Niles Audio CM5HD, CM6HD, CM8HD manual Placement for Critical Listening, Placement for Varying

Speaker Placement

Although the CM5HD, CM6HD and CM8HD have extensive ability to compen- sate for unusual placements with their unique pivoting tweeters and acoustic fine- tuning switches; placement is still the pri- mary tool for satisfying your particular lis- tening needs. In the following section, we discuss how speakers should be placed and how tweeters should be directed and how the acoustic fine-tuning switches should be set for different purposes.

Placement for Critical Listening

If you like to imagine that the band or orchestra is playing in front of you as you listen to music, or you are very conscious of clarity, detail and the textures of the individual instruments, or you listen criti- cally to movie soundtracks or music videos in your home theater, you will need your speakers placed so that they are optimized for critical listening. Here are some guidelines to make the process of placement quick and easy.

Make sure the sound will not be blocked

or reflected off of furniture or other objects. You should have a direct line of sight with the front of the speaker. To determine the best position, measure the “listening” distance between the ideal lis- tening position (your favorite chair or couch) and the location in which you plan to install the speakers. Try to place the speakers so that they are equally distant from your listening spot and at least one half of the listening distance apart (this maintains a large pleasant stereo “image”). In home theater applications where there is a center channel you may choose to space the left and right main speakers far- ther apart for a “bigger than life” sound with Dolby® encoded movies and TV shows. However, for combined music and movie usage stay within the good place- ment zone for music. For example; if you are ten feet back from the speakers, the speakers should be between five and ten feet apart (See Figure 4).

Tweeters should be directed at the listen- ing position.

Placement for Varying

Speaker Placement

					Figure 4
					In this example,
					the speakers
		Direct tweeter			could be
					placed five to
		towards listener
					10 feet apart,
					since the listen-
					er is 10 feet
					back from the
					speakers
Critical
	10'		5'	10'
Listening
Position

Direct tweeter

towards listener

6