From Bob Robbins' website http://www.myspeakersetup.com/

My stereo system is a bit on the quirky side. One of my balanced interconnects was mistakenly manufactured out of phase. As a result, I have to wire one of my speakers out of phase in order to get proper bass output and center imaging accuracy. My system has been hooked up like this for years, and it slipped my mind until recently.

My best friend in audio loaned me an ultra high-end interconnect. He said I just had to hear it. He's never steered me wrong in the past recommending gear, so I said sure. As soon as I installed it and fired up some tunes, the center image was completely diffuse and vague, and my system didn't have the full-bodied bass I was accustomed to. There were nuances of detail I'd never heard on my favorite songs, but something was frighteningly wrong. I started playing with toe-in and rake angle and even moved the speakers from their ideal place (not far to be sure), but nothing seemed to help. Then - I remembered - one of my speakers is out of phase!

I put the speakers back where they belonged, switched polarity on one of the channels, and all the previously mentioned ills went away. Then yesterday I was listening to some music, and in the back of my mind I felt I was missing a lot of the spatial cues I normally get out of my system. I had a Dead Can Dance cut on and the two identical instruments that were placed about 6' beyond each of my speakers seemed to be at different heights. Not a lot, but it was noticeable. I went over to the left speaker and tilted it down by turning the rear spikes a ¼ of a turn each and returned to my listening position. The height problem was solved and the sense of space in the recording was positively cavernous! It blew me away, and I am very accustomed to the sense of space my system produces. But this was a dramatic improvement over what I had previously experienced.

I tell you this story to show the accuracy necessary to optimally set speakers in your room, and to instill in you a sense of how seemingly minute and insignificant adjustments can pay huge dividends toward sonic excellence in your home.

Listening to music seems like such a simple activity, doesn't it? Sit back, relax, and let the tunes carry you away. At least that's how it should be.

Unfortunately, in around an hour or less of this "listening" session, we turn the music off to check out what's on HBO. Does any of this sound familiar? Experienced exactly what I just described a few times?

Wouldn't it be cool if, when we sat down to listen, time would just escape us, only to realize it's nearly midnight and we had better get to bed, 'cause we've got to go to work in the morning, but just after a few more pieces of music?

This kind of emotional involvement in the music, this losing track of time because it's just so relaxing, this total "drowning" in the message of the music the artists are conveying, is possible with optimally placed speakers. Then, and only then, do the speakers work as a unified system, they no longer battle each other, they work with the room, they convey a sense of space and ambience well beyond the boundaries of not just the speakers, but of the room itself. The music then becomes what it is meant to be - an emotional and physical experience. It borders on the surreal, maybe because it's so real.

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From Bob Robbins' website http://www.myspeakersetup.com/

You don't need a sub-woofer if you don't do theater. Wrong! Just ask anyone who owns a REL sub-bass system that has been properly interfaced, tuned to their speakers, and installed by a dedicated REL dealer.

If you can't get your speakers to sound good in your room, you need to either find a new room or spend tons of money on sound treatments. Wrong! The Sumiko Master Speaker Set allows your speakers to work with your room as it is, including nooks, crannies, and existing furnishings.

The most important component in a stereo system are the speakers. Wrong! The single most important "component" in any system is where the speakers are placed in the room (see #2 above).

Truly involving and high resolution reproduction of music in the home can only happen with high dollar, high-end equipment. Wrong! While high-end gear will improve nuances of sound and inner detail, my system is downright magical with a $350 universal disc player as my source.

If your sound is overly bright and screechy or it's opposite, the best solution is to change all of your interconnects and speaker wire to tame the problem. Wrong! The Sumiko process lets the speakers work with the room so well, that an overly bright or recessed sound simply does not happen. (Unless the room is all glass walls with marble floors, then we might need to talk).

For best sound, you and the speakers must form an equilateral triangle and the speakers have to be exactly the same distance from the rear wall. Wrong! I have performed numerous Sumiko Speaker sets where one speaker was 3 full inches closer to the listening position than the other speaker and the sound was glorious.

To get the full effect of great sound, you have to sit in the sweet spot. Wrong! I had a friend over for a listening session a while ago. When he was in the sweet spot, I was sitting at my computer desk (inline with both speakers and about 5' right of the right speaker), and I experienced all the sense of space in the song with no loss of high frequency clarity. We switched places and he verified the same sensation.

What is it about music that makes it have the effect on us that it does? Is it low-level detail, transient response, dynamic range, extended frequency response, midrange neutrality or high frequency delicateness?

I am of the opinion that it is none of those things. Do you evaluate whether or not those things exist when you attend a live musical performance?

I'm betting not. I'd wager that you're so caught up in the physical, visceral, and emotional experience that live music represents that all the previously mentioned "criteria" of a high fidelity stereo system don't even enter your mind.

Yet, when we listen to music at home, not only do we listen but we also evaluate or critique our stereo system to a point where we're actually listening to the equipment, not the music. All the while we're trying to figure out what different piece of gear or interconnect or "tweak" will solve this "problem" our system has. Quite a "Catch-22" don't you think?

Music is supposed to be an emotional experience whether it's live or recorded. Unfortunately, most stereos fail to reveal the emotional message of the music because the speakers aren't where they belong in the room. The good news is that once they are set up properly, all the aforementioned criteria (and all the others that I failed to mention) are revealed with perfect balance, synergy, and coherence.

After a properly completed Sumiko Master Speaker Set, the music becomes the focus, not the equipment. As a matter of fact, the perception of equipment being in the room vanishes, as you are immersed in the music - all instruments floating in space at their proper height and locale, the ambience and size of the performance venue convincingly revealed, and a total synergy of sound transporting you to where the music was performed. It truly becomes what it has always meant to be - a physical, visceral, and emotional experience just like a live event.

Sumiko Master Speaker Setup

http://www.myspeakersetup.com/master-set-process.html

The speakers should start out along the long wall, right up against the wall, (where we know they sound the worst), evenly spaced out as nearly as possible from the acoustic center of the room. If there is a sub-bass system or subwoofer in the room it needs to be bypassed or disconnected. If you prefer a warmer sound, have the speakers somewhat closer together than “normal”, if a clearer sound is preferred, further apart is better. Have the left speaker toed-in so you can still see the side of the cabinet in it‘s entirety, but just barely. Planar speakers should still be toed-in so that the center of the panel points to a point about a foot to a foot and a half behind your head when at the listening position. The right speaker should be facing straight out, parallel/perpendicular to the rear wall. If your speakers have side-firing woofers, fire them out, not at each other.

The initial piece of music used for the set is The Ballad of the Runaway Horse - Rob Wasserman and Jennifer Warnes - Duets Album. The song needs to be played at a loud level in order to pressurize the room and make the bass nodes readily apparent. When listening for the bass nodes you’re listening for three things - Linearity, Extension, and Output, or LEO. Linearity, so you can hear all the notes being played (so it’s not just a big monotone of bass), Extension, so when the big, low notes are hit they really go down there, and Output so there’s plenty of bass.

If your speakers are spiked, remove them for now. Start the song, and slowly move the left speaker into the room searching for LEO, all the while maintaining the toe in angle you started with, until you hear the first bass nodes’ arrival. It should be somewhere between 14 - 16 inches out from the wall. Mark it with tape, and continue moving the speaker out slowly. You’ll know when you hit nodes, particularly in E & O, so keep marking about 4 or 5 of your favorites. There is no one perfect node. One caveat - the best node is the one where the vocal part of the song is neither overshadowed by the bass nor overly strident in relation to the bass. After you find your favorite nodes, go back to them in rapid succession and choose the best one for you and how it feels. This process is easier with a partner, but can be done alone. If you’re by yourself, and if your speakers are ported, place your hand in or right in front of the port, and you’ll be able to feel an increase in the amount of air coming out of the port when nodes are hit. This aspect of this process is absolutely critical, so take your time and find the place where the music really sings to you, but no one part of it dominates.

Now, because the left speaker is well into the room and the right speaker is against the wall, Jennifer will be well left of center. Think of the left speaker as being a hinge in a gate. The next step is to “swing the gate”, or bring out the right speaker and toe it in to match the left so that Jennifer jumps to dead center between the speakers. This should be a quick and easy adjustment, as she should sound as if she’s directly in front of your optimum listening position.

Now we begin the truly magical part of this process - the adjustments of rake angle and toe-in. The toe-in should be more if the speakers are way far apart, and less if the speakers are close together. Toe-in and rake angle adjustments are mandatory, regardless of the recommendations from the manufacturer or info in the owners manual. My owners manual says for best sound the speakers are to be perfectly level and not toed-in at all - this is undeniably wrong. When adjusting toe-in, try to imagine the sound emanating from the speakers as being spherical in shape and adjust the toe so that the outermost spheres barely overlap in the middle, focusing the vocalist with proper scale. Jennifer’s mouth should be properly sized, not three feet wide or a pinpoint.

Next comes the most dramatic adjustment of all - the one that affects both image height and soundstage width and sense of space. Reinstall the spikes so that they make the speakers as tall as possible and so that the speaker is level and does not rock at all. The folks at Sumiko stay with the Jennifer Warnes cut here, but I prefer to use a song off Hootie & the Blowfishs’ Fairweather Johnson album - Tootie - #13. Darius Rucker is about 5’9”, and he’s right in the middle; plus, this song has great emotion, evenly paced and played bass, and has terrific spatial cues.

Right now, Darius will sound as if he’s on his knees singing, so the rake angle needs to go up to allow him to stand up. Lower the rear spikes of the left speaker until he does just that; but enough so that his voice is the proper height for a man of 5’9” (62-63” off the floor if you have the uncontrollable need to measure something). If you can’t get enough rake angle to make him tall enough, then it’s time to use sound saucers or similar under the front spikes to make it happen. It might feel weird to rake this much, or look even weirder, but trust me, it’s crucial for the magic to happen. After this is done, the guitar players will sound like they’re tilted funny - one lower than the other. Adjust the rear spikes of the right speaker until things level out. Double check the front top of the speakers for level, and make sure both speakers are rock-solid stable (no rocking in any direction). Once the rake angles are matched, the sound will blossom and expand out into and sometimes beyond the room - it is so frickin’ cool! Now, turn the lights off or way down, start “Tootie” over again, and you should sit mesmerized for the entirety of the song - no matter how loud you play it. The side guitarists should be just beyond where the speakers are at their proper height, the violin should be at chin height and just left of center, and of course Darius should be as tall as he really is. There should be no sense of strain or grating, and you should completely lose the sense of listening to a stereo system, as the speakers acoustically disappear.

If you feel annoyed by anything, if your mind thinks of anything while listening, then something isn’t right. Unfortunately, the usual culprit is the bass node at the beginning, so the spikes need to come out and the whole process has to start over, unless your speakers are small and light enough to be moved easily. If they are, slightly adjust the left speaker for a better bass node or a better balance between bass and vocal presence, then readjust the right speaker for center image, and check again.