Does Speaker Placement Matter in Home Theater?
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Speaker placement matters in home theater design
It can be tempting to put your speakers where they look best in a room, and sometimes you are limited by space and that is what you will have to do. BUT! If you have some flexibility in the setup of your room and where you place your speakers, you will definitely notice the difference in how they sound! Read more to learn about how speaker placement matters to your home theater setup.
Front Speakers
The front speakers of a home theater system provide the foundation of your surround sound. The goal is to create a wide, immersive sound and the key is to have enough distance between the front speakers. Ideally, you will want the front speakers to be as far from each other (left to right) as they are from the main seating area. If this is not possible, it is ok, but place them close to this distance as possible to create the soundstage.
The main speakers should be placed 25-30 degrees off axis, relative to the primary seating position, when the tweeters are close to ear height when seated. Most tower speakers are able to accomplish this naturally, and do not require stands.
Center Channel Speaker
The center channel should be placed directly on-axis, relative to the primary seating position. As with the main front speakers, placing the tweeter at/near head level when seated is optimal. But depending on the placement of the video display or projection screen, this is not always possible. If the center channel must be located below head level, then an upward tilt of the speaker is recommended to improve sound quality.
Rear Surround Speakers
Dedicated rear surround speakers are placed behind the primary seating position for enhanced effects. Place the rear surround speakers at 135-150 degrees off-axis, relative to the primary seating position. As with the side surround speakers, position the rear surround tweeters about 2 feet above head level when seated for optimal sound.
Walls
Placement of your speakers in relation to the walls is going to be a personal preference. You will want to play around with this and see how the wall changes the bass reverberation in different distances from the walls. The closer they are to the wall, the more bass that is reinforced from it. This can be good for some situations, but if the speker is moved away from the wall, you may find it a more appealing sound. Listening to the same clip of a song or movie at different distances and finding the one that you find most appealing may be the best way to tweak this to your liking.
Ceiling Speakers
Introduced several years ago to commercial movies theaters, ceiling-mounted speakers create special effects which emanate from above the viewer. This brings a new and thrilling dimension of realism to the theater experience, be it at home or the cinema. Implementing overhead sound in a home theater involves either mounting speakers high on a side wall and firing down, in the ceiling, or by adding speaker modules which fire upward at the ceiling, thus relying on boundary reflection to provide the illusion that the special effects are originating from overhead.
The immersive sound effect is created by deliberately applied sound reflections. When you correctly, and intentionally place your surround sound speakers, you will have a home theater experience equal to that of a movie theater. To elevate your home theater experience, contact us for help with your design process.