Absolute fidelity – Genesis I.C.E. Genesis 6.1e User Manual
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absolute fidelity
speaker enough) pull the speakers away from the front wall a little bit at 
a time. If you do not have them pulled far enough away, you may 
not have enough front to back depth. However, slightly more than 
1/3 of the way into the room is about as far as you want to go. 
Pulling them half-way into the middle of the room is unlikely to help. 
Find the best compromise for your room, your tastes and your space 
requirements. If you are not getting proper focus on the voice, you may 
angle the left and right speaker up to about 15 to 20 degrees (toe-in) 
towards your listening position until you have a properly defined center 
image. If the speakers are too far apart, the mid-bass will decouple and 
you will lose the side image, and if they are too close together you will 
have too small a center stage. 
When properly set up, very little sound should appear to come 
directly from the speaker. Instead, the sound stage should extend far 
beyond the left and right edge of the loudspeakers and they should have 
tremendous front to back depth. When the recording is close-miked 
(when the instrument or performer is very close to the recording 
microphone), the music may appear to come directly from the 
loudspeaker. This is normal. Typically, however, the sound should 
appear to be detached from the loudspeakers. 
A simple rule of thumb to follow is that focus will be achieved by placing 
the speakers closer together or farther apart, and front to back depth 
can be adjusted by the distance from the rear wall. Further, as the 
system “breaks in”, the depth and width of the soundspace will increase 
and so will the “smoothness” of the sound. 
3.2 Further adjustments
In some problematic rooms a resonance may develop at one or more 
frequencies, that is unnatural to the music. By moving the speakers 
closer to the front wall or farther from the front wall, the resonance may 
be reduced at the listener’s position. You may have to place the 
speakers asymmetrically in the room. Bass resonances are caused by 
speakers exciting room modes, and these are generally symmetrically 
distributed in the room. 
There are no absolute hard and fast rules concerning problematic 
rooms, so do not be afraid to experiment with speaker placement to 
determine the best position of the speakers in your room. 
