As mentioned by dvpa59 in his post above, for ideal music listening the main speakers should be placed to form a triangle with the listening position. In other words, the distance between the left and right speaker should be identical to the distance from either speaker to the listener. If you were positioned in the center of a 360 degree circle, each speaker would be approximately 60 degrees to each side of the center front.
The speakers should be horizontally oriented to fire straight forward into the room. They should be positioned vertically so that the tweeters are the same height above the floor as the listener's ears.
Not so for Home Theater. Here, the three front speakers (Left, Center, Right) should be arranged in an arc. Each of the three should be the same distance from the listener, and the main speakers should be turned inward to fire directly at the listening position.
The length of the arc (distance between the three speakers) is a function of the room's acoustics: The intent is for the main Left and Right speaker to expand the front sound stage, without making the sound effects sound unrealistically too far left or right of the action visible on the screen. In practice, this usually means the best placement for HT main speakers is closer together than the "triangle" placement for music speakers, often about 45 degrees to each side. Try starting with the speakers next to the TV while watching a source that has action "panning" off screen to left and right, then gradually move the speakers further away from the center until just before the "pan" no longer sounds realistic. The speakers should not be so far apart that the off-screen action you hear through them distracts you from the action on the screen.
As with music placement, all three HT front speakers should ideally be positioned so that the tweeters are the same height above the floor as the listener's ears. Of course this is usually not possible for the center speaker because the TV screen is in the way -- the most common alternative is to position the center speaker above the screen, and angle it downward until it is firing directly at the listener's position. The bottom front edge of the speaker should be as close to the front edge of the TV as possible, to avoid reflecting any sound off the set.
Hope this helps. -Bruce
This message was edited by Bruce Burson on 01/26/02 21:49.04.
