Speaker Placement
clarity, detail and the textures of the individ- ual instruments, you are a critical listener. In a home theater, the intelligibility of dialog and action reproduced by the front speakers is paramount! The position of the speakers plays a very important role in how clear the sound is and how a stereo image is created. Here are some guidelines to make the process of placement quick and easy.
Make sure the sound will not be blocked or reflected off of furniture or other objects. You should have a direct line of sight with the front of the speaker. To determine the best position, measure the “listening” dis- tance between the ideal listening position (your favorite chair or couch) and the wall in which you plan to install the speakers. Try to place the speakers so that they are equally distant from your listening spot and at least one half of the listening distance apart (this maintains a large pleasant stereo “image”). In home theater applications where there is a center channel you may choose to space the left and right main speakers farther apart for a “bigger than life” sound with Dolby® encoded movies and TV shows. However, for combined music and movie usage stay within the good placement zone for music. For exam- ple; if you are ten feet back from the wall, the speakers should be between five and ten feet apart (See Figure 2).
The Boundary Effect
Corners can affect the bass response of the speaker powerfully! This is called the boundary effect. You will emphasize partic- ular bass frequencies and cancel out other bass frequencies when you place speakers close to the wall/ceiling boundary or a cor- ner wall boundary. This can make the speaker sound excessively boomy and inac- curate to some listeners, while to others it just seems like more bass sound. A good rule of thumb is if you always listen to your current pair of speakers with the bass turned up, you’ll enjoy corner placement. If you keep your preamp or receiver’s tone con- trols at neutral, try to keep the speakers at least one or two feet from the boundaries of the room. The
Placement for Varying Listening Positions
If you want the freedom to sit anywhere in a room facing any direction, and/or find that you prefer the “all around you” sound of some car stereos to a conventional “sound stage” facing you, consider the speaker placement techniques professional installers use in restaurants and bars. They place
Figure 3
AT8700
For an AT8700 placed above a TV, install the speaker with the tweeter up.
Not Greater than 24"
TV
AT8700 | AT8700 |
6