Wisdom Audio DCAB-1 - Manual (Page 18)

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benefit (when done properly) of providing outstanding acoustic isolation from
adjacent spaces as well as superb bass reproduction. This approach goes well
beyond the scope of an owner’s manual; if you are interested, you should con-
tact a professional acoustician who has specialized in this sort of domestic room
design.
Speaker Placement Within the room itself, placement of the speakers and the listener will have a
profound effect on the performance of the system, particularly below 300-400
Hz. There is no “perfect” position that will solve all problems, but finding the
best compromise will make it easier to solve the remaining problems with the
DCAB-1.
Your Wisdom Audio dealer can help you with speaker placement, which is
never quite as simple as it seems it should be. The characteristics you need to
listen for are several:
• Stable, 3-dimensional imaging
This usually requires reasonable symmetry within the room, and
a bit of space between the speakers and adjacent walls (to mini-
mize the adverse effects of the first reflections). Mono (correlated)
pink noise can help here, though it does not replace listening to
music. With pink noise playing in both speakers, you should hear
a tightly-defined little “ball” of pink noise floating in space exactly
halfway between the speakers. Minor adjustments to the position
of the speakers in order to center and tighten the focus of this test
signal will yield superior clarity of image placement, size and po-
sition later, when listening to music.
• Smooth, consistent bass
Oft-cited rules of thumb for smoother bass reproduction include
both “placing the speakers at different distances from the side
walls vs. the wall behind them,” and “placing them at ‘odd frac-
tions’ of the room’s dimensions” (e.g., fractions in which the
denominator is an odd number, like
1 ⁄
3
, 2 ⁄
5
, 2 ⁄
7
, etc.). But nothing
replaces your experience in your room, combined with your deal-
er’s experience in a variety of rooms. Playing pink noise through
the woofer sections of your Wisdom Audio speakers (with the
microphone at the listening position, and prior to doing any equal-
ization) will let you see the results of your labors.
Look for relatively smooth response, even if it trails off in the deep bass. The un-
derhung design of your Wisdom Audio Low Frequency Regenerators is specifi-
cally designed to handle the extra power brought on by equalization. But some
problems are easier to correct than others. Starting out with relatively smooth
bass response, even if somewhat limited in bass extension, makes for an easy fix
(using the Bassis control in the DCAB-1).
Room Treatment Rectangular rooms have six reflecting surfaces (four walls, ceiling and floor) that
reflect sound to the listener, after a delay introduced by the indirect route the
sound took. These first reflections are particularly damaging to the sound quality
at the listening position. Since this happens for both Left and Right speakers, you
have a minimum of twelve first reflection points in your room that deserve some
attention.
Fortunately, the line source behavior of your Wisdom Audio loudspeakers
minimizes the most destructive of these reflections, those from the ceiling and