Wilson Audio WATCH Center Series 3 - Manual (Page 14)

volume, project your voice out into the room. Your voice will have an overly
heavy, “chesty” quality because of your proximity to the rear wall.
2. While speaking, slowly move out into the room, progressing in a direction
parallel to the sidewall. It is helpful to have another listener seated in the
listening position to assist you during this process. Listen to how your voice
“frees up” from the added bass energy imparted by the rear wall boundary.
Also notice that your voice is quite spatially diffuse (to your assistant, your
voice will sound spatially large and difficult to localize) as you begin to ease
away from the rear wall.
3. At some point during your progression forward into the room, you will ob-
serve a sonic transition in your voice; it will sound more tonally correct and
less spatially diffuse (your assistant can now precisely localize the exact ori-
gin of your voice). When you hear this transition, you have entered the inner
edge of the Zone of Neutrality. Place a piece of tape on the floor to mark this
location. Although it will vary from room to room, in most rooms the zone
begins between two and a half to three feet from the rear wall.
4. Continue to walk slowly away from the rear wall. After some distance, usu-
ally one to two feet past the first piece of tape, you will begin to hear your
voice lose focus and appear to reflect (echo) in front of you. This is caused
by the return of the room’s boundary contribution; your voice is now in-
teracting with the opposite wall. At the point where you begin to hear the
reflected sound of your voice, you have reached the outer edge of the Zone
of Neutrality. Place a piece of tape on the floor and mark this location. The
distance between the “inner” and “outer” edge tape marks is usually be-
tween eight inches (for small, interactive rooms) and three feet (for large,
more neutral rooms).
5. Now position yourself against the side wall perpendicular to the intended
speaker location. Stand between the two tape marks. Using the same pro-
cedure as above, begin moving into the room toward the opposite sidewall,
progressing between the two pieces of tape. As above, listen for the point in
the room where your voice transitions from bass-heavy and diffuse to neu-
tral. Mark this point with tape. Continue your progression until there is an
obvious interaction with the opposite wall in front of you and mark this point
with tape. The four pieces of tape now form a rectangle that establishes the
Zone of Neutrality for the loudspeaker located on that side of the room. Us-
ing the four marks as your guide, tape an outline to define the boundaries of
the rectangle.
6. Repeat this process for each speaker location individually. These are your
Zones of Neutrality, one for each channel.
Theoretically, the Zone of Neutrality for any room runs like a path, parallel to the
walls all around the room. Adjacent to very large windows and open doors, the outer edge
of the Zone of Neutrality moves closer to the wall and becomes wider. If you were to ex-
tend the inner and outer boundaries of the Zone for the sidewalls and the front wall (be-
hind the speakers), they would intersect. After you complete this procedure for the other
loudspeaker, you will now have two rectangles, one on the floor on either side of the room.
Section 3.2—Room Acoustics
Note: The following section contains general information on room acoustics and loud-
speaker/room interaction. The concepts outlined below are equally relevant when deal-
ing with multi-channel audio or home theater. The careful application of these concepts,
as you evaluate the acoustical characteristics of your own room configuration, will al-
low you to optimize the performance of your Center Series 3.
Slap Echo
Probably the most obnoxious form of reflection is called “slap echo.” With slap-echo,
primarily midrange and high frequency sounds reflect off of two parallel hard surfaces. The
sound literally reverberates back and forth until it is finally dissipated over time. You can
test for slap echo in any room by clapping your hands sharply in the middle of the room
and listening for the characteristic sound of the echo in the midrange. Slap echo destroys
the sound quality of a stereo system in two ways:
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