Outlaw Audio 970 Speaker Size Configuration, Subwoofers, nPut the subwoofer where your ears are

Owner’s Manual

System Setup

Subwoofers

The fact is, proper subwoofer placement is more difficult than placing any other speaker. Some say that you should place the sub away from a wall, other experts advise putting the sub near a wall, still others (probably not experts) just tell you to put the sub in a corner. Well, they’re all right. And they’re all wrong! It all depends on the size, shape and furnishings and floor coverings in the room your sub will be sitting in.

The culprits here are called “standing waves” that are generated every time you introduce a sound in a confined area. They create pressure zones in all rooms that are most noticeable in the bass frequency range. And they usually result in too much “boom” in some parts of the room and not enough real bass in others. In addition, these seemingly random effects are very difficult to predict unless you’re a trained acoustician with a lot of experience.

But here’s some practical advice from Outlaws who’ve tamed many a room to be downright docile:

nNever put your prime viewing/listening position tight against a wall Walls create “high pressure zones” that will have your ears begging for bass relief in short order. Likewise, a viewing/listening position in the center of the room will most likely result in too little bass. So make sure your comfy couch is somewhat free-standing in the room. (And that will give you plenty of leeway to place your surround and back surround speakers more advantageously, too.)

nPut the subwoofer where your ears are!

Forget about the advice to move the subwoofer all around the room until you happen to find that one magic spot where the bass sounds “right, tight, with lots of bite.” Instead, find this ideal position the Outlaw way. Place the subwoofer on your favorite chair or couch (watch those spikes!) then get down on your hands and knees and move around the room until you hear the best bass. That’s where you’re going to put the subwoofer! Simple, isn’t it?

nConsider using more than one sub

Even when you’re feeding the same signal to each one, multiple subs placed in different parts of the room will go a long way to taming those standing waves and will help to create very even and natural-sounding bass that just seems to go all the way down to the, pardon the pun, sub-basement!

Speaker Size Configuration

Since you’ve just configured all the inputs you’ll be using, it’s time to move on to the next item on the Main Menu: Speaker Size. Here, you tell the Model 970 how many speakers your system has and what their bass reproduction capa- bilities are. When you see the words “Large” and “Small,” just think “lots of bass” and “not much” respectively. (The industry’s use of the confusing term “size” comes from the early days of HiFi when you just couldn’t get decent bass response from small speakers.)

NOTE: To avoid errors, the Model 970 does not allow some speaker combinations. For example, you can set the subwoofer to "none" only if you have large front speakers. If you have small front speakers, the subwoofer setting will automatically be "yes." If you have no side surround speakers, the back surround channels are automatically deactivated.

To enter settings for speaker size:

1.Press the MENU button on the front panel or the remote to display the Main Menu.

The Main Menu appears on-screen:

MAIN MENU

> INPUT	CONFIG
SPEAKER	SIZE
SPEAKER	X-OVER
SURROUND	CONFIG
CHANNEL	CALIBRATION
DELAY	ADJUST
SYSTEM	CONFIG
EXIT

2.Move the cursor to SPEAKER SIZE by using the and buttons on the front panel or remote.

3.With the cursor pointing to SPEAKER SIZE, press SET on the front panel or the remote.

The Speaker Size sub-menu appears:

speaker size

> front l/r	:small
center	:small
Surr L/R	:small
surr back	size :none
surr back	out :none
subwoofer	:yes

return to main menu

4.Use the and buttons on the front panel or remote to move to each line on this menu.

5.Press the and buttons on the front panel or remote to change the setting so that it shows the correct speaker size for each position.

Select LARGE if the speakers at the selected position are full range speak- ers, capable of reproducing the full spectrum of sound including low bass frequencies. These speakers are typically physically large, but they don’t have to be as long as they can handle the bass.

Select SMALL if the speakers are the popular “satellite” type with limited bass capability that typically bottoms out between 80 HZ and 150 Hz.

Select NONE if there are no speakers at the position you are entering the settings for. Remember that you can’t enter “NONE” for the front left/right speakers, and you won’t be able to access the “7.1” modes unless you chose a speaker type for the SURR BACK Speakers.

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