Practice of sound / Installation and placement tips
This chapter contains common information on loudspeaker
placement and installation.
In which room
do you achieve
the best sound?
No matter how good the equipment is, in the wrong
listening environment it will inevitably sound bad. There are
some basic rules concerning a proper loudspeaker
installation:
Reflexions
Carpets, curtains and soft furniture absorbs mid range and
high frequency sound, and this is preferable. Big empty area,
on the contrary, reflects it and produces a hard sound that
may lead to a blurry dialogue. Apart from coloring the
sound, also the perspective of the sound will deteriorate.
Reflexions in the room can roughly be compared to the
reflexions that yield ghost pictures on a TV screen.
Amplfication of
bass
frequencies
A loudspeaker that is placed near a wall, ceiling or floor will
be amplified in the lower frequencies in a sometimes not
desirable way (since it may lead to an indistinct sound
recreation). This amplification becomes even more obvious
if the loudspeaker is placed near a corner. Thus, for a sound
as clear as possible, the loudspeaker should be placed about
30 cm (about 12 inch) away from the wall.
However, there are exceptions from this rule. For some type
of walls / rooms the loudspeaker it may be advantageous to
place the loudspeaker nearer the wall (read more below).
Furniture
Be aware that furniture may vibrate and thus create bad
sound at loud bass.
Room
dimension
Quadratic rooms or rooms where the length is exactly twice
as long as the width should be avoided, since they may
create unwanted resonance.
Placement of
the subwoofer
Since it is so hard to judge the direction of bass frequencies,
the placement of the woofer is not that critical as for
instance the placement of front loudspeakers. However,
different placements
will
influence the sound. One basic
rule is to place the subwoofer together with or near the front
system (especially important if the front loudspeaker also
recreates bass frequencies) as this will minimize the risk of
phase eliminations in the room.
For some combinations of rooms / wall types, it may be
advantageous to place the woofer near a wall, however this
may also yield unwanted reflexions, hence a "dirty" sound.
How near the wall you place the subwoofer is a matter of
balance.
Never put the subwoofer inside a cabinet, the amplifier need
to be cooled by circulating air.
