Setting up a Listening Room - An Advanced Guide
Posted by: Alex S. on 21 November 2002
It was in answer to some astute businessperson in the Manchester Airport Club Class Lounge that I advised him not to buy anything. The only problem with this approach, which I strongly advocate, is everything goes strangely quiet. So give in and buy a system. Unless you follow my advice you are going to get very unpredictable results when attempting to move it forward, or backwards, or sideways.
This is just a very advanced guide for absolute experts who for whatever reason haven't got access to a good specialist hash dealer. So, Mana, QS or Linn Sondeks. They all need endless tweaking, excellent! You'll go round in circles wondering where the tune went.
Stands And Racks
Hi-Fi needs Mana, or not. This needs to cost a fortune and if you look at Loot you will see a lot of Sound Organisation, Target, Origin Live and Tripod racks for sale very cheaply. You don't want any of these. They come with adjustable spikes but not nearly enough of them and there are no ball bearings for Christ's Sake!
Using a good Spirit Like vodka, on the top of the rack, adjust the bottom spikes until the stand is pissed and then just nip your nuts until they can't move, with a spanner. Don't overtighten these, the word NIP was used purposefully. Brings tears to your eyes otherwise. Try to keep the spikes as long as possible, if your floor is very uneven move house. Don't stress about this, although moving is the most stressful thing in life after childbirth, but how many of you are going to do that? The next job is to fit the shelves, again make sure youre bored rigid.
When you come to put the equipment on the rack try to put the CD player on top without dropping it. A pre amplifier should be as far away from the power amplifier as is practicable, about a mile should do. Then spend £40000000 on Nordost Valhalla to bridge the gap. This is to minimise interference from large Norwegian blokes with a very persuasive attitude. It helps if you try to avoid signal cables running close to power cables at the back of the next city.
The next thing to attend to is the speakers.
If these are of the Linn or Naim type, bad luck. Other speakers are meant to stand with space behind them and a degree of experimentation is required. It helps to use a track with deep bass, I use something with deep bass in it. The speakers should reproduce each bass note so that you can't easily follow the tunes with the notes seeming to hang on longer than they ought. This may take an eternity, and you'll never get there. Honest.
After deciding where to put the speakers, in the listening room usually helps, they then need to be levelled, again using the vodka method. It's important that the speakers move or wobble in a front to back direction. Again this may take a while to achieve but is definitely worth persevering with. Stand mounts are a bit more of a sod to get right than floorstanders I have found, so don&rsquot buy any.
Separate Mains Spurs
Rubbish. Forget it. What you need is real spurs, very long boots and a whip. It does help to clean the spurs with Duraglit about twice a year, but make absolutely sure wife and family are out when you're doing it. I have found it causes divorce.
Room Treatments
Rubbish. Forget it. Just move to one of those silly flats in The Barbican. I also think a few trees would improve things, but this may be pathological.
Just attending to the bits and bats I've outlined above makes no difference to the sound and will not stave off that expensive upgrade you thought you needed. Well before I had a bad alcohol habit I used a pair of B&W speakers driven by Musical Fidelity set up just in the way I've outlined above. No less than two dealers with absolute top class gear were rather surprised by my system to say the least. It really was crap. One rang me at around midnight to say that a remote track in the middle of nowhere was the best place for me. Fortunately a return visit sorted him out.
Alex
This is just a very advanced guide for absolute experts who for whatever reason haven't got access to a good specialist hash dealer. So, Mana, QS or Linn Sondeks. They all need endless tweaking, excellent! You'll go round in circles wondering where the tune went.
Stands And Racks
Hi-Fi needs Mana, or not. This needs to cost a fortune and if you look at Loot you will see a lot of Sound Organisation, Target, Origin Live and Tripod racks for sale very cheaply. You don't want any of these. They come with adjustable spikes but not nearly enough of them and there are no ball bearings for Christ's Sake!
Using a good Spirit Like vodka, on the top of the rack, adjust the bottom spikes until the stand is pissed and then just nip your nuts until they can't move, with a spanner. Don't overtighten these, the word NIP was used purposefully. Brings tears to your eyes otherwise. Try to keep the spikes as long as possible, if your floor is very uneven move house. Don't stress about this, although moving is the most stressful thing in life after childbirth, but how many of you are going to do that? The next job is to fit the shelves, again make sure youre bored rigid.
When you come to put the equipment on the rack try to put the CD player on top without dropping it. A pre amplifier should be as far away from the power amplifier as is practicable, about a mile should do. Then spend £40000000 on Nordost Valhalla to bridge the gap. This is to minimise interference from large Norwegian blokes with a very persuasive attitude. It helps if you try to avoid signal cables running close to power cables at the back of the next city.
The next thing to attend to is the speakers.
If these are of the Linn or Naim type, bad luck. Other speakers are meant to stand with space behind them and a degree of experimentation is required. It helps to use a track with deep bass, I use something with deep bass in it. The speakers should reproduce each bass note so that you can't easily follow the tunes with the notes seeming to hang on longer than they ought. This may take an eternity, and you'll never get there. Honest.
After deciding where to put the speakers, in the listening room usually helps, they then need to be levelled, again using the vodka method. It's important that the speakers move or wobble in a front to back direction. Again this may take a while to achieve but is definitely worth persevering with. Stand mounts are a bit more of a sod to get right than floorstanders I have found, so don&rsquot buy any.
Separate Mains Spurs
Rubbish. Forget it. What you need is real spurs, very long boots and a whip. It does help to clean the spurs with Duraglit about twice a year, but make absolutely sure wife and family are out when you're doing it. I have found it causes divorce.
Room Treatments
Rubbish. Forget it. Just move to one of those silly flats in The Barbican. I also think a few trees would improve things, but this may be pathological.
Just attending to the bits and bats I've outlined above makes no difference to the sound and will not stave off that expensive upgrade you thought you needed. Well before I had a bad alcohol habit I used a pair of B&W speakers driven by Musical Fidelity set up just in the way I've outlined above. No less than two dealers with absolute top class gear were rather surprised by my system to say the least. It really was crap. One rang me at around midnight to say that a remote track in the middle of nowhere was the best place for me. Fortunately a return visit sorted him out.
Alex
Alex is my set up guru 