Speaker User Manual

SR-1 Owner’s Manual

Under these idyllic room conditions speaker placement is frequently

a simple task. In an idyllic world the speakers would be well out in

the room, typically about 1/3 the distance of the rooms front to

back dimension. The listener would be at mid point in the room

or slightly to the rear of mid-point. The listener and the speakers

would form an equilateral triangle, such that the distance speaker

to speaker would be identical to the distance from either speaker to

listener. The distance from speaker to sidewall would be unequal

to the distance from the speaker to the back wall. To solidify the

acoustic image placement in stereo or multi-channel recordings at the

listening position the speakers will typically be toed in slightly toward

the listening position, rather than square with the rear and sidewalls.

The tweeter height of the speaker will be either at the same height

as the listener’s ear or in some way angled as to achieve equivalent

result. The SR-1 cabinets have adjustable feet, front and rear to

optimize apparent driver height.

Lucky are the very few listeners who have well placed equipment

in a well-engineered dedicated listening space either by design or

happenstance. For the rest of us we have the Pass Laboratories SR-

1. The Pass Laboratories SR-1 Loudspeaker was built to address less

than perfect rooms and less than perfect speaker placement.

Of primary concern was a speaker that would be spectrally balanced

throughout the room rather than only in a very narrow and defined

“sweet spot”. The SR-1 was specifically built to those parameters.

Once the speaker position and upper cabinet tilt is optimized the

listener will need to adjust the level controls for optimal results. In a

symmetrical room, the adjustments for left and right cabinet would

be identical, asymmetrical rooms may require disparate settings of

level controls or left and right speakers. Optimal level settings will be

arrived at only by careful listening to a variety of source material.

On the rear of the SR-1 cabinets are 3 level controls. One level

control on the woofer cabinet and two level controls on the tweeter

/ midrange cabinet. All controls are 3 position switches that select

fixed values. Mid position is considered “Normal”, UP increases the