Rapture in the Minutiae…

Finally! You've spent weeks moving your speakers around your listening room, sometimes by as little as half an inch at a time, to optimize bass response, octave-to-octave balance, imaging and soundstaging. Forward, backward, left, right, over and over. At that one spot, the stage is vacuous, but massed strings and male vocals are a bit pinched. At the point where strings sound divine, bass is a bit bloated. And that spot where the organ music reaches down to Hades, well, the image just doesn't congeal. However, you've finally settled on a position that you can live with; nicely defined and recreated stage, midrange is natural enough sounding and bass speed, extension and definition is much better than just adequate.

Now you are finally ready to just sit and listen, right? Hold on. You didn't forget to finish the job, did you? What? You haven't checked to see that both speakers are exactly the same distance from all room boundaries, are leveled and that toe in is the same on both? Shame on you! If you've not done this, you simply don't know what you are missing. It is so important that both speakers are symmetrically arranged in the room and perfectly level. And don't forget to check components like disc players and especially turntables! They, too, are NOT reaching their maximum potential if they are not leveled.

You can do most of the following adjustment with a measuring tape and a carpenter's bubble level, but I just found a host of ridiculously affordable laser-based tools to add to my tweaking arsenal that both reduce the tedium of the task and simplify it as well. Going back some five years now, I located my first affordable laser level at Heartland America on a tip from HAL (Rich Hollis). Heartland was offering a laser-fitted level, originally retailing for $99.95 and deeply discounted to a modest $29.95, most likely because they weren't flying off the shelves at the original price. Measuring 16"L x 3"W x 1"D, in a commercial-grade, bright-industrial-yellow, shockproof aluminum housing, it included both a horizontal and vertical bubble level. What made it so special was the built-in 650nM laser that projects a bright red round beam from one end (up to 300'), operating on two included AAA batteries. What made this an especially useful little toy was a diffraction lens that fit over the business end, quashing the round beam into a fine flat line. Can you say, "What a perfect tool for audiophiles?" I knew that you could!

Now as good as that sounds, it just got better. Last weekend, as my wife, Kim, and I wandered through Menard's (a local home-improvement center) to prepare for a few projects around the house, we found a remarkably similar product marketed by Tool Shop. Virtually indistinguishable from the original unit I purchased from Heartland long ago, this industrial-yellow, aluminum 16" laser level bears part number 244530. It sports a similar snap-on diffractor to allow both dot and line lasing. And at a whopping $7.77, it includes the necessary AAA batteries! Look at your local home building or improvement center. I'll bet you can find one.

We also found two new tools. First, a smaller, more compact (4 5/8"L x 2 1/2"T x 1 3/8" W) laser level—also with two bubble levels —from Performance Tool© called... (are you ready for this original name?) the Quick Line Laser Level (part number W5739)! Shopping online, you will see this tool available at $30, but it has been on sale for under $20 for some time.

Smaller and more manageable than the Tool Shop 16" instrument, it has a thumb-wheel selectable, two-position diffraction lens and a magnetic base. The orientation of the emitted laser "line" (vertical or horizontal) can be switched easily with the knurled wheel. This device also includes a two-piece magnetic base, hinged at one end. This hinged base holds the level firmly by means of the attached magnet. Fully closed, this added base is flat —0 degrees, see? But, it can be pivoted open to a little over 90 degrees. With the laser attached, you can use this attachment to set a specific angle, say, after measuring the toe-in angle of one speaker, lock it in with the thumb screws which tighten the pivot point, then safely transport that exact measurement to the other speaker—or some other second location. It doesn't get any easier, folks!

The second tool I snagged was a laser tape measure. Yup, that's right. A 9-volt battery driven laser gizmo from Strait-Line (part 64030) called... you guessed it, the Laser Tape. It fires a laser pointer from one tiny port on its face, then reads that projected spot on the opposite wall, or whatever it hits, with a built in Ultrasonic sensor housed in the second larger aperture, also on the face. It has an LCD display on its side and a group of buttons for selecting preferences, entering and accessing memorize measurements, and for computations. Place the butt of this contraption up against something, point it the direction you want to measure, hit the button and voilà, the distance in feet or meters (user selectable) shows up in the display. The integral calculator permits the user to multiply a first measurement by a second to derive area, or with yet a third measurement to determine volume. It sure makes measurements quick and painless, and though it carries a $60 MSRP, it was on sale for less than 30 bucks. Now, while it is not as accurate as using a carpenter's tape measure (because it doesn't do any fine gradiation: it rounds to whole inches), it can be very effective and time saving, especially for closing in on final measurements.

With these budget tools in hand, we are ready to do some final speaker set up. Keep in mind: you may follow these directions without these laser tools by using a simple tape measure and bubble level. Either way, lit up or pulling tape, the sonic benefits realized by this level of detailed, applied final alignment cannot be achieved any other way! Don't dismiss this stuff... Really.

Now, are you ready to get the most out of your setup? Here we go.
 

Flat Lining

With the diffractor set, place the level upright, flush atop your speaker, and point it to the front, sides, and rear on one of your speakers. You may use either the horizontal or the vertical orientation of the flat line. To my eye, and this will surely vary person to person, the horizontal line was the more visually obvious for me to gauge "true" with my naked eye. But, either orientation, the bright-red line is easy to see and remarkably telltale. This projection will let you know beyond any doubt with just a glance which direction to adjust your speakers in order to reach the desired "true" position. And, you even have a second reference with the bubble level for added corroboration. You are now privy to the most obvious way I've discovered to be able to "true" your speakers or component in all planes.

Next, after determining which direction to adjust the speaker cabinet (or the rack, or the turntable or the... well, you get the picture) to achieve level, use the adjustable feet/spikes to trim the position to the desired level setting. Many components also have adjustable feet that will allow for leveling. With components (or speakers) that offer no foot or spike adjustability, place spacers or shims under their corners or feet to realize the desired results. Coins or washers are acceptable shims, as are wooden wedges. Do not use matchbooks, folded paper or like items to shim components back to true, as those items tend to change their thickness over time.

If you are using a pair of speakers that do not have a flat top, you can use any flat surface on the speaker. This will require holding the level on the chosen flat surface of the component, taking a sighting, making your adjustments, and then resighting. Believe me, its time very well spent. When you see the projected beam on the wall, or the bubble floating evenly between the lines, you will know instantly whether you've found true level. The sonic results will be well worth these simple efforts on your part. Do the same things on the second speaker, then read on.

Once you have them both true, the real fun begins; it is time to measure (tape measures are preferred here because of the higher degree of accuracy) their distances from the rear and side walls. When making your measurements for this adjustment, be sure to measure to the top edges of the cabinets, not to the speaker or speaker stand base! Any measurements you may have taken before you achieved true level may be inaccurate due to any degree of tilt the speakers would have exhibited before they were perfectly vertical.

Unbelievably, that slight sloping and the difference it caused in driver proximity to side and rear walls can have an affect the staging, imaging, and overall tonal balance. We are looking for as much accuracy and symmetry as we can achieve here. I have found discrepancies as small as a half-inch in symmetry can muck up what would otherwise be a perfectly solidified image; expansive, detailed stage; or that richly reverberant middle C. Once the measurements indicate that your placement is symmetrical, double-check for accurate leveling. It will only take a moment with these wonderful little tools.

Once leveled and symmetrically placed, move the Laser Level to the sides to set toe in. By placing it along the inside or outside vertical face, you will see in a flash (pun intended) whether their toe-in angle is symmetrical or not. Using the beam in this vertical orientation, aiming at the listening chair or the rear wall, you can set the toe in angle to be identical for each speaker. Here again, slight angle differences between the two speakers can disrupt the magical ability to recreate the accurate width, depth, and height of the stage —and make very minute, but crucial differences in timbre. This adjustment also has the ability to make the difference between an image being locked and stable or floating amorphously and adrift in the stage. And the spectacle of Q Sound cannot be fully appreciated until the speakers are positioned and toed in symmetrically and accurately.

Feel free to experiment with toe-in. There are three basic configurations here, alignment converging in front of the listening position, right at the listening position or behind it. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and I tend to prefer either having the lines converge at or behind the listening position, but don't be afraid to experiment. After all, it's not as if you can't make rapid and accurate changes to your setup anymore!

Think you're done? Not quite. Take all your measurements again, just to make sure that the speakers are still level and the drivers are still equal distances from the rear and side walls. You will likely have made some small changes by doing all these adjustments. This may sound a bit anal, but until you've heard the results, don't scoff. And, once you have gone through it, it only takes a few seconds to verify placement.

How do I know all this to be true? I was about ready to give up on achieving the famous magical soundstage from my eight-foot tall electrostatic panels many, many years ago when I just casually looked up at them. I noticed that the tops of the panels were leaning in different directions: one leaning forward toward the listening seat and one leaning away from it. A closer examination revealed this to be so because they were not level. Even though the bases were perfectly placed in terms of distances from the room boundaries, because my floor wasn't perfectly level, the difference at the top of the 8-foot tall panels was nearly four inches! Shimming and re-measuring took a good sounding system over that fabled hill into Nirvana.

Any who have read my work over the years know that I am a champion of the LP. For that reason, let me take just a second to mention how particularly important our leveling process is to a turntable. If not perfectly level, you place uneven force on both the platter and tonearm bearing systems and apply uneven forces on the antiskating. That those askew influences take their toll on the bearings, shortening duty life, and increasing noise and other distortions, is bad enough. Worse yet, they inflict their detrimental effects immediately and permanently on your precious record collection. Level your turntable! Do it now! Yes, now. No, really. Get up. NOW! ;-D

While perhaps not as obvious on disc-playing devices as with an LP transcription system, similar problems to those suffered by turntables are experienced. Bearing life; noise; blah, blah, blah!

It is my hope that this edition of Musical Meddling will help many of you resolve some (perhaps) long-standing dissatisfaction with what otherwise might be a very rewarding system and set up. Over time, I will be redressing some of my more popular past columns with updates and clarifications on matters that, though perhaps simple-looking at the outset, can be either elusive or unclear at the heart of the matter. And, I will be revisiting some of my low-cost tweaks and designs, most updated and much better, in an effort to retain my Champion of the Economically Challenged laurels. Till then, happy meddling!

Copyright 2004 OS&M. All Rights Reserved.