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Placement and Operation
Speaker/room interactions have a huge impact on the sound of
the system. Moving the speakers just a little bit can make a
dramatic difference in what you hear. The compact design of
Theater One’s components provides you with maximum
placement flexibility while creating a large, seamless, acoustically
accurate soundfield for your home theater or music system. The
best placement of the speakers will vary from room to room. Use
the following placement guidelines and the illustration above as a
starting point. But also feel free to experiment. In fact, it may be
beneficial to hook up the speakers with some extra wire and to
simply drape the wire across the floor before installing the
speakers permanently. This will allow you the opportunity to
move the speakers around easily so you can find the best sonic
and visual locations.
Home Theater
Please note that the primary goal of a good home theater is not
to make you believe that you are in a movie theater. It’s to make
you believe you are in the action occurring on the screen. For a
home theater system, place your Compact Theater One LR
speakers on either side of the television. The three front channel
speakers (Compact Theater One LRs and C) are magnetically
shielded so they will not interfere with your television picture.
The left front and right front speakers should be far enough apart
that you get a good stereo image, but not so far apart that the
sound seems to come directly from the speakers, distracting you
from the picture. You may chose to “toe” the LR speakers in,
aiming them at the prime listening position. This can be
particularly useful if the front LR speakers are fairly far apart.
The Compact One C should be placed directly above or below
your television. It is important that the speaker is centered on the
screen, not off to the side.
Note: Some surround sound decoders and receivers offer a choice
of “Normal” / Small or “Wide-band / Large” modes for the center
channel. The Compact One C is designed to be used in the “Normal /
Small” mode. Additionally, some discrete digital home theater systems
allow you to select between “Small” and “Large” speakers throughout
the system. Since the Compact Theater One system has been designed
to work only with an active subwoofer, please set all the speaker
positions to “Small.”
Surround Effects
The Compact One SR’s size and shape allows greater flexibility in
placement than most conventional surround loudspeakers. Due
to their monopole design it’s preferable to locate the SR
Surround speakers behind the prime listening position, at least
2 feet above ear level when seated. The goal is to aim the front of
the speakers in such a way that their output is not directed right
at the listeners and therefore not easily localizable. For example,
placing them on the sides of the room, behind the listening
position and aimed across at each other, is a good starting point.
Note: The surround speakers are intended to re-create the ambient
sounds taking place in the movie scene. Throughout most of a movie or
TV program you may not be directly aware of the surround speakers
presence. It’s OK if you don’t seem to be hearing the surround
speakers directly. Try to avoid the trap of turning the surrounds up so
that you hear them all the time. The result will be a much less
believable surround sound experience. Remember that the signal they
receive is 99% subtle sounds that should make you believe you’re in
the action up on the screen.
Surround speaker
should be slightly behind
and above listening
position
Center channel should be
within 2' of front speaker
tweeter height
Left surround
speaker
Right surround
speaker
2 feet above
ear level
Ear level