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Listening Positions
If you want the freedom to sit anywhere in
a room facing any direction, and/or find
that you prefer the “all around you” sound
of some car stereos to a conventional
“sound stage” facing you, consider the
speaker placement techniques profession-
al installers use in restaurants and bars.
They place speakers in an array around
the listening area, so that the music is
always surrounding you, regardless of the
direction you face.
The rule of thumb is to add one pair of
speakers for every 100 to 200 square feet
of listening area. Curiously, this is not so
that you can play the music louder, but so
that you can play it softer! When you
have only one pair of speakers in a large
room you will notice that when the sound
is perfect in one part of the room, it is too
loud near the speakers. By placing more
than one pair in the room you will avoid
these “hot spots” of loud sound and you
will create more sonic ambiance while
maintaining clarity and a rich sound
everywhere
(See Figure 5).
You can make listener position still less
critical by using mono rather than stereo.
This can be difficult to achieve with nor-
mal stereo amplifiers. However, Niles
manufactures Systems Integration
Amplifiers
®
which enable one room to be
wired in stereo while other rooms are
wired in mono! Consult your local Niles
dealer for more information.
In smaller rooms or rooms that are infre-
quently used, you typically can’t justify
the expense of more than two speakers.
Try to bracket the room with the two
speakers. Diagonal placement is a very
effective way to stretch the coverage pat
-
tern of two speakers. You can also com-
promise between direct sound (for detail
and clarity) and reflected sound (the
ambient or “all around you” effect). The
speakers can be placed near corners to
create more reflected sound. By directing
the tweeters to point away from the listen-
er, so they create as much reflected sound
as possible, you emphasize the ambient
effect. The more reflected sound there is
in the room the stronger the ambient
effect at low volumes. You should use
moderation, however, otherwise the com-
promise becomes too one sided and at
high volumes, the sound will be blurred
and less distinct.
Placement for Home Theater
Rear Applications
In a home theater, the goal is to reproduce
the experience of a great movie theater in
our homes. The biggest difference between
the two is the rear or surround speaker
array in a commercial theater. Here, it is
not uncommon to see twenty or thirty
speakers around the audience. This huge
array of speakers assures that you will feel
completely surrounded by the ambient
soundtrack of the movie. Film makers try
to use the “surround” soundtrack to enve-
lope you in the environment on screen.
They will place background music, rain
sounds, traffic noise, etc. on the “surround”
soundtrack. In a home with a single pair of
speakers it is easy for the jungle sounds to
sound like they are “in the middle of your
head” just like headphones!
A single pair of CM5HD, CM6HD or
CM8HD Loudspeakers, properly placed,
can create a very convincing simulation
of an array of speakers. If you place them
near a hard reflecting surface you can
make one pair of speakers sound like sev-
eral. Create as many reflections as possi-
ble by placing the speakers near a corner
so that the adjoining walls will act as a
powerful reflector. Direct the tweeters so
that sound is pointed away form the lis-
tener creating still more reflections and
thus more “surround sound” effect.
7
Speaker Placement