Setup Optimization

In a conventional setup of a speaker system, the objective is to make the frequency response as flat as possible by distributing resonance's, standing waves and reflections as much as possible, while trying to maintain an acceptable, overall, tonal balance of the system.

This will often lead to many compromises regarding the living space: Speakers have to be placed far away from the back wall and well away from the side walls. The listening position will often have to be in an area which is optimized for the overall utilization of the living space - away from the back wall.

Quite often the best result is achieved with a distance from the speaker to the listening position that is much shorter than comfortable. The reason is simply that the closer you are to the speaker, relative to the room size, the more of the sound will arrive directly from the speakers relative to the indirect sound, hence the room will have less influence. Notice how many Hi Fi enthusiasts sit way up on the front of the seat when they want to listen critically to a Hi Fi component - basically to get less room interference.

With a TACT RCS in your system you can rearrange your speakers and seating position with spectacular results.

The following principles will give great results with RCS:

1. Place the speakers much closer to the back wall than usual. This will couple the speaker better to the room and give a lift in the bass region. When this lift is cut back with the RCS you will have the benefit of overall higher headroom and less distortion - simply because any given amount of power sent to the speaker will result in higher output. But even more important: The room amplification due to the speaker placement will come quicker, giving a better impulse response. In most cases the overall improvement once the RCS is engaged will be staggering.

2. Place the speakers with a greater angle as seen from the listening position i.e. further apart. In a conventional setup this angle can be in the order of 60 degrees, but with RCS it is absolutely safe to experiment with an angle up to 90 degrees. This is because the RCS will make the frequency response of each speaker virtually identical and also do very accurate time alignment, thus allowing greater separation between the speakers without creating center-imaging problems.

3. Use less toe-in on the speakers. Very often it's recommended to point the speakers directly at the center of the listening position, this will reduce problems induced by the room. With a RCS available it's advisable to try a setup with very little or no toe-in. (exempt are speakers with limited horizontal dispersion such as some electrostatic speakers). Almost every speaker has less distortion off axis than on axis; therefore this will give you less distortion in the listening position. Additionally this will result in a flatter power response of the system.

4. In most cases the sound will improve if you remove any devices that you may have added to the room to solve previous acoustical problems. Most of the time, such devices will create their own resonance's and also add to the general damping of the room.