Month: December 2016

Proper speaker placement is one of the most important parts of an audio system setup. According to Jim Smith, the author of Get Better Sound, the speaker placement alone has 50% impact on the overall system performance. My experience confirms that notion. The most important points of the placement are the distances between speakers, between speakers and the wall behind them and between speakers and the listener. One should not spare the distance to the back wall. I think that a minimum distance of 20 centimeters is necessary in order to have a proper soundstage portrayal and right tonal balance.

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It is time for tube rolling dear fellows! When the audio chain setup is complete and the key components have been chosen one should concentrate on the fine details. They are usually not bringing stunning but rather subtle improvements. My audio system recently reached such a state when all its key components were on place and I decided to finally tune it. Since the amplifier is the second most important component after the speakers that it drives it is vital to take the most out of it.

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For those who don’t know what notch filter is I’ll explain in short: the task of a notch filter is to reduce the strength of the audio signal in certain frequency range. Such a filter is usually used in a single driver (also known as broadband or full-range) speaker designs. Because it has only one driver  it is often very hard or impossible for such a speaker to convey a flat response along the whole length of the frequency spectrum. Usually such a speakers emphasize certain frequencies that leads to tonal colourations.

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It is strange how often it happens to me to change something in the audio system while experimenting and to notice an improvement. I enjoy the achieved result for some time but then I decide to restore the system to its initial state, only to realise that the so called “improvement” is nothing else but an effect that actually departs the reproduction from its authentic character.

Continue reading “Back at the beginning”