Unfortunately, as clever as they’ve been with the Unos’ bottom end, there’s not much that the company can do about the exacting demands imposed by spherical horns. When it comes to positional and attitudinal precision, horns are just as demanding as other loudspeakers. But it is the clarity with which they expose any imprecision that in turn imposes its own, extreme demands on placement and set up. It’s to be expected on a speaker system with the complexity and cost of the Trios. I suspect it might take more than a few Uno owners by surprise. Any imprecision in placement or alignment will be obvious in a terms of an off-set or truncated soundstage and/or a lack of musical cohesion With that in mind, here’s the set up protocol and order of priorities that I followed…
With the speakers set flat (so no electrical adjustment of bass or relative level) look for initial placement and listening position that delivers the best sound. That puts you in the ball-park, which is where the precision set up starts – and where it deviates from the approach I adopt with more ‘normal’ speakers. The first thing to do is adjust the distance and angle of each speaker to the listening seat. That’s going to mean moving at least one of the cabinets, but you need to arrive at as near to an isosceles triangle as possible. The closer you get to that ideal (equal distance/equal angular offset, toe in to point each speaker at the listener’s nose) the easier things will become. Think millimetres, not centimetres! That normally involves laser or tape measures, low-tack tape and a lot of Sharpie notations. (I actually cleared the floor and marked out a precise triangle as a starting point…) Once you’ve achieved that, level the speakers so that each cabinet is vertical and then re-set the listening distance as precisely as possible.
Taking it by stages…
Step two is to set the height of the speakers using a laser level. In most rooms that will result in the two speakers being different heights off of the floor. But remember, the bottom end of the speaker is as easily and precisely adjustable as the feet make adjusting its height off the floor and you can compensate here far more easily than you can correct for a different listening axis on the left or right horn drivers.
With the speakers properly located, you can finally set about adjusting rake angle. This is arguably the single most critical adjustment of all – hence all that effort to get the centre of each high-frequency driver to exactly the same height and distance from the listening seat. You can assess listening axis by the simple expedient of raising or lowering yourself in the listening seat. Using a digital level, you can then dial in the appropriate rake angle, ensuring that it is exactly the same for each speaker.
One Trio owner (who takes set up just as seriously as he should) has cut an MDF disc that fits over the tweeter horn on his speakers. Using the same lathe, he cut a hole through the exact centre of the disc and perfectly perpendicular to it. In this hole he has mounted a laser that can be used along with a fixed target to precisely align the speakers, individually and one to the other. It gives you an idea of the accuracy with which the Avantgarde speakers can and should be aligned – and just how audible such precise set up is when it comes to the musical performance that results. Pay the appropriate care and attention to angular and positional matters and it isn’t difficult to extract great performance from the Unos, simply exacting. But you’d better believe that the more effort you put in, the greater the musical rewards.
