Summit floorstanding loudspeaker ユーザーズマニュアル

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This is one of those areas that requires both a little back-
ground to understand and some time and experimentation 
to obtain the best performance from your system.
Your room is actually a component and an important part 
of your system. This component is a very large variable 
and can dramatically add to, or subtract from, a great 
musical experience.
All sound is composed of waves. Each note has its own 
wave size, with the lower bass notes literally encompassing 
from 10’ feet to as much as 40’ feet. Your room partici-
pates in this wave experience like a three dimensional pool 
with waves reflecting and becoming enhanced depending 
on the size of the room and the types of surfaces in the room.
Remember, your audio system can literally generate all of 
the information required to recreate a musical event in 
time, space, and tonal balance. Ideally, your room should 
not contribute to that information. However, every room 
does contribute to the sound to some degree. Fortunately 
MartinLogan had designed the Summit to minimize these 
anomalies
Let’s talk about a few important terms before we begin.
Terminology
Standing Waves
The parallel walls in your room will reinforce certain notes 
to the point that they will sound louder than the rest of 
the audio spectrum and cause “one note bass”, “boomy 
bass” or “bloated bass”. For instance, 100Hz represents a 
10 feet wavelength. Your room will reinforce that specific 
frequency if one of the dominant dimensions is 10 feet. 
Large objects in the room such as cabinetry or furniture 
can help to minimize this potential problem. Some seri-
ous “audiophiles” will literally build a special room with 
no parallel walls just to help eliminate this phenomenon.
Reflective Surfaces (near-field reflections)
The hard surfaces of your room, particularly if close to your 
speaker system, will reflect some waves back into the room 
over and over again, confusing the clarity and imaging of 
your system. The smaller sound waves are mostly affected 
here, and occur in the mid and high frequencies. This is 
where voice and frequencies as high as the cymbals occur.
Resonant Surfaces and Objects
All of the surfaces and objects in your room are subject to 
the frequencies generated by your system. Much like an 
instrument, they will vibrate and “carry on” in syncopation 
with the music, and contribute in a negative way to the 
music. Ringing, boominess, and even brightness can occur 
simply because they are “singing along” with your music.
Resonant Cavities
Small alcoves or closet type areas in your room can be 
chambers that create their own “standing waves” and can 
drum their own “one note” sounds.
Clap your hands. Can you hear an instant echo respond 
back? You have near-field reflections. Stomp your foot 
on the floor. Can you hear a “boom”? You have standing 
waves or large panel resonances such as a poorly sup-
ported wall. Put your head in a small cavity area and talk 
loudly. Can you hear a booming? You’ve just experienced 
a cavity resonance.
Rules of Thumb
Hard vs. Soft Surfaces
If the front or back wall of your listening room is soft, it 
might benefit you to have a hard or reflective wall in 
opposition. The ceiling and floor should follow the same 
basic guideline as well. However, the side walls should be 
roughly the same in order to deliver a focused image. 
This rule suggests that a little reflection is good. As a matter 
of fact, some rooms can be so “over damped” with carpet-
ing, drapes and sound absorbers that the music system 
can sound dull and lifeless. On the other hand, rooms can 
be so hard that the system can sound like a gymnasium 
with too much reflection and brightness. The point is that 
balance is the optimum environment.
Breakup Objects
Objects with complex shapes, such as bookshelves, cabinetry 
and multiple shaped walls can help break up those sonic 
gremlins and diffuse any dominant frequencies.
Solid Coupling
Your loudspeaker system generates frequency vibrations or 
waves into the room. This is how it creates sound. These 
vibrations vary from 20 per second to 20,000 per sec-
Your Room
Room Acoustics     13
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