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9. Placing your Monitoring System
Your monitors may already be positioned exactly where you need them for many other reasons, if this is the case you
can move to the next section and start connecting ERGO.
If you are positioning your monitors for the first time, or have an opportunity to re-position your monitors we strongly
advise reading this section. One of the great advantages of ERGO and the RoomPerfect technology is overcoming
some traditional limitations.
When it comes to placement of traditional monitors it is actually possible to think differently with ERGO because of
its use of RoomPerfect™, i.e. to break away from conventional ‘free space’ placement.
Normally, you need to choose a monitor placement well away from rear and sidewalls to secure the best possible
frequency response. Due to the fact that a traditional monitor has Omni polar dispersion in the bass region, this ‘free
space’ placement has a big disadvantage namely that you actually risk ‘destroying’ the impulse response. The reason
for this is that you hear both the direct sound from the speaker and later all the reflections from the walls. The
reflections are delayed as a consequence of the distance to the walls and will therefore arrive later thus smearing the
‘attack’ of e.g. a drumbeat. Typically back wall reflections are the most annoying because they arrive from the same
direction as the direct sound from the loudspeaker. Sidewall reflections are easier for the brain to cope with because
they arrive from another direction. Therefore they are often regarded as adding ambience and localization clues.
The close or near-field monitor reduces room interaction. This can be compared to the conventional stereo
configuration or the large monitor arrangement in a recording studio where sounds emanating from the monitor or
reflecting off ceilings, walls, and floors greatly affect the sound quality.
If you place the loudspeaker close to the back wall the bass reflections from the wall and the direct sound will arrive
simultaneously at the listening position – i.e. the impulse response in the bass region can be improved considerably
and ERGO can easily compensate for the uneven frequency response as a consequence of the placement. So, with
ERGO it can actually be an advantage to choose what’s normally regarded as a less ideal ‘close wall‘ loudspeaker
placement as this will not only improve the impulse response.
Also, when compensating for the increased efficiency, the load on both amplifier and loudspeaker is decreased
resulting in less distortion and better headroom is achieved. And taking energy out of the system also has another
advantage because delivering less energy into the room means that room modes are less excited. From this a much
more even power response across the room is achieved – i.e. the differences between peaks and dips in the response
are reduced dramatically.
The result you see after calibration is that the “Room Correction Index” will also be quite high since correction in the
bass region is needed. However, the index number is not high because you have a ‘poor’ system – it’s high just
because you have chosen a loudspeaker position that improves the impulse response but then requires compensation
for the increased efficiency in the bass region. Try it out and see what works for you – near wall or ‘free space’
placement - ERGO works in both cases.
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