Placement

Placing Your Home Theater Speakers

Whether you're planning a budget home theater system, or working with high-end A/V gear, devoting some 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 bit 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 its position depends upon where you put your TV, you won't have the ability to move it around very much (but you may end up adjusting the position of your front left and right speakers to blend better with your center channel speaker).

Since your center channel speaker's job is to anchor dialogue and other on-screen sounds to the screen, place it directly on top of your TV — centered, if possible. (Some center channel speakers are designed to go either above or below your TV, but most experts recommend placement on top for best results.) Here are some more pointers on center channel speaker placement:

• Aim your center channel speaker directly at your primary listening location.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• Of course, be sure your center channel speaker is video-shielded; the magnetic field produced by an unshielded speaker can cause picture distortion with (or even potentially damage) a direct-view CRT-type television.
  
  
• 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 12".
  
  
• 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
In the most general terms, you'll need to place your front left and right speakers to each side of your TV — but there's a lot more to consider when placing this pair. Your front speakers pull double duty: they're responsible for reproducing all of the sound when you listen to stereo music, as well as handling movie soundtrack information, like the music score that accompanies the action, and effects that move from side to side across the front soundstage. You should be able to find a position that makes for home theater impact and great stereo listening — and when you do, you'll know it!

This pair should be positioned in front, and at equidistant points to the left and right, of your primary listening spot. Together with your center channel speaker, they should form a slight arc, so that all three speakers are exactly the same distance from where you sit, with the tweeters from all three front speakers aimed at your ears (see illustration below). It's a good idea to measure the distances precisely — just an inch or two can make a noticeable difference in the way your system sounds!