Niles Audio CM6PR, CM5PR Operations, Speaker Placement, Listening at Higher Volumes, Cleaning

Operations

Operation

Listening at Higher Volumes

It requires more power to achieve a reason- able volume of sound in a large room than it does in a small room. It is possible (even if you are not a teenager) to turn the volume so high that the amplifier runs out of power. This creates “clipping” distortion.

Clipping distortion makes treble sound very harsh and unmusical. When you hear harsh sounding treble from any good speaker, turn the volume down immedi- ately! Those harsh sounds are masking some much more powerful ultra-high-fre- quency sound spikes which will quickly damage any fine loudspeaker. You are much less likely to damage a speaker with a large amplifier because it will be very loud indeed before it produces any clip- ping distortion.

Cleaning

You can clean the speaker with a damp- ened soft cloth or paper towel. If the speaker is mounted high up on a wall or ceiling, use a broom to gently brush it off.

Speaker Placement

Introduction

Although the CM5PR and CM6PR have extensive ability to compensate for unusu- al placements with their unique pivoting tweeters and acoustic fine-tuning switch- es; placement is still the primary tool for satisfying your particular listening needs. In the following section, we discuss how speakers should be placed and how tweet- ers 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.

Speaker Placement

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

Position

Direct tweeter

towards listener

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