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The Boundary Effect
Corners can affect the bass response of
the speaker powerfully! This is called the
boundary effect. You will emphasize par-
ticular bass frequencies and cancel out
other bass frequencies when you place
speakers close to the wall/ceiling bound-
ary or a corner wall boundary. This can
make the speaker sound excessively
boomy and inaccurate to some listeners,
while to others it just seems like more
bass sound. A good rule of thumb is if
you always listen to your current pair of
speakers with the bass turned up, you’ll
enjoy corner placement. If you keep your
tone controls at neutral, try to keep the
speakers at least two or three feet from
the boundaries of the room.
Placement for Varying 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 conven-
tional “sound stage” facing you, consider
the speaker placement techniques profes-
sional installers use in restaurants and
bars. They place speakers in an array
around the listening area, so that the
music is always surrounding you, regard-
less 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 plac-
ing 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.
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). By
trying to place the speakers so that they
create as much reflected sound as possi-
ble you emphasize the ambient effect.
They can be up high in the wall or even
down low at power outlet height , in the
ceiling, near corners, or directed at
reflective objects and walls. The more
reflected sound there is in the room the
stronger the ambient effect at low vol-
umes. You should use moderation, how-
ever, otherwise the compromise becomes
too one sided and at high volumes, the
sound will be blurred and less distinct.
Placement for Rear Home Theater
Applications
In a home theater, the goal is to repro-
duce the experience of a great movie the-
ater 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”
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Speaker Placement