Basic Audio Tune-Up

Some elementary steps, correctly taken, can boost the audio tune-up of your home theater.

Do not place any item of furniture such as chair or stool in front of the speaker, even if it is below the speaker’s cones as it may affect the speaker’s ability to move the air in front of it. If the article is tall, it may block the sound emanating from the speaker itself.

The compositions of the articles that come in contact with the sound also determine whether they will reflect the sound or just dampen it. It must be noted that while reflection is bad for sound effects, dampening is useful. Many articles reflect the sound with the result in which each reflected sound tries to cancel the sound emitted from the other article. In this collision of sounds, even the good sounds are also cancelled while the unwanted echoes take precedence in reaching the listeners. Use phase switch or dial to rectify the sound cancellation problems. Phase switches can help one frequency at the expense of the other.

Keep experimenting with the placement of the speakers and the objects in your listening area, making as many permutations and combinations to arrive at the best arrangement. Do not try to keep larger objects in the passage of sound towards the listeners.

Use sound trapping materials for the walls and the floors. Carpets should be preferred over the wooden floors. Curtains on the windows or fabrics on the walls are better than the dry walls and dry walls are better than the smooth wood or pressboard paneling.

Avoid installing acoustically reflective material on the walls, floors and ceiling in the room as the reflected sounds clash and cancel each other and create unwelcome noise waves. Place pictures with smooth surface to avoid the direct rays of sound from the speakers.

Place the subwoofer in some corner of the home theater room as the corner loading will increase certain low frequencies through the room, but also may not. So experiment with the placement of the subwoofer also.