Home Theater Speaker Placement Tips
If you're designing and building a home movie theater, you need to think about creating a fantastic sound environment with your home theater speaker placement.
You'll find that five speakers and a subwoofer are standard with most surround sound systems.
For truly immersive sound that makes you feel like you're really "there," you'll need smaller speakers set up both behind and in front of your listeners.
The best placement of these speakers can involve calculations based on sound waves and physics.
But that's needlessly complicated.
Once you have a grasp of the general idea, you can experiment with different placements until you find the best solution that works for you.
Remember that's it's impossible to have a perfect surround sound system if the acoustics of your room aren't perfect to begin with-- and ten to one, your room is NOT acoustically perfect.
Don't set yourself up for disappointment by expecting perfection.
You should trust your ears and decide on what works best for your home theater speaker placement.
But feel free to use the manufacturer's instruction manual.
Center channel speaker -- The center channel speaker should be centered just beneath the screen.
This will output on-screen sound such as conversations, so for the sake of realism you will want it very close to the television.
Front left and right speakers -- Ideally, these speakers should be installed at ear level when you're sitting.
Theoretically you could get away with placing them higher by angling them downward, but you won't get the best results this way.
The movie soundtrack will come from these two speakers, splitting the stereo sound of the music.
When you install these two speakers, they should be just as far away from the listener as the center channel speaker.
Imagine an arc that encompasses all three speakers when viewed from above.
Surround speakers -- These speakers should be positioned right behind the listener to the right and left.
They will be a good deal higher than the other speakers, approximately ear level when standing.
You can better experiment with the positioning if they come with stands or adjustable brackets.
Find out how it feels like when you let the sound bounce off the walls first before listeners hear it; it can be surprisingly realistic.
You'll find that five speakers and a subwoofer are standard with most surround sound systems.
For truly immersive sound that makes you feel like you're really "there," you'll need smaller speakers set up both behind and in front of your listeners.
The best placement of these speakers can involve calculations based on sound waves and physics.
But that's needlessly complicated.
Once you have a grasp of the general idea, you can experiment with different placements until you find the best solution that works for you.
Remember that's it's impossible to have a perfect surround sound system if the acoustics of your room aren't perfect to begin with-- and ten to one, your room is NOT acoustically perfect.
Don't set yourself up for disappointment by expecting perfection.
You should trust your ears and decide on what works best for your home theater speaker placement.
But feel free to use the manufacturer's instruction manual.
Center channel speaker -- The center channel speaker should be centered just beneath the screen.
This will output on-screen sound such as conversations, so for the sake of realism you will want it very close to the television.
Front left and right speakers -- Ideally, these speakers should be installed at ear level when you're sitting.
Theoretically you could get away with placing them higher by angling them downward, but you won't get the best results this way.
The movie soundtrack will come from these two speakers, splitting the stereo sound of the music.
When you install these two speakers, they should be just as far away from the listener as the center channel speaker.
Imagine an arc that encompasses all three speakers when viewed from above.
Surround speakers -- These speakers should be positioned right behind the listener to the right and left.
They will be a good deal higher than the other speakers, approximately ear level when standing.
You can better experiment with the positioning if they come with stands or adjustable brackets.
Find out how it feels like when you let the sound bounce off the walls first before listeners hear it; it can be surprisingly realistic.
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