ELAC AIR-X Bedienungsanleitung Seite 43

Setup guides for bookshelf and floor-standing loudspeakers
ELAC bookshelf loudspeakers are recognizable by their size, while a loudspeaker measuring e.g. 90 cm high is of course a floor-
standing design. However, bookshelf loudspeakers do not necessarily have to be placed on a shelf. They can also be placed on a
stand, a wall console or on a sideboard.
As a general rule, the loudspeaker drive units should always be pointed towards to listener. Bookshelf loudspeakers should not
be placed lying on their rear side and under no circumstances resting on their front side. The distance to the rear wall or shelf wall
should not be less than 2 cm. Placement on a shelf or a small stand reinforces the bass frequencies and this is taken into account
in the development process. However, you should ensure that other walls (e.g. side walls) in the immediate vicinity do not over-
emphasize this bass reinforcement, resulting in a loss of precision in the bass. You should therefore avoid placing loudspeakers
in corners in the room or on the bottom shelf. The same applies to floor-standing loudspeakers, where bass reinforcement due
the proximity of the floor is taken into account during development. If possible, floor-standing loudspeakers should be placed at
least 20 ... 30 cm from rear and side walls.
When setting up floor-standing models, we recommend fitting the spikes or carpet supports that are often supplied with the
loudspeakers to prevent the transmission of structure-borne sound from the loudspeaker cabinet to the floor.
To ensure precise positioning of voices and instruments during playback, the distance from the listener to the loudspeakers
should be at least 20 % less than the length of the room. If this distance is too small (less than 2 meters), the spatial quality of the
music will be reduced. In your efforts to optimize the position of your loudspeakers by ear, it is important to remember that the
sound you hear is influenced as much by your listening position as it is by the position of your loudspeakers. This means that the
loudspeaker position and the listening position are acoustically equivalent – or interchangeable. Despite its huge importance,
very few people are aware of this rule. You should not be surprised, for example, if after finding the perfect free-standing position
for your loudspeakers in the room, you decide to listen from the rear wall or from a corner only to be "assaulted" by boomy, muddy
bass. Expert tip: The equivalence of the loudspeaker position and the listening position only applies to those frequency ranges
that the loudspeaker radiates in all directions. Virtually all loudspeakers (with the exception of dipole speakers) exhibit this type
of radiation characteristic in the bass range, where the influence of the room is particularly noticeable and therefore of great-
est importance when it comes to finding the optimum loudspeaker position. The equivalence of the loudspeaker and listening
positions also means that one should avoid certain symmetries in the loudspeaker and listening position, e.g. loudspeakers and
listener both positioned 1 meter from their respective rear walls. These types of symmetries can accentuate the adverse acoustic
effects of the room.
a = b Symmetric (unfavorable) configuration a ≠ b Asymmetric (better) configuration
The diagrams above show examples of symmetric (unfavorable) and asymmetric (better) configurations of listening and loud-
speaker positions. The triangle between loudspeaker 1, the listener and loudspeaker 2 is known as the stereo triangle. The listen-
ing positions should be approximately on the center line between the two speakers.
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