A Little to the Left....THERE!

This could be a post about getting your back scratched, or hanging a picture, or placing a piece of furniture for your significant other. It's none of those. What it is about is the timeless exercise undertaken by audiophiles everywhere immediately after a move to a new home, apartment, or some other hovel where said audiophile's precious equipment, namely the loudspeakers in this case, will be tested.

In my case, I have 2 Yamaha NS-1000M speakers from the early 70's, weighing in at 80 lbs. apiece. It's known that monsters like these, when positioned improperly like directly on the floor and against the wall behind them, will, in a not very pleasant way, shake the foundations and have you running screaming from the room. And so it was with that knowledge that, years ago, my wife and I studied the fine art of speaker placement, because after all what we're after is a close reproduction to the real thing, not a homey facsimile of what some cars blast you with these days.

We want highs that don't burst the eardrums. Lows that don't wake the neighbors but that you can still feel in your shoes. And midrange that, when you close your eyes, transforms your sound stage into a live musician right before your ears.

And so it was that over the years we have purchased stands, spikes, and 2 slabs of 40 lb marble, all to keep the sounds we love from absorbing into the floor but instead hitting our heads at just the right frequency. But frequency's only part of the puzzle, which is where "a little to the left" comes into play.

It always amazes me how much difference a half inch will make when that half inch means moving the speaker one way or the other to get the the sound waves directed just right. My process of doing this is a friggin' workout! I probably should change homes more often just to get the exercise I so badly need. I position each 80 lb speaker, then proceed to run back and forth from speakers to the "sweet spot" (i.e. that space on the couch facing the center point between the speakers where the musician seems to be sitting. It's an awesome experience once you achieve that.) Anyway, I tweak and twiddle until sound nirvana has been reached. I mark the position on the floor with masking tape, and then move the speakers so I can place the 40 lb marble bases there. I then attach the spikes to the bottom of the speaker stands and center them on the marble. And finally, the coup de gras of the whole thing is lifting the precious dead weights and positioning them dead center on the stands. What I should now have is, from the bottom up, marble, spikes, stands, speakers, all positioned exactly right.

But do I? Not on your life. And so begins the arduous task of moving the speakers, on their stands, on the spikes, total 85 lbs, an eighth or a quarter of an inch at a time to the right placement. This is where I relearn that those heavily laden spikes don't move that well across a marble base. Fingernails on a blackboard is one thing. This is a whole new level of the same.

Ok, I've bored you enough on the topic. There's almost not a better feeling in the world (well, I can probably think of one or two) than realizing that I've achieved proper speaker placement, because Don Henley is singing to me from direct center between the speakers, with the occasional sound byte coming at me from beyond the speaker's physical range.

I mention Don Henley because, if you didn't know, the Eagles CD "Hell Freezes Over" is one of the best produced CD's for the effort I just described and will test the highs and lows perfectly. If that recording sounds lousy, then you won't have a decent sounding one in your collection.

Having said that, though, my first choice for listening once I knew it was set up right, was Heart Attack In A Lay By by Porcupine Tree. If you don't know, a lay by is like a North American rest stop in England. The guy in the song pulls in, and has a heart attack. But it's a well produced malady that's for sure.