HDTV Setup Guide - Surround Sound Speaker Placement
Positioning speakers is critical to the quality of your sound, perhaps more than any other aspect of home cinema setup. It's also critical to the look of your entertainment area and a cause of a lot of fights between partners, leading to what's known amongst enthusiasts as SAF, or Spouse Approval Factor. In an ideal world, you'd have the room, money and romantic carte blanche to have seven fridge-size speakers and a subwoofer capable of architectural demolition. In the real world, you want speakers and home cinema gear like Blu-ray or DVD players receivers and televisions that are unobtrusive and stylish enough to meet with your partner's approval and a sound that is convincing for a given budget. Let's look at the options.
This is an underrated way of building a home theatre, and means more money can be spent on each part of the system, resulting in higher quality sound and much less cabling.
You'll want to make sure the speakers are equidistant from either side of the screen, or the sound will not make any sense relative to the picture. Resist the urge to move the speakers too far from the set. Your ideal viewing spot should form an equilateral triangle with the front speakers; if they too far apart and the stereo soundfield will have a hollow center.
If you have a CRT or "tube" television, you may need to check that your speakers are magnetically shielded, or they can distort the picture. LCD and Plasma sets are unaffected by speaker magnets.
This is where real surround begins. You can avoid spats by getting what is know as a "satellite" system; small, easily concealable speakers and a subwoofer that fills out the bass.
Place the centre speaker above or below the TV, and place the left and right speakers next to the set. Don't place them too high, ideally the front speakers should be at ear level. The rear speakers should be either next to or behind the viewing position. Unlike the front speakers, rear effects speakers sometimes benefit from being placed higher, as the sound is more diffuse and enveloping.
Much the same as 5.1 surround, but with an additional speaker placed directly behind the viewer and the surround speakers placed slightly further forward to even out coverage. Opinion is divided as to the merits of this many speakers, as very, very little material exists on DVD or Blu-ray that takes advantage of this kind of setup and your budget will be stretched over more speakers.
Again, very similar to 6.1 sound, but with two separate speakers behind the viewing position. Elevating the rear speaker
Subwoofer Placement
This a bit of an art and requires some experimentation on your part. You'll want to move the sub around until it "disappears" into the rest of the sound. Bass soundwaves are very large and are easily interfered with by walls and ceilings, leading to unpleasant boomy sounds at some frequencies and thin dropouts at others. The best possible bass sound is one that does not discernibly emanate from any particular point in the room, sounds tuneful with music and doesn't overwhelm any other part of the sound.
Typical subwoofer positions are directly behind the viewing sofa, directly under the television or in a convenient corner. Close walls and corners have the ability to magnify the bass, but the results can be uneven to say the least. Behind the sofa is handy because sub is concealed the bass reaches you from the speaker
One oft-overlooked solution to difficult room bass woes is to skip a huge subwoofer and rather buy two smaller ones. This way, any holes in the sound are filled in, and the origin of the sound becomes even harder to locate.
If you arrived at this page but have different equipment, go the the main page of the HDTV Setup Guide to find the setup that suits you.
Which Cables?
Confused about the names of cables? Here's a quick visual guide to help you figure out which connectors we're talking about. If you're not familiar with the technical terms, either click the words the difficult words for a definition or visit our HDTV Glossary.