Speaker Placement for Home Theater
Whether you're planning a budget home theater system, or working with high-end A/V gear, paying attention to the location and positioning of your speakers usually pays off with a big improvement in sonic performance. If you're in the process of choosing home theater speakers, knowing the basics of speaker placement can help you make the smartest choice for your specific room.
Keep in mind that there are too many variables involved for there to be a single "magic spot" that's always best. Every speaker has different sonic characteristics, every room has different acoustic properties, and everyone's ears hear sound a little differently. So use the tips presented in this article as guidelines, but when it comes time to actually set up your speakers, let your own ears be the final judge. And remember to read the owner's manual that came with your speakers — manufacturers sometimes offer model-specific recommendations for ideal placement.
Your center channel speaker
Your center channel speaker should be the first speaker you place in your home theater room. Because your center channel speaker's job is to anchor dialogue and other on-screen sounds to the screen, its position depends upon where you put your TV.
- Place your center channel directly above or below your TV — centered, if possible.
- If it's atop your TV, make sure the speaker's front edge is precisely aligned with the front edge of your TV screen. This reduces distortion caused by sound reflecting and diffracting off the TV's cabinet.
- If possible, the height of the center channel speaker's tweeter should be close to the height of your front speakers' tweeters — ideally, within about 24".
- Your center channel speaker should be precisely the same distance from your listening position as your front left and right speakers. (See below for details on front left and right speaker placement.)
Your front left and right speakers
Your front speakers pull double duty: along with handling movie soundtracks, they're responsible for reproducing all of the sound when you listen to stereo music.
