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Speaker Placement
—Continued
Subwoofer
Using a subwoofer greatly improves the volume level and
sound quality of bass sounds. The subwoofer effect depends
not only on the listening position but also on the shape of the
listening room.
• In general, place the subwoofer in a corner of the room or at
a point 1/3 the width of the room.
• Play a movie or music that contains high quality bass
sounds to determine the subwoofer placement. Change the
subwoofer’s position and check the effect, then select the
position where the bass sounds are best heard.
• You can place two subwoofers for more powerful and
richer heavy bass sounds.
To enjoy sources using THX Cinema or THX Surround EX
technology, we recommend using a THX speaker system from
THX Ltd. A speaker system supporting the THX Ultra2
standard is best suited for THX Ultra2 Cinema or THX Music
Mode.
The layout example on the right represents a case using the
dipole speakers. A dipole speaker is a two-way directivity
speaker that outputs the same sound in two directions such as
forward and backward.
Most dipole speakers are marked with an arrow indicating how
they should be oriented in the room in order to match their
phases*. Dipole surround speakers should be placed so that
their arrows point forward toward the screen, and dipole
surround back speakers should be placed so that their arrows
point toward each other.
*Phase: The word represents the waveform position in one cycle (0 to 360 degrees) of a sine wave. If
the phase does not match between multiple waveforms due to the distance between multiple speakers,
the speaker orientation, or the miswiring of positive and negative poles, the sound image or space may
be obscured or the sound may be less easy to listen to.
When playing the source in the THX Ultra2 Cinema or THX Music Mode format using two
surround back speakers supporting the THX Ultra2 standard, place them as close together as
possible. After placing the surround back speakers, perform the settings described in the
“THX Audio Setup” (page 91).
This placement is based on the ITU-R* recommendation. In this placement, five
speakers with the same performance capabilities are used for front left and right,
center, and left and right surround speakers, and they are placed so that the distances
between every speaker and the listening position are equal to each other and the
heights of the speaker and the listener’s ears are the same. A mixing studio used for
making multichannel DVD-Audio source material adopts this placement.
*ITU-R: International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector
1/3 room
length
Corner
Speaker Placement Suitable for THX Audio
Speaker Placement Suitable for a Music Source such as DVD-Audio
Layout with dipole speakers
3
2
4
5
1
67
8 9
10
1 TV or screen
2 Subwoofer
3 Front left speaker
4 Center speaker
5 Front right speaker
6 Surround left speaker
7 Surround right
speaker
8 Surround back left
speaker
9 Surround back right
speaker
10 Listening position
6
7
10
89
As close as
possible
60
Center
SR
SL
Sub-
woofer
Front
Right
Front
Left