Placement and Room Acoustics, Side Walls

Placement and Room Acoustics

Listening Position

By now your speakers should be placed approximately two to three feet from the front wall (the wall in front of the listening position) and at least two feet from the side walls. Your sitting distance should be further than the dis- tance between the speakers themselves. You are trying to attain the impression of good center imaging and stage width.

The correct distance between the speakers and listener is related to the size and shape of your room. In long rooms the distance between the speakers may be far less than the distance from you to the speaker system. However, in a wide room, you will still find that if the distance from the listener to the speakers becomes smaller than the dis- tance between the speakers themselves, the image will no longer focus in the center.

Now that you have positioned your speaker system, spend time listening. Wait to make any major changes for the next few days. Over the first 72 hours of play the actu- al tonal quality will change slightly with deeper bass and more spacious highs resulting. After a few days of listening you can make refinements and hear the differences.

The Wall Behind the Listener

Near-field reflections can occur from your back wall (the wall behind the listening position). If your listening posi- tion is close to the back wall, these reflections can confuse imaging quality. It is better for the wall behind you to be absorptive than to be reflective. If you have a hard back wall and your listening position is close to it, experiment with devices that absorb sound (i.e. wall hangings and possibly even sound absorbing panels).

The Wall Behind the Speakers

The front surface, the wall behind the speakers, should not be extremely hard or soft. A pane of glass will cause reflections, brightness and confused imaging. Curtains, drapery and objects such as bookshelves can be placed along the wall to diffuse an overly reflective surface. A standard sheet rock or textured wall is generally an ade- quate surface if the rest of the room is not too bright and hard. Walls can also be too soft. If the entire front wall consists of heavy drapery, your system can sound dull. You may hear muted music with little ambience. Harder surfaces will actually help in this case.

The front surface should be one long wall without any doors or openings. If you have openings, the reflection and bass characteristics from each channel can be different.

The Side Walls

A good rule of thumb is to have the side walls as far away from the speakers as possible. However, MartinLogan’s unique controlled dispersion electrostatic transducer inherently minimizes side wall reflections—a position as little as two feet from the side walls often proves ade- quate. Sometimes, if the system is bright or the imaging is not to your liking, and the side walls are very near, try putting curtains or softening material to the side of each speaker.

>24”

(>61cm)

>24”

(>61cm)

MartinLogan Summit X Placement and Room Acoustics, Listening Position, Wall Behind the Listener