Where should I place the speakers in my room?

Our speakers have been designed for high performance in a wide variety of settings, but here are a few helpful hints that will help to maximize performance and your enjoyment. Keep in mind that these are simple rules of thumb. Your arrangement may not allow for this type of placement, but this doesn't mean that you can't have high quality sound. Regardless of where you place your speakers initially you can probably improve the sound by making minor adjustments.

Front Left/Right

A general guideline for speaker placement is to set up the space between speaker and listener at approximately 1.5 times the distance between the speakers. For example, if the speakers were ideally placed a minimum of 6 feet apart, the best seating position would be 9 feet away. Ideal height would position the tweeter at approximately ear level when the listener is in a seated position.

Center Channel

A center channel can be expected to reproduce as much as 60% of a movie's soundtrack, most of which is dialogue. In order to maintain the effect of voices emanating from the actor's mouth, the speaker being used as the center channel should be centrally located between the left and right speakers and be placed directly above or below the display. The speaker may need to be targeted up or down depending on its location.

Side Surrounds (5.1 and 7.1)

A surround speaker should be positioned adjacent to and slightly behind the primary listening area (around 90 to 110 degrees from the center). As a general guideline the height would be approximately 6 feet or 2 feet above the listener's head when seated. The side surround channels are the surround speakers in a 5.1 audio system

Rear surrounds (7.1)

A rear speaker should be positioned behind the primary listening area (around 135 to 150 degrees from the center). As a general guideline the height would be approximately 6 feet or 2 feet above the listener's head when seated. These speakers are only used in 7.1 audio.

Subwoofer

The low frequency sounds out of a subwoofer and generally perceived as non-directional. This means that placement is not a critical with a subwoofer as it is with your other speakers. The closer a subwoofer is to a wall or corner the bigger the bass response will seem. However, placing the subwoofer too close to a wall or corner may make the sound seem less controlled. Typically you can find a balance with a little experimentation.

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