Stereo and Surround Speaker Placement
May 9, 2008
Blue Sky | "The Stand'
Proper placement and aiming of the speakers in your studio or home audio system, can greatly improve the audio experience. Below are suggestions for placement of speakers for three general applications; stereo, 5.1 music and 5.1 film. If at all possible, speaker placement should be symmetrical relative to the room boundaries and the listening position.
Suggested Guidelines For Stereo Monitoring Placement
The recommended position for the left and right speakers, in a stereo configuration, is at a 60 degree angle relative to the listener, forming an equilateral triangle (a triangle with equal sides) as shown in the Reference Monitoring Position diagram (click to view). Fortunately, this setup eliminates most of the math and is easily simplified to the following guidelines: If you want to sit 1 meter (39.37 inches) from the speakers, place the speakers 1 meter apart. If you want to sit 6 ft from the speakers, place the speakers 6 ft apart. Etc.
Ideally the speakers should be at seated ear height as show in the Monitoring Height Recommendation (click to view). If this is not possible, tilting the speaker cabinet at the listening area can improve high-frequency coverage.
Speaker Placement 5.1 Music Optimized System
As described above, the recommended listening angle for proper stereo imaging with music is 60 degrees between the left and right speakers and this doesn’t change when expanding to 5.1 channels of audio. The center channel speaker should be located on axis with the reference listening position, and both the left and right surround channel speakers should be at an angle of 110 degrees from the centerline (click to view).
In most applications, surrounds used for music are placed at the same height as the front speakers for a direct sound field (click to view). If this is not possible, tilting the cabinet at the listening area can improve high-frequency coverage.
Speaker Placement 5.1 Film/Video Optimized System
Although the recommendation for music applications should work equally well for film, there may be situations where a more “film” optimized setup is desirable. To correctly relate audio to picture, the recommended angle between left and right speakers is 45 degrees. This narrower listening angle should still yield a very satisfactory stereo image. As with the “music” setup, the center channel speaker, should still be located on axis with the reference monitoring position. Unlike music surrounds, which tend to be direct in nature, film surrounds are usually positioned for a more diffused sound field to simulate the effect of an array of surround speakers used in a theater. For a single pair of surrounds, this can be accomplished by placing them two feet above seated ear height, to the side and slightly by behind the main listening position.
For more information on this subject, along with 6.1 and 7.1 surround system configurations, please visit Dolby Laboratories’ website. For information about subwoofer placement, please follow this link.
Thank you for your informative posting. I hope you or others can clarify for me whether the center speaker in a 5.1 Dolby surround sound system puts forth any sound when a cd music disc is played through the surround system. We wish to position the center speaker above or below the HD television with a solid door to cover it when we are not using the television monitor. It appears from all that I have read that the side and surround speakers emit the stereo music without using the center speaker, but I need to confirm this in order to place a solid door in front of the center speaker without hindering any music that may come from it. Can you clarify this for me please?
Hello Jim:
Thank you for your question.
The question you asked seems simple enough, but the answer largely depends on how you have your 5.1 system configured. Typically when people play a 2-channel music CD, they don’t pay much attention to the processing mode their receiver or surround processor is set to. This means that invariable it ends up being left in the Dolby Surround mode which was used for TV or DVD viewing and in this mode the receiver will attempt to decode the stereo CD to surround. Because of how this process works, a lot of information can get sent to the center channel. If you prefer to listen to your stereo music CDs without any surround decoding (or other surround processing) and therefore without the center channel (and also typically without the surround speakers), you will need to select the “Stereo” setting in the receiver when listening to CDs. You can also check to see if another surround processing mode, which doesn’t implement the center channel, but still uses L&R and surrounds speakers, is available.
I would check the manual for your surround system, to see how this can best be accomplished. Depending on your receiver, it may remember the settings between different inputs or you may be able to assign specific processing modes to certain inputs.
I hope this helps to answer your question.
Happy Holidays!
Pascal
Thank you, Pascal. Your answer may help me in choosing a receiver as well. We have been advised to get a 2nd Zone receiver in order to play stereo music outside on our new deck while the surround sound video may be in use inside the house.
I wish you a happy holiday, as well!
Jim