Final Adjustments - Klipsch Palladium P-39F Owner's Manual

Final Adjustments

The P-39F has a phenomenal frequency response and superb dynamics so playing large orchestral or rock music
will be an awesome experience but may not necessarily be the best guide in setting up the speakers.
Your listening tests should be performed with a wide range of music including unaccompanied vocal and solo
instrumental recordings with as little processing on the source as possible. A natural solo cello recording will reveal
much about the bass characteristics of your room and positioning. The best position will yield smooth, extended
bass without boom or smear.
The loudspeakers are "handed" - the recommended position is with the bass ports facing outward. The ports
distribute a lot of air at high bass volumes, so if the speakers appear to boom even slightly re-siting them with the
ports facing inward may help significantly.
Stridency in the upper section caused by under damped rooms can be compensated for by hanging drapes or
pictures on the walls to dampen reverberant walls and increasing the amount of soft furnishings will also help to
eliminate high frequency "ringing".
Room resonances are often structural. In such circumstances good placement will minimize but not eliminate
these resonances.
Apparent height is critical. The speakers have controlled directivity. In the P 39-F phase response anomalies are
kept to vanishingly low levels by reducing the distance between the midrange and tweeter horns to the absolute
minimum, nevertheless if you are in the wrong seat it may happen that the sound stage is not perfectly integrated.
One remedy is to tilt the speaker slightly (if necessary by using a combination of long and short spikes) to aim the
midrange driver at the listener's ear to yield best driver integration. Take your time with this - the effects on some
music may be small and quite startling on others.
Phase
Phase is not a matter of preference. Out-of-phase effects manifest themselves as poorly defined bass, poor stereo
with very vague localization of instruments and voice, and generally fuzzy ill-defined sound. A single-wired out-of-
phase system is easy to detect, a tri-amped system with one element connected out of phase can be nearly
impossible to track down. If you find that there are problems with the system that no amount of experimentation
can cure, check all the loudspeaker and amplifier wiring carefully. If you have connected your speakers strictly in
accordance with this manual no phase problems will arise.
Conclusion
All the advice above will help you get the most out of these superb loudspeakers, but in the final analysis you
should do what your ears tell you is right - you are after all the final arbiter of your system.
Happy listening!
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