Speaker Positioning

When it comes to your speakers, the best course is to experiment with their positioning to suit your taste. There are limitless possibilities in positioning them. Each placement system will deliver unique sound quality and effects. It hardly needs to be mentioned that the monitor should face the seating area from the center speaker position.

Much of the basic audio tune up can be achieved by simply placing the sound amplification units and subwoofer for the home theater system in the right way. If you want to get the optimum audio impact you will have to consider such factors as the shape of the room, acoustics, the type of the loudspeakers and their placement.

Generally the rooms where the home theatres are place are either square or slightly rectangular.

As the first step place the front centre channel speaker directly in front of the listening area. It must be noted that in the real world living space an inarticulate dialogue is the most common problem in placement of speakers. The speakers themselves emit invisible cones of sound. Any object coming into contact with that cone is going to affect the sound before and after it reaches the seating position. The objects that may come in between the cone of the sound and the listener can be the walls, the floors, sofas, chairs and so on.

Try your best to position the center speaker closer to the ears of the listeners. It should be elevated off the ground and point to the head level of the listening area. The center speaker can be installed either above the television, video display, projection screen or below it. The subwoofer should be installed on the left or the right side of the display device. The main left and right speakers should be placed equidistant from the front center channel speaker at the inclination of 30 degrees from the center channel.


Also place the surround sound speakers to the right and left sides of the center speaker, but at about 90-100 degree inclination from the centre channel. Place the rear centre channel speakers directly behind the listening position and align it with the front center speaker at about 140-150 degrees from the front channel speaker. They may be placed at a higher level than the listener.