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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
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.
You can make listener position still
less critical by using mono rather than
stereo. This can be difficult to achieve
with normal 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 pos-
sible 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
soundtrack to envelope you in the envi-
ronment on screen. They will place back-
ground 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 PR loudspeakers, prop-
erly 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 several. Create as many reflections
as possible by mounting the speaker up
high in the wall so that the ceiling will act
as a powerful reflector. If you place the
speakers near a corner, wash the sound
down a wall from a ceiling location, or
mount the speakers as far away as you
can from the listening area, more reflec-
tions will occur. However, all of these
placement techniques require that you
work your surround sound amplifier chan-
nels harder. If the surround sound system
you are using has a small five or ten watt
amplifier for the rear speakers, stay within
five to eight feet of the listening location.
If you are using a 25 to 50 watt amplifier
you can mount the speakers 10 to 15 feet
away from the listening location and still
achieve reasonably high volume levels.
Of course, the best way to emulate the
sound of multiple speakers is to use mul-
tiple speakers. In large or unusually shaped
rooms this might be the only way to
achieve a good effect. If you like to listen
to music surround modes which emulate
concert hall acoustics, more than two sur-
round speakers will prove extraordinarily
effective. With Niles PR loudspeakers it is
easy to add another pair without affecting
the decor of the room. However, you will
need to use a much more powerful ampli-
fier than that which is built into a typical
surround sound receiver or amplifier. Niles
makes a number of Systems Integration
Amplifiers
®
with proprietary features that
make them uniquely suited to enhance a
good surround sound system. Consult your
local Niles dealer for more information.
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Speaker Placement