a temporary floor grid to keep from arriving at erroneous conclusions. Here’s an accurate technique from Jim Smith:
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Speaker placement instructions
This three-step technique will get you to a satisfying sound faster than any other system we’ve seen. It is written by Jim Smith.
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Try different seating heights
Don't forget to listen at different seating heights and or speaker tilt back (which achieves the same thing). If you have the ability to experiment with different seating heights or tilting the speaker forward or backwars, do so. Sometimes raising or lowering your listening position slightly can produce a more neutral and more alive sound.
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AC polarity and speaker placement
Don't consider speaker placement final until you've discovered the correct AC polarity for all components. Incorrect AC polarity from just one component can make your system sound harsher than it should because the components change of reference ground point of the internal power supply transformer.
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Be careful where you place equipment
Don't place your components, especially source components, in areas where there are bass reinforcement modes. Try to avoid placing components (especially source components) in areas where the bass is very strong or exaggerated due to standing waves. CD transports and turntables lose their life and dynamics when they're being bombarded by resonance inducing bass frequencies.
