Placement; Listening Position; The Wall Behind The Listener; The Wall Behind The Speakers - Martin Logan Illusion ESL C54A Mode D'emploi

PL AC E ME NT

Listening Position

Start with the rear of your speakers placed approximately two
to three feet from the front wall (the wall in front of the listen-
ing position). Your sitting distance should be further than the
distance between the speakers themselves. You are trying to
attain the impression of good center imaging and stage width.
There is no exact distance between speakers and listener,
but there is a relationship. In long rooms, naturally, that rela-
tionship changes. The distance between the speakers will
be far less than the distance from you to the speaker system.
However, in a wide room, you will still find that if the distance
from the listener to the speakers becomes smaller than the
distance between the speakers themselves, the image will no
longer focus in the center.
Now that you have positioned your speaker system, spend
time listening. Wait to make any major changes in your initial
setup for the next few days as the speaker system itself will
change subtly in its sound. Over the first 72 hours of play the
actual tonal quality will change slightly with deeper bass and
more spacious highs resulting. After a few days of listening you
can begin to make refinements and hear the differences.

The Wall Behind the Listener

Near-field reflections can also occur from your back wall
(the wall behind the listening position). If your listening posi-
tion is close to the back wall, these reflections can cause
problems and confuse imaging quality. It is better for the
wall behind you to be absorptive than to be reflective. If you
have a hard back wall and your listening position is close to
it, experiment with devices that will absorb information (i.e.
wall hangings and possibly even sound absorbing panels).

The Wall Behind the Speakers

The front surface, the wall behind the speakers, should not
be extremely hard or soft. A pane of glass will cause reflec-
tions, brightness and confused imaging. Curtains, drapery
and objects such as bookshelves can be placed along the
wall to diffuse an overly reflective surface. A standard sheet
rock or textured wall is generally an adequate surface if the
rest of the room is not too bright and hard. Walls can also
be too soft. If the entire front wall consists of heavy drap-
ery, your system can sound dull. You may hear muted music
with little ambience. Harder surfaces will actually help in
this case.
The front surface ideally should be one long wall without
any doors or openings. If you have openings, the reflection
and bass characteristics from each channel can be different.

The Side Walls

A good rule of thumb is to have the side walls as far away from
the speaker sides as possible. However, MartinLogan's unique
controlled dispersion electrostatic transducer inherently mini-
mizes side wall reflections—a position as little as two feet or
less from the side walls often proves adequate. Sometimes, if
the system is bright or the imaging is not to your liking, and the
side walls are very near, try putting curtains or softening mate-
rial directly to the edge of each speaker. An ideal side wall,
however, is no side wall at all.

Experimentation

Bass Response—Your bass response should neither be
one note nor should it be too heavy. It should extend to the
deepest organ passages and yet be tight and well defined.
Kick-drums should be tight and percussive—string bass notes
should be uniform and consistent throughout the entirety of
the run without booming or thudding.
Tonal Balance—Voices should be natural and full and cym-
bals should be detailed and articulate yet not bright and
piercing, pianos should have a nice transient characteristic and
deep tonal registers. If you cannot attain these virtues, read
the section on Room Acoustics. This will give you clues on
how to get closer to these ideal virtues.
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