Alexia Setup - Upper Array Adjustment Question

madfloyd

madfloyd

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In the off chance someone on this forum has some experience/knowledge with setting up Alexias - specifically the upper cabinet, I thought I'd throw this question out.


The Alexia manual contains a propagation chart in order to adjust the Alexia's upper cabinet (called Upper Array by Wilson) correctly for listening distance and height. There are 4 settings:


- Upper Array Spike Length
- Upper Array Alignment Block Position
- Upper Array Alignment Block Step
- Tweeter Detent Position


The chart lists Ear Height and Listening Distance. My issue is that the granularity is not fine enough and it's not easy to interpolate between them. For example the listening distance lists 11, 12 & 14 feet. If you're at 13 feet you're doing some guesswork and/or trial and error. In my case, I'm at 11.5 feet. The 12' doesn't seem right - it's somewhat dull sounding - and the 11' is too aggressive. I need something in between, but what to change?


My seating height is 36" and here are the values in the propagation chart for the 11 & 12 feet:


.......Spike........Block Pos........Block Step......Tweeter
11'.:...3..............14...................9................4
12'.:...4...............9....................7................5


As you can see it's not easy to interpolate between the two.


Anyone have any experience with this? I'm accepting gut feelings and outright guesses too. :)
 
Ian - hopefully Debby can chime in here or at least get the information you need. Your question is an excellent one and one that I myself encountered initially. What I ended up doing was just moving my chair forwards or backwards to correspond to the proper distance between the speakers vs distance away and allowed me to use the propagation chart properly. Is it possible to move your chair to 11 or 12 feet away and then use the chart properly? Failing that, can you move the speakers so they allow you to be 11 or 12 feet away?

Last but not least, are your speakers placed within the ZON right now?
 
Mike said:
Ian - hopefully Debby can chime in here or at least get the information you need. Your question is an excellent one and one that I myself encountered initially. What I ended up doing was just moving my chair forwards or backwards to correspond to the proper distance between the speakers vs distance away and allowed me to use the propagation chart properly. Is it possible to move your chair to 11 or 12 feet away and then use the chart properly? Failing that, can you move the speakers so they allow you to be 11 or 12 feet away?

Last but not least, are your speakers placed within the ZON right now?
Click to expand...

I can't move my seating position or the bass gets to be a problem. I might be able to move the speakers closer, but they're pretty far into the room right now. I can move them back 6" easily (and I've had them there) but I feel that every inch closer than 12' yields improvement in engagement and clarity (perhaps due to less room involvement).

Honestly, I don't know if I'm in the ZON but I'm guessing I am based on how good the bass is.

But yeah, I can always work around this, but you know how it is with these speakers - move them even an inch and the sound changes. The perfectionist in me wants to not have to compromise the bass just to be able to match the propagation chart.
 
madfloyd said:
In the off chance someone on this forum has some experience/knowledge with setting up Alexias - specifically the upper cabinet, I thought I'd throw this question out.


The Alexia manual contains a propagation chart in order to adjust the Alexia's upper cabinet (called Upper Array by Wilson) correctly for listening distance and height. There are 4 settings:


- Upper Array Spike Length
- Upper Array Alignment Block Position
- Upper Array Alignment Block Step
- Tweeter Detent Position


The chart lists Ear Height and Listening Distance. My issue is that the granularity is not fine enough and it's not easy to interpolate between them. For example the listening distance lists 11, 12 & 14 feet. If you're at 13 feet you're doing some guesswork and/or trial and error. In my case, I'm at 11.5 feet. The 12' doesn't seem right - it's somewhat dull sounding - and the 11' is too aggressive. I need something in between, but what to change?


My seating height is 36" and here are the values in the propagation chart for the 11 & 12 feet:


.......Spike........Block Pos........Block Step......Tweeter
11'.:...3..............14...................9................4
12'.:...4...............9....................7................5


As you can see it's not easy to interpolate between the two.


Anyone have any experience with this? I'm accepting gut feelings and outright guesses too. :)
Click to expand...

Ian,

This is straight from our Engineering department in response to your question:

Assuming that the enclosure is 2" from the bottom of the woofer cabinet to the floor the set up is as follows:

Upper Array Spike Length: #3
Upper Array Alignment Block Position: 14
Upper Array Alignment Block Step: 9
Tweeter Detent Position: 5

And as always, room acoustics play a role in sound reproduction, so playing with the alignment positions might be necessary. No other speaker system offers the unique ability to adapt to a room by changing driver locations relative to one another.
 
madfloyd said:
In the off chance someone on this forum has some experience/knowledge with setting up Alexias - specifically the upper cabinet, I thought I'd throw this question out.


The Alexia manual contains a propagation chart in order to adjust the Alexia's upper cabinet (called Upper Array by Wilson) correctly for listening distance and height. There are 4 settings:


- Upper Array Spike Length
- Upper Array Alignment Block Position
- Upper Array Alignment Block Step
- Tweeter Detent Position


The chart lists Ear Height and Listening Distance. My issue is that the granularity is not fine enough and it's not easy to interpolate between them. For example the listening distance lists 11, 12 & 14 feet. If you're at 13 feet you're doing some guesswork and/or trial and error. In my case, I'm at 11.5 feet. The 12' doesn't seem right - it's somewhat dull sounding - and the 11' is too aggressive. I need something in between, but what to change?


My seating height is 36" and here are the values in the propagation chart for the 11 & 12 feet:


.......Spike........Block Pos........Block Step......Tweeter
11'.:...3..............14...................9................4
12'.:...4...............9....................7................5


As you can see it's not easy to interpolate between the two.


Anyone have any experience with this? I'm accepting gut feelings and outright guesses too. :)
Click to expand...

I tried plugging your values into the Wilson iPhone ap but as you indicate they only offer 11 or 12 feet. As you note the numbers come back 14-9-3-4

Can you move your listening position forward or back by 6" to see if either of those distances work out better for you. If not I might call Wilson to see if a resistor value change might help.
 
still-one said:
I tried plugging your values into the Wilson iPhone ap but as you indicate they only offer 11 or 12 feet. As you note the numbers come back 14-9-3-4

Can you move your listening position forward or back by 6" to see if either of those distances work out better for you. If not I might call Wilson to see if a resistor value change might help.
Click to expand...

Yes, the app does not do .5 ft.

I gave our engineers his distances, and they put in the numbers. What I posted was what they recommend. :)
 
still-one said:
I tried plugging your values into the Wilson iPhone ap but as you indicate they only offer 11 or 12 feet. As you note the numbers come back 14-9-3-4

Can you move your listening position forward or back by 6" to see if either of those distances work out better for you. If not I might call Wilson to see if a resistor value change might help.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, Jim. Moving the speakers or listening position was not ideal (bass changes for the worse) and I figured the speakers were adjustable enough to accommodate the current position and it seems I have my solution.
 
madfloyd said:
Thanks for the suggestion, Jim. Moving the speakers or listening position was not ideal (bass changes for the worse) and I figured the speakers were adjustable enough to accommodate the current position and it seems I have my solution.
Click to expand...

My listening position (chair) seems to move a bit every time I get in and out of it. I am sure that I am off a bit from both the initial installation and when Jerron from Wilson did a tweaked them to get a wider soundstage. If I want a bit more bass I just slide the chair back about 6".
 
still-one said:
My listening position (chair) seems to move a bit every time I get in and out of it. I am sure that I am off a bit from both the initial installation and when Jerron from Wilson did a tweaked them to get a wider soundstage. If I want a bit more bass I just slide the chair back about 6".
Click to expand...

Nice that you had Jerron there - lucky you! Did Matt do the setup originally? I'm curious about Jerron's soundstage tweak, did he decrease the amount of toe-in?
 
madfloyd said:
Nice that you had Jerron there - lucky you! Did Matt do the setup originally? I'm curious about Jerron's soundstage tweak, did he decrease the amount of toe-in?
Click to expand...

Yes, Matt did the initial set-up. The toe-in was not changed from Matt's install. They did swap one of the spikes and adjust the position based on where my chair was at that time.
 
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