Home Theater Speaker Placement Tips | Home Theater

By JessiJanae
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Are you building your own home theater system? If so, you will definitely need to consider your home theater speaker placement. Surround sound systems generally come with a subwoofer and around five speakers.

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 just makes it harder than it needs to be. You can just try out different placements with your speakers until you hit upon an arrangement that gives you the best surround sound experience.

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.

Although you can get valuable information from the manufacturer's guidelines and instructions, you should trust your own ears to judge whether your home theater speaker placement works for you.

Center channel speaker -- For the sake of realism, you will want to put the center channel speaker right below the TV screen. Why? The center channel speaker is where you'll hear conversations and other on-screen sounds, so this will make it seem more realistic.

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.

These speakers play movie soundtracks and handle the split stereo sound of your music. The speakers should be placed equidistant from the listener as the center channel speaker, so the three front speakers form an arc when viewed from above.

Surround speakers -- These should go right behind the listener, to the left as well as the right. These will go much higher; they ought be about ear level when you're standing upright.

If they are on adjustable brackets or stands, experiment with pointing them at the outside or rear walls. You may be surprised with how realistic the sound is when it's allowed to bounce off the walls before reaching the listeners.

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Before you Build a Home Theater be sure to check out our Home Theater Set Up and Home Theater Decor.

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