The Placement Guide of Surround Sound Speaker

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The main purpose of why a set of surround sound speakers is many used by people for their home theater is to give those listeners the sound quality like what a movie theater usually can give. Before getting the same experience of being in a home theater, there are some important guides we need to do to replicate that same experience. Learning how to place the speakers properly is really necessary in this case. By having the right guide we can get the surround sound like we want.

A multi-channel surround sound speaker system is actually helping the listeners to hear the life-like sound more clearly. Placing the amount of the speakers properly will make us find our self getting the complete piece of music or movie.

Usually many multi-channel surround sound speaker systems have 5 speakers. They are one right in the center, one to the left, one to the right, and two surround speakers that actually make the listeners hear the sound around a wall.

Generally many surround sound system use the 5.1 speakers, where 1 usually takes the place of subwoofer. Subwoofer will complete the arrangement of all the speakers. But some systems use the 7.1 speakers to get the more level of immersion immensely.

The 5.1 speakers and theb7.1 speakers will give different effect of sound. Placing them in proper manner will give the better sound effect. Take a look at the guide of how they ought to be placed:

1. The Central Speaker

The central channel speaker is participating in giving a spatial root to all dialogues and all sounds that come from the screen. To get the best effect of sound from central speaker we only have some choices to place it. The common place of central speaker is directly below or above the screen. But if we have a projection screen so we can put it 6 to 12 inches behind the screen. Even so that is much better to place it there if the screen is made of acoustically transparent material only as it will allow the sound to pass through. Before placing the central speaker above or below the TV screen we also need to make sure whether the speakers are magnetically shielded or not. It is important to avoid interference especially for the CRT TVs. But if we have an LCD/LED Plasma TV we shouldn’t worry about this feature. To get the best optimum audio quality, we can also place the central speaker in line with our ear or directly at the face the listener.

2. The Front Left, Front Right Speakers

The front left and the front right speakers are always making up the base of all surround sound speaker system. It is no wonder if they are called as the base as they carry a bulk of frequencies which of course take the important part of better sound effect.

By placing them in the right place so, we can get the better clarity, volume and fidelity, which will make our surround sound speaker system produce greater sound effect. Thus the right placement needs to largely take care of. Actually, the left, the right and the central speakers are ideally placed along an arc facing the listener. Meanwhile for the left and the right speakers they are better if being placed at 6 feet apart and are equidistant from the TV screen. The left and the right speakers are usually making an angle of 45 degrees from the listener. Generally, the latter angle is preferred for listening music.

3. The Surround Speakers

The surround speakers are usually as the additional speakers fro the surround sound speaker system. The number of them is between 2 to 4. It depends on the numbers of the total speakers we choose (the 5.1 or the 7.1). These kinds of speakers will envelope the listeners around a wall of sound. The combinations between surround sound speakers with left and right speakers will give something different in getting special listening experience.

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There are still the best guides of how to set the surround speakers. Since the rules of placing surround speakers are not set in stone so we need to set them up following our own preference. But it doesn’t mean that we can deny the certain rules we must follow. The rules are:

1. If we put these speakers behind the listener or a foot or so to the rear of the listener’s seating so they will give best sound quality.
2. To give the best performance in our room and also give best quality of sound so we can place them in height at least 2-3 feet higher than our seating position. This position will help to create a cloud of sound. We can use appropriate stands to achieve this position.
3. If the kind of the surround sound speakers system we have is the 6.1 or 7.1, we can place the remaining speakers directly behind the listener or mounted on the back wall. If in fact mounted on the back wall is not possible so we can use appropriate stands.

Experiment with the position of surround speakers will of course achieve optimum sound that we are comfortable with. Not placing them too far to the back or too near to the ear is really important as it will also help to give comfortable sound for us. We can put them at least at 2-3 feet above the ear level.

4. The Subwoofer Placement

Subwoofer is the very easy part of surround sound speaker system to set up. This may because subwoofer deals with the bass, which produce the low-frequency sounds, and the sound coming from subwoofer is non-directional. There is no particular rule to set subwoofer so that we can put it wherever we want. But to give the best effect of sound we can place subwoofer close to a wall or solid surface as this will amplify the bass and giving the richer and deeper sound.

Actually surround sound speaker placement is really depending on many factors. They are the size of our room, the number of speakers and the construction material, which is used in the room, will of course give different effect of sound. Usually wooden surfaces are ideal for sound reflection and amplification.

We can do some experiments with different positions until we get something that we are comfortable with. However, there are no surely guides we must use unless they are something we like most. Actually, we can play around with the rules to get to a setting that suits us.

Read my other tips and guide about “Subwoofer Speakers”.

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