AV Education on RHT: Bob Hodas' Sound Tips Part 2 June 2003 When we last left off, we had moved your speakers all over the room until you found the spot where they sounded best. Ideally, when finished, you realized that you had improved your room in more ways than simply buying any new piece of gear on the market. I know speaker setup is a daunting task and some of you may be still procrastinating. That’s okay, because I can’t provide all of the necessary information in just one column. There’s more help this month. For instance, did I remember to tell you it would be much easier if you removed those speaker spikes first? No? Shame on me! Those spikes will have an audible effect on the low end, but you don’t need them for the initial placement. Even with my high-resolution gear, I can’t measure any difference in frequency, phase or ...

AV Education on RHT How I Tuned My Own (Difficult) Room – Without Blocking The View of The Golden Gate Bridge By Bob Hodas Last time we looked at a room that needed help but was not a big challenge. So as promised, now we get to look at my mess. I’ve been in this house for about 13 years and the system has evolved from large stereo speakers to small, stand mounted stereo speakers, to a 5.1 setup with five Meyer Sound Labs HD-1s and two Revel B-15s for the LFE channel. While I like to watch movies, my primary focus is music. So for me, the speaker placement took precedent over everything else. It was important to have a setup that conformed to the same standards by which I tune studios. At the same time, when my girlfriend moved in, I had to figure out a way to make some compromises ...

AV Education on RHT: Bob Hodas on Proper Speaker Placement May 2003 Introduction When the esteemed editor of AudioRevolution.com, Bryan Southard, contacted me to write an ongoing column on acoustic advice for home audio systems for RevolutionHomeTheater.com, I replied, "No problem, I've analyzed more consumer level systems than I can remember." Southard then added in the challenge of writing my column from the perspective of a “do-it-yourselfer” who has made some significant investments in his gear but is tired of hearing that he needs to constantly invest more in gear to get better sound. We all know your room and your system setup is essential to the overall success of your sonics. In many cases, it is more than the gear you have purchased. In a world where there are very few rules of thumb, in my upcoming features, I'm going to give you my professional guidance in solving some of your system problems on your ...

AV Education on RHT Sound Tips 3 By Bob Hodas Very few of us have the luxury of a dedicated room in which to put our speakers. In most cases, we are squeezing them into a space that is too small or have to deal with a living or family room that is not symmetrical. Then there is the spousal factor, which may keep you from putting the speakers where they need to be. In this column we will start to look at how to overcome some of these real world problems. This time we’ll look at how I dealt with a client’s room (let’s call him Bob) without having to go there to measure it. For you, that translates directly into a do it yourself project. We’re starting off with a fairly easy one today, a room that has a minimum of symmetrical problems. We’ll work our way into the big problems in the ...

AV Education on RHT Sound Tips 5 By Bob Hodas So, in the last column, we had just gotten my speakers placed. Figure 1 shows the room layout once again. The five gray boxes are the L/C/R & Surrounds. The two black boxes are the LFE subs. The turquoise items in the lower right corner are my equipment racks. As stated in the last column, music is my primary focus. I therefore have my discrete surrounds set up in the rear, with the L/R/S in a modified equilateral set-up. This follows the DTS recommendation more than the ITU, since most recording studios are not following the ITU recommendation to date. Remember that these are set-up recommendations, not standards! I have also found (as have many engineers) that film soundtracks translate to discrete rears much better than 5.1 music translates to split surrounds or dipole/bipole-style speakers. So if you want to listen to a lot of ...