Better Sounding Sound - Initial Zu Loudspeaker Placement.
Before buying gear to fix what might not be a gear problem, commit to playing in the Devil’s sonic triangle—balancing placement of Zu loudspeakers with the characteristics of the room and tastes of the listener. Here are some initial ideas for getting the sound you have in your head into your room and into your ears.
Work with the design of the room and its characteristic acoustics, free of prejudices, and the questionable acoustic devices possibly littering it. Start with your Zu loudspeakers placed where you’ve visualized them. Sound qualities are subjective and you are your own unique set of senses and sensibilities—trust your gut, at least for now. While your speakers positions might not be the sonic best, they might be.
Zu speakers are not overly sensitive to being in just the right place—bass integration may prove otherwise. Bass wavelengths are very large and moving the speaker a few inches this way or that will not make a meaningful impact in the bass region.
From the main listening chair (sweet spot) the angle formed by the speakers should be between 40° and 80°. Wider is usually better for stereo and home theater, 60˚ (equilateral triangle) is a great starting point. Zu speaker pairs are very tightly matched which is one of the reasons you can have a wider than normal stereo spread and not have the middle fall out. If the middle of the soundfield collapses, scoot them in and/or mess with toe-in. If at 80º, and toed so they are pointed right at you, you are still not getting a seamless soundfield, then something is wrong. The speaker cable on one of the channels might be flipped (red to black, black to red) or one of the amp channels is going sideways—time to troubleshoot. Note, there is a small chance of some odd room acoustic interaction and your system is fine. Troubleshooting this entails disconnecting one of the speakers, listening to just one, making a mental map, then doing the same to the other channel. Listening to just one speaker at a time is insightful, so much so that we developed a whole process of placement tuning around it. We’ll expand on that in future Better Sounding Sound posts.
Back to two-channel tuning, with the speakers pointing (toed in) right at the main listening chair, listen. Then splay them out so they are pointed a few feet [0.8 m] behind. Then try wider still. Then back to right at you and then try having them pointing in front of you. Experiment, making mental maps, letting listening be your guide.
Having experimented with toe and hearing how that affects sound will help you hear the more subtle differences lean-back makes. For smaller rooms with low-slung seats no lean-back is typical. But for smaller Zu speakers such as DW6, Union and Soul, placed in big rooms lean-back will likely improve overall sound.
The devil’s triangle is not a drinking game. Experiment with your speaker placement, your room, where you sit… the changes and improvements to be had are not subtle.