Page 1 of Speaker locations

As all rooms are different shapes what's the general rule of thumb for positioning speakers?

I'm lucky in that my room is a simple rectangle 5.23x3.15 but there is a good chance my Mrs will want to put something like a lamp in the corner of a room instead of a floor standing speaker (can you believe it?!) so it might not be that simple.

I also might not have the sofa directly in the centre of the wall in which case we could be sitting closer to the left side speakers.

The diagram below shows the possible layout I'm looking at.

My main question is, should I put the front speakers in the corner of the room and point them inwards or leave them either side of the TV?  The blue line is 1.6m so that leaves about 3.6m of wall for TV and speakers.  The window is exactly in the middle of the room and the plan is to have the sofa under it, but it might get moved to the left so everything gets a bit messy then.

Do I just adjust the volume of the rear right speaker to make it louder if I move the sofa left or move the speaker with it...?! 

This item was edited on Monday, 4th December 2017, 10:52

Does your amp have an auto-setup thingy with a little mic?

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You want your front speakers either side of the TV, can be next to or further away each side of TV. (I also have a middle speaker which is under the TV stand)

The surround sound speakers (rear speakers) would be over at the wall with the window (sofa under window), again either side of the sofa or further away each side of sofa.

If you have a bass boom box speaker in your system, keep it furthest away from the neighbour's, or you will p*** them off 

I don't have an amp yet but I think the Yamaha RXV683 (currently leading the list) comes with something like that.  Guessing it will be simple enough then if that comes with some dummies guide to setting up your speakers!

It's our first detached house so only have to worry about waking up the little one! :)

The wider apart your front speakers, the better the stereo separation. Ideally they should be the same distance from your center speaker (or TV). But if doing this puts them out of line of sight when you are viewing your TV, you'll have to compromise.

An amp with automatic speaker setup/calibration will fix most issues though, one thing it can't fix is speakers far too close together (if you can't hear much separation to start with they aren't magic) or speakers too close to your listening position.

They will primarily alter the delay time so sound is arriving at the right moment to where you are seated, and make up for your speaker's inability to cover a wide frequency range accurately by boosting bands to get a more even response.


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Actually, not true that the wider apart the better the stereo. Remember, stereo doesn't mean 2 it derives from the Greek ' solid' and the aim is to recreate a 3d representation of the music being played.

This aim has now become less important given the proliferation of 5.1 and 7.1 sound systems to handle movie mixes.

But for good stereo, you should be roughly at one corner of an equilateral triangle for a good sweet spot.

Subject, of course, to SWMBO.