Abbingdon Music Research LS-77 owner manual

If your floor is not carpeted (which is a bad idea acoustically) you may want to put something between the speaker stand and floor that will allow you to slide the speakers more easily, like a cloth or mat with a smooth underside. If your stands’ lower surface is not smooth and you have a carpeted floor you may wish to place the stand on a suitable piece of MDF or wood with smooth surfaces to making sliding the speakers around easier.

Position each speaker in the center of each ZOLI, pointing directly at the listening position. This may seem like an extreme amount of toe-in, but it is in most cases the best initial point. You should just be able to see either the inside walls or outside walls of the speakers.

Next, you need to 'calibrate' the floor with tape as shown in the illustration to help you shift the speaker repeatably in small increments. Using l/2" or one centimeter markings will be fine. The strips marked 0-1-0 (parallel to the back wall) should be located close enough to the speaker stands front-most corner so as to help you to gauge both left-to-right movements and to adjust the amount of toe-in or toe-out. Again, you should enlist the help of an assistant for be next phase of the AASR, as it is difficult to do it alone.

Using a full-range, well-balanced recording played at a moderate level first ensure the tonal balance of the speaker has been correctly adjusted. This is easiest judged using a recording featuring female voice and piano. Do not consider the bass output at this time, check only the midrange tonal balance for the right degree of openness and natural tone, without sounding neither dark or bright.

Next make notes regarding the sound quality as your assistant moves the speakers first forward/backward and then left/right. By using the tape rulers as accurate indication of the position you or your assistant can move the speaker as far as needed to find the point where further movement into this particular direction does not bring further improvements and still return to the best position. Listen for the best tonal balance and the ability of the system to portray dynamics as well as the beginnings of good imaging. Conventional wisdom applies here: if the system sounds bass shy, move the speakers back, bass heavy, move them forward.

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