Fine Tunes

Last month I wrote about lasers of various pedigrees, so useful in marking walls to the sides and behind the listening position to ensure that your loudspeakers are toed-in, level, and equidistant from the sweet spot for best soundstage, imaging and focus. Using small Avery stick-'em labels makes this a snap. I've converged the tweeter axes of my JMlab Utopias somewhere about a foot into the wall behind the rearmost of our two listening chairs, and use two Studio Traps and a single Argent RoomLens between the speakers to cancel and damp the near-rear-wall reflections. With just a jiggle of the chair back or forward, suddenly I'm there.

Kathleen and I went to France for a week to visit her brother.

"Hey, J-10!" John Atkinson called from the hallway outside my office. "I liked your October 'Fine Tunes'!"

I hereby award, by the powers invested in me, the first Tweaker from Hell award to (drum roll, please)...me.

"Hi, Jonathan," Bob Matthews began his e-mail to "Fine Tunes" (matthewsr@hqamc-exchg.army.mil). "I enjoy reading your column every month, and enjoy hearing from other people about some of their cheap tweaks!"

In his first e-mail to "Fine Tunes," Rafael Teodoro (RBT@wolfenet.com) addressed a subject that Mark Gdovin, that faithful frequenter of the Stereophile soapbox, had already brought up. Mark had gone so far as to give readers sage advice from his brother, a materials engineer, regarding the dangers of applying Armor All to speaker cones and surrounds.