ESSENCE PLACEMENT TUNING
ZU AUDIO | 3350 S. 1500 W. | OGDEN, UTAH — U.S.A. [DESIGNED AND MADE BY US] WWW.ZUAUDIO.COMZU AUDIO | 3350 S. 1500 W. | OGDEN, UTAH — U.S.A. [DESIGNED AND MADE BY US] WWW.ZUAUDIO.COM
PLACEMENT FINE TUNING OVERVIEW + LESSON ON TONE
There are two main areas of fidelity if bandwidth, dynamic range, and group delay (more or less
timing) are assumed—and dynamic range, bandwidth and group delay are largely set by the
system and the user can’t really tune these elements anyway—they are tone, (tone as used by
Helmholtz and further defined by guitarist everywhere) and stereophonic realism (“soundstage”
as is the hi-fi jargon) which is the ability to recreate three-dimensionality.
Traditional musical instruments are tuned around the concept of tone, and not stereo. If your
playback system doesn’t do tone little else matters (to the majority anyway). So if you want to
hear what Mike Watt is doing with his 1963 Gibson EB-3 bass guitar, or tell it apart from a 1966
Fender Mustang, focus on building tone in your room and system and forget the stereophonic.
Once you have tone and texture, then move to dialing in the stereophonic aspects of playback.
NOTE: How and where the loudspeakers excite a room and how a room reacts are relative to the
type and source of excitation and room reactance—a function of boundaries (walls, floors, etc.);
boundary properties (mass, compliance, Q, damping, texture and structure); area impedances
(shape, volume); diffusion and absorption (furnishings, people, flooring, etc.); source and type
of wave excitation (loudspeaker design and placement); resonators (closets, forced air ducting,
hallways, etc.); even atmospheric pressure and humidity, though very minor, will influence
sound. While the above are beyond the scope of this manual, the recommendations and listed
books will start you down the proper acoustic path. Now, with your loudspeakers positioned for
visual appeal, livability and fidelity, you can now begin fine-tuning. This involves three major
steps: in sequence they are bass, mids and treble. If you can’t fine-tune your system within an
evening or two please contact us, we’re here to help.
PLACEMENT FINE TUNING | BASS
If you have one loudspeaker that is framed with more wall space than the other, this is the
loudspeaker you will fine-tune and then simply mirror the other. Select recordings with large
amounts of sustained low frequency information; dramatic pipe organ and dance music work, as
do test recordings that have warbled low frequency tracks (50—100Hz range). Note that steady-
state sine, triangle and square wave signals prove very difficult to interpret. Bass information
with some transient content will enable the listener to make fast work of fine-tuning.
With the loudspeaker playing at a moderate level, (VERY IMPORTANT—only the ‘tuning
loudspeaker’ should be connected and ‘on’) walk over and kneel down next to it. Kneeling
will put your head in the seated listening horizontal plane and allow you to hear how the
loudspeaker integrates with the room. Now move your head and ears in all directions around
the vertical axis of the loudspeaker, say a few feet or so [0.5m] on all sides. It’s big bass
waves we are listening to here (envision the size of North Shore surf, moving at the speed of
sound, moving around, impinging and bounding off all the walls in your home. Yep, bass waves
are big). Listen to the fidelity of the bass, does it sound woolly and muddy right behind the
loudspeaker? Is the bass more defined a bit to the left or right? If the bass sounds better a bit
to the left, move the loudspeaker to this position and then listen again. Remember, moving the
