How To

Why speaker positioning matters

For those of us who believe music should still be an immersive experience not just for background listening, here is some advice on how to position your speakers to get the best out of them.

Before we start it is important to remember that every room will sound different and everyone who listens will hear sound slightly differently.  Flooring and soft furnishings within a room can have a massive impact on the sonic experience, as well as positioning too close to walls or facing windows.  Just think back to the day you turned the key to your new home and how much the room echoed when it was empty, but now you don’t notice this once you have put up the curtains and filled it with all your furniture.

Hi-Fi Setup

So, having just unboxed your new speakers, start off by aiming for an equilateral triangle between them and where your listening position will be. This will help provide the best stereo imaging sweet spot. Our F500 Series and up, benefit from our proprietary Isoflare technology, which means the soundstage will be wider, giving a larger more natural sound field.

To start, aim for an equilateral triangle between the listening position and the speakers.

Speaker placement

Floorstanding Speakers

Our Technical Director here at Fyne Audio, Dr Paul Mills, advises you should ideally have your speakers between 1.5-4.5m (5-15ft) apart, no closer to the side walls than 1m (3ft) or 0.5m(20 inches) to the back wall. They should also be “toed in”, in other words angled slightly into the room towards the listener.

Ideally have your speakers between 1.5-4.5m (5-15ft) apart, no closer to the side walls than 1m (3ft) or 0.5m(20 inches) to the back wall

Typical Hi-Fi setup (featuring F500 Series)

Typical Hi-Fi Set up

Bookshelf and Standmount Speakers

Bookshelf and Standmount speakers are generally smaller and therefore often used in smaller spaces. These should still be placed around the 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock position in the room. Positioned at ear height, they should have as much space around them as possible to reduce any unwanted “booming” effects from the surrounding boundary walls.  For products that feature our patented BassTrax downward firing port system, positioning is less critical than other more conventionally ported loudspeakers.

AV Setup

Front Channel

When setting up for AV (Audio Visual), your front right and left channel speakers should be positioned in the same way as 2 channel Hi-Fi positioning. The centre speaker should be an equal distance between both the left and right channel and at the same height which again should ideally be at ear level.

Rear Channel

Used for cinematic surround sound effects, your rear channel speakers should be positioned behind you in the mirror position of your front speakers and toed into the listening position to create a fully immersive movie experience.

Subwoofer

The Subwoofer is designed to bring more low frequency to your listening experience and its performance can be greatly influenced by placement in the room too. Sitting it in a corner next to the front channel loudspeakers will increase the amount of bass while positioning them centrally along a wall or further out in the room will bring much less bass reinforcement.

Typical AV Set Up (featuring F500 Series and F3 Series)
(Rear channel behind listening position)

F3 F501 and F500C

Got all that?

As touched on before, every room is unique and sound quality will change from room to room, so don’t forget those floor coverings can make a difference. Those beautiful wooden oak floors look the part, but they will help bounce the sound waves around, delivering potentially a less coherent, more muddled sound. On the other hand, carpets, rugs, soft cushions and pillows all help dampen any unwanted energy. So, if things sound a little off, allow your hidden interior designer to introduce some soft furnishings or curtains into the room.

It might take some experimenting, but that's part of the fun!

It might take some experimenting to find the exact set up that works for you, but remember, that’s part of the fun! Don’t be afraid to move things around and change things up to find your exact sound.

Happy listening.

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