Tips & Tricks: Get the most out of your speakers

When you are buying new speakers, there are several things you should be aware of to ensure, that you get the most out of your speakers. At the same time, you should also think about your musical needs, so that you choose the right speakers for the purpose. Here are our top tips and tricks to help you sound better.

1. Space and size

You should always be aware of the room your speakers will be playing in. Here, the size and nature of the room has a greater impact on the sound than most might think. Generally speaking, large floor-standing speakers are for use in larger rooms, and smaller speakers tend to sound best in smaller rooms. There are exceptions to this rule, however, as Audiovector uses a downward bass reflex port, for example, which makes it easier to integrate them into the room. This means you can get great sound from their floorstanding speakers in even smaller rooms, where they can be positioned at a much smaller distance from the wall than more traditional floorstanding speakers. You should therefore always work with your dealer to find the right size speaker for your room.

Acoustics and fine tuning

There are also other parameters in the room that play a role in your overall listening experience. The acoustic properties of the room are a factor to be taken into account when buying new speakers. This refers to acoustics/reverberation, where a large and empty room with bare walls and floors will often be a major challenge for acoustics. Here you can strategically place furniture and carpets in the room to achieve a significant difference in sound. In addition, it is very important not to play against large bare walls. The room should be “subdued” without being “soundless”. It kills the dynamics, and thus the sound.

Clap tests

To get a better feel for the acoustics in your room, try clapping your hands. The sound from the clapper should settle quickly, not thrum and vibrate in the room with much reverberation. The emptier the room and the walls, the longer it will take for the sound from the clapper to settle.

2. Placement

When using traditional stereo speakers, it is important that your speakers are placed symmetrically. This means that they should be at the same listening distance to your preferred listening position, with the fronts of the speakers pointing towards the listener. To do this correctly, you should measure the distance from the front of the speakers to the listener. The more accurate you are with the measurement, the more accurate a sound image you will achieve.

The speakers should also be spaced apart to achieve “stereo perspective”. Depending on the size of the room, of course. The sound specialist recommends that you place the speakers at least 2 metres apart and no more than 5 metres. If the distance is less than 2 metres, it becomes difficult to create a correct stereo image, and if they are too far apart, the sound image becomes incoherent. A rule of thumb is that the speakers should be the same distance apart as the distance from the speakers to your preferred listening position. This forms an isosceles triangle, with the speaker units angled towards the listener.

Distance to the walls

As far as possible, do not place your speakers too close to corners. We recommend that you start by placing your speakers 30 cm from the back wall, and then slowly move forward until you reach a point where the sound deteriorates. Then move the speakers back a bit. From there, the speakers are gradually moved further apart (out to the sides) to achieve a wider stereo perspective. When an “empty” gap occurs in the sound image, the speakers are moved a little closer together again.

The final step is to angle the speakers a few degrees at a time towards your preferred listening position, so that the sound image is more accurate. When the stereo image starts to become less and less clear, the speakers are angled back again. Then you have the optimal sound image. To confirm that you have achieved the correct sound image, you may want to lean back and forth in your listening position. If the sound gets worse when you lean back and forth, the speakers are angled correctly. However, if the sound improves when you lean forward, you have angled the speakers too little. If the sound is better when you lean back, the speakers are angled too much.

Uniform placement of speakers

In addition, it is very important that your speakers are placed as equally as possible in relation to the surroundings, because this affects the acoustic properties that each speaker has in relation to each other when playing music. Put another way, it is not a good idea to place one speaker in a corner or hidden behind furniture or similar, and the other speakers in a free environment. The more similar the environment you give your speakers, the better and more harmonious your sound will be.

Popular floorstanding speakers

3. Speaker coupling

“The speaker needs to be firmly planted on the surface so that it can radiate all its energy one way – towards you. This makes for a more accurate, dynamic and punchy sound.”

Thomas, Owner

If your speakers are to be placed on the floor, it is important that they are placed on a firm surface so that the speakers do not move back and forth when music is played. Therefore, use the supplied “spikes”, which are a kind of tapered screws. These spikes are screwed into the threads on the bottom of the speakers to create as small and stable a contact surface as possible.

Adjust these “spikes” so the speaker is stable on all four spikes. If you play directly on a wooden floor, you can use the so-called “floor-protectors”. They are a kind of round discs with a small recess in the middle, which are placed on the wooden floor before the speaker with “spikes” is placed on top of them. It helps protect the floor from damage from the tapered “spikes”.

4. Run in your speakers

All new speakers must be “run in”. This means in principle that they just have to get used to being loaded when they are new. There are two types of attribution that have an influence here. The electric and the mechanical.

The electrical connection means that the components mounted on the speakers’ crossovers need a little time to get used to the current they have to work with. In this way, these components optimise themselves over time, resulting in better sound.

The mechanical tuning is done in the moving parts of the speakers, which are located in the units mounted on the front of the speakers. The bass/midrange units have a movable magnet system and also a so-called “edge suspension” that holds the unit’s membrane in the basket in which the unit is mounted. These moving parts are also under the influence of so-called tuning, and just like the electrical parts in the speaker, these moving parts also need some tuning to perform optimally.

Popular compact speakers

5. The right amplifier for your speakers

It’s always important to choose the right amplifier to drive your speakers. Every loudspeaker has a so-called “operating power”, which is an indicator of how much power is needed to drive the speakers. Here it is important that you do not have an amplifier that is too small to pull the speakers. In theory, you cannot have too much power to drive the speakers, but rather too little power. In fact, it is rarely powerful amplifiers that cause speakers to “burn out”. However, it is often when the amplifier is not powerful enough that accidents happen. Here it is important that you, in consultation with professionals, choose the right amplifier for your speakers. Or, conversely, get the right speaker for your amp.

“Tip: Hear our products in your own home for 30 days with full return policy. Then you can hear how the product sounds in your environment with your system.”

Thomas, Owner

6. Use your speakers wisely

No matter which speakers you buy, they can always be damaged by improper use. So play wisely, and don’t play louder than the music still sounds good and clean. In general, it should never be necessary to play louder than half power on your amplifier if it fits your speakers.