*******This is a long post, if not interested in reading it all, feel free to skim the TL;DR of my experience. This is an account of my personal experience only********
On the detailed speaker setup thread, there were lots of lively discussions on the merits of ultra precise speaker positioning. Over the Christmas break, I had the good fortune of experiencing it personally (again) when Todd (@sbnx ) set up my new speakers. It has been incredibly eye(ear) opening.
Now each time I sit in front of my system, I utter to myself - I think I’m done. Of course, for us afflicted with this wonderful and at times frustrating hobby, it might never really be done, but the foundation set here is so amazing that if nothing changes again, I would be happy and satisfied. I learned a lot through this experience and I thought these personal learnings might be worth sharing:
TL;DR
Context:
For all of us, there are those crucial moments in our journey where we hear systems that become our reference points. For me it’s Wilson XVX with Taiko and MSB, it’s MBL Extremes with its bass towers and amps, it’s Kharma Exquisite Midis with CJ gear powered by a $500 CD player at Cap Audio Fest. One of those reference points was when I first met Todd through WBF and went to his house to hear the Lampizator Pacific against the older MSB DAC V. The amount of depth in soundstage and imaging I heard in that purpose built room was something I never experienced before. Since then, both our systems have come a long way through a lot of changes, and Todd has helped me set up 2 pairs of speakers in my room.
My experience:
For this most recent pair of speakers, it took 3 full day sessions. The first session was back in early Nov. The uncrated speakers were put into my listening room, roughly at my old speakers’ location the night before setup day. My parents were visiting at the time and my dad who is a non-audiophile (interested in the idea of good sound, but would never spend over $100 for speakers) had been listening to my system with the older speakers that Todd had set up a year or so ago. With the new speakers just generally positioned in the room, he listened and said they don’t sound better than my old speakers and asked why I would spend the money. At that moment, I had to agree with him. Even though I knew they weren’t set up and I needed to have faith in the process, I was still anxious that I made a mistake.
The next day Todd came over early in the morning. We listened briefly to the calibrated setup and then quickly moved on to pushing the right speaker back and away and began working on the left speaker. The starting point is bass coupling with the room and evenness at the listening position. Todd has a specific list of songs each with a purpose to assess an specific aspect of the sound. As the day progressed, I would occasionally go downstairs to get drinks or chat with my parents, and my dad had commented around midday on how he can hear the sound getting much better even from downstairs. I had the same experience inside the room where I sat behind the main listening couch and slightly to one side, even there it was easy to hear the effects of even the smallest movement.
This setup process is described as a spiral towards the center where you hone in the placement through smaller and smaller adjustments as you get closer to the final spot. Having experienced it over 3 full days, that’s a very apt description. By the end of the process, a close fisted bump on specific spots of the speaker will yield a very audible change in tone, and a fine adjustment would constitute a much lighter tap with the knuckles. This sounds absolutely insane and I never would have believed it if I didn’t experience it with my own eyes and ears. Before we get into “expectation bias” territory, it’s worth noting that not all adjustments yielded positive results. A few times after a bump or tap, I immediately heard and said out loud that it didn’t sound as good as before. When the finest adjustments created audible changes, that’s when you know the setup is nearing the knives’ edge where everything balances.
After the first day, we ran out of time on the second speaker, so I had to wait until the next time Todd visited town to finish the setup. The sound was extremely respectable after that first day, but it still hasn’t snapped into that OMG territory that transcends great hifi. My dad popped upstairs at the end of the day to listen to both speakers and compared that to his midday visit when he heard just the left, and unprompted he said that it doesn’t sound quite as good as just the left. Again, I was in agreement. This is where I learned that after the left speaker is dialed in, the right speaker will actually degrade the sound quality if it’s not equally dialed in.
In between this and the next sessions, I forgot to glue the base of the left speaker spike supports down to the floor and accidentally bumped it with my elbow. That invariably had an impact on the sound so we had to go back to the left speaker on the second session a month later. That’s also why the second session took 2 days. By the time Todd had left after the 2nd day, my system was sounding better than I ever have. The evenly constructed soundstage dramatically increases papability and believability, the precise timing of driver integration provides the finest details with incredible transient speed, the bass integration with the room produces tight, deep bass with no overhang in my somewhat lively room.
After Todd left, I went on to finish integrating subwoofers into the system on my own. Little did I know, the combination of properly dialed in speakers and properly integrated subwoofers would bring the system even further above and beyond. This post is already incredibly long, so I will maybe save the subwoofer integration and resonance control for another time.
If any of you have read this whole thing, kudos on the patience. I am now a complete believer in the power of setup. It now makes so much sense why brands will pay someone like Stirling to set up their gear in reviewer’s homes. It makes me question why every high end brand doesn’t make this investment, and even more so makes me question every hifi review that has not been preceded by meticulous setup. I now realize that through all the gear churning, the insatiable and persistent itch to upgrade or make changes, I was just chasing my tail because I never heard the gear to the best of their ability. Before these new speakers were properly setup, I was already thinking of upgrading my DAC, upgrading my subwoofers, it was never going to end. Now the sound is so good I am scared to change anything. Todd mentioned that his goal was to help people land the plane so to speak, well consider the plane landed.
On the detailed speaker setup thread, there were lots of lively discussions on the merits of ultra precise speaker positioning. Over the Christmas break, I had the good fortune of experiencing it personally (again) when Todd (@sbnx ) set up my new speakers. It has been incredibly eye(ear) opening.
Now each time I sit in front of my system, I utter to myself - I think I’m done. Of course, for us afflicted with this wonderful and at times frustrating hobby, it might never really be done, but the foundation set here is so amazing that if nothing changes again, I would be happy and satisfied. I learned a lot through this experience and I thought these personal learnings might be worth sharing:
TL;DR
- Equipment and gear is maybe 50% of the job, the rest is all setup
- The most important element of setup is speaker positioning, but after a certain level, everything matters to a critical degree: subwoofer integration, resonance control, cable complement, fuse, racks etc.
- Speaker setup is not only about its position relative to the main listening position, it’s about how the speakers couples to the room. You can hear the sound improve even from outside the room
- With only the left speaker properly dialed in and the right still turned away, the sound is much much better than two uncalibrated speakers playing towards the listening position
- Nearing the end of the process, a 1/16th of an inch movement, or 1/16th turn on the spike are HUGE adjustments. A small bump on the speaker can change the sound dramatically, it doesn’t make sense
- With proper speaker positioning, it’s much much easier to hear the smallest change elsewhere in the system. Only with speakers properly setup can one accurately evaluate other tweaks like footers
- Subwoofers are absolutely essential and take a lot of effort to dial in correctly. However when done right, they will bring out the max potential of what properly set up speakers can do
- I realized never heard the potential of any gear and system I’ve owned before
Context:
For all of us, there are those crucial moments in our journey where we hear systems that become our reference points. For me it’s Wilson XVX with Taiko and MSB, it’s MBL Extremes with its bass towers and amps, it’s Kharma Exquisite Midis with CJ gear powered by a $500 CD player at Cap Audio Fest. One of those reference points was when I first met Todd through WBF and went to his house to hear the Lampizator Pacific against the older MSB DAC V. The amount of depth in soundstage and imaging I heard in that purpose built room was something I never experienced before. Since then, both our systems have come a long way through a lot of changes, and Todd has helped me set up 2 pairs of speakers in my room.
My experience:
For this most recent pair of speakers, it took 3 full day sessions. The first session was back in early Nov. The uncrated speakers were put into my listening room, roughly at my old speakers’ location the night before setup day. My parents were visiting at the time and my dad who is a non-audiophile (interested in the idea of good sound, but would never spend over $100 for speakers) had been listening to my system with the older speakers that Todd had set up a year or so ago. With the new speakers just generally positioned in the room, he listened and said they don’t sound better than my old speakers and asked why I would spend the money. At that moment, I had to agree with him. Even though I knew they weren’t set up and I needed to have faith in the process, I was still anxious that I made a mistake.
The next day Todd came over early in the morning. We listened briefly to the calibrated setup and then quickly moved on to pushing the right speaker back and away and began working on the left speaker. The starting point is bass coupling with the room and evenness at the listening position. Todd has a specific list of songs each with a purpose to assess an specific aspect of the sound. As the day progressed, I would occasionally go downstairs to get drinks or chat with my parents, and my dad had commented around midday on how he can hear the sound getting much better even from downstairs. I had the same experience inside the room where I sat behind the main listening couch and slightly to one side, even there it was easy to hear the effects of even the smallest movement.
This setup process is described as a spiral towards the center where you hone in the placement through smaller and smaller adjustments as you get closer to the final spot. Having experienced it over 3 full days, that’s a very apt description. By the end of the process, a close fisted bump on specific spots of the speaker will yield a very audible change in tone, and a fine adjustment would constitute a much lighter tap with the knuckles. This sounds absolutely insane and I never would have believed it if I didn’t experience it with my own eyes and ears. Before we get into “expectation bias” territory, it’s worth noting that not all adjustments yielded positive results. A few times after a bump or tap, I immediately heard and said out loud that it didn’t sound as good as before. When the finest adjustments created audible changes, that’s when you know the setup is nearing the knives’ edge where everything balances.
After the first day, we ran out of time on the second speaker, so I had to wait until the next time Todd visited town to finish the setup. The sound was extremely respectable after that first day, but it still hasn’t snapped into that OMG territory that transcends great hifi. My dad popped upstairs at the end of the day to listen to both speakers and compared that to his midday visit when he heard just the left, and unprompted he said that it doesn’t sound quite as good as just the left. Again, I was in agreement. This is where I learned that after the left speaker is dialed in, the right speaker will actually degrade the sound quality if it’s not equally dialed in.
In between this and the next sessions, I forgot to glue the base of the left speaker spike supports down to the floor and accidentally bumped it with my elbow. That invariably had an impact on the sound so we had to go back to the left speaker on the second session a month later. That’s also why the second session took 2 days. By the time Todd had left after the 2nd day, my system was sounding better than I ever have. The evenly constructed soundstage dramatically increases papability and believability, the precise timing of driver integration provides the finest details with incredible transient speed, the bass integration with the room produces tight, deep bass with no overhang in my somewhat lively room.
After Todd left, I went on to finish integrating subwoofers into the system on my own. Little did I know, the combination of properly dialed in speakers and properly integrated subwoofers would bring the system even further above and beyond. This post is already incredibly long, so I will maybe save the subwoofer integration and resonance control for another time.
If any of you have read this whole thing, kudos on the patience. I am now a complete believer in the power of setup. It now makes so much sense why brands will pay someone like Stirling to set up their gear in reviewer’s homes. It makes me question why every high end brand doesn’t make this investment, and even more so makes me question every hifi review that has not been preceded by meticulous setup. I now realize that through all the gear churning, the insatiable and persistent itch to upgrade or make changes, I was just chasing my tail because I never heard the gear to the best of their ability. Before these new speakers were properly setup, I was already thinking of upgrading my DAC, upgrading my subwoofers, it was never going to end. Now the sound is so good I am scared to change anything. Todd mentioned that his goal was to help people land the plane so to speak, well consider the plane landed.
Last edited:
