How important is speaker positioning?My experience

Speaker placement can make or break a system in some rooms and that goes for two channel as well as hometheater. Once in a while you get people who buy the wrong speakers for their room or just did not take into account the W.F. so its also a good idea to give a whole lot of thought as to what speakers fit your room even before you buy. I had a system that sounded so good I could listen to it for days on end, well I sold the house and bought a new one and no amount of trying and tweaking could bring back that magic I had in the old room. I think a lot of good gear,not just speakers get a bad rap from people because its the wrong system in the wrong room.

Amit, thank you for your post!

I also tried the Audio Physic speaker placement technique to great effect in my room. I read it in a "Fine Tune" column by Jonathan Scull(my least favorite Stereophile writer). It was probably the quick and dirty version. But, as I said, the results were fantastic. Along with my upgrade to OTL power amplifiers, it was the single biggest improvement I have made since moving into this new room this year.

For those interested, here is the gist of it...

First, long wall placement is favorable to short wall placement. I know this sounds trivial, but the long wall is the room's longer wall - in a 20 X 15 room, the long wall is 20', the short wall is 15'. I only write this because it sometimes elicits some confusion - sorry. Reasons being imaging, and ability to position speakers farther from the room's side boundaries.

The listening chair should be parallel to the speakers, obviously.

Second, divide the room into 4ths, both longitudinally(front to back - parallel to the short walls) and laterally(parallel to the plane of the speakers/listener/long walls). You will have 3 lines parallel to each wall. According to this theory, the room's bass response is strongest along these lines.

The ideal speaker location is the intersections of the second lateral line(middle of room, between the long walls), and the 1st and 3rd longitudinal lines.

Next best, and where I positioned the speakers in my squarish, not too large room(because of furniture/WAF/looks, etc.), is at the 1st and 3rd parallel lines and 1st and 3rd longitudinal lines.

For those that position their speakers along the short wall, the same placement alignments hold true.

Moving the speakers back and forth along the lateral and longitudinal lines affects deep bass or midbass, depending on which plane you move.

The no - no(unless you have speakers that overload the room, and you want to ameliorate this problem) is to to divide the room up in thirds rather than quarters. The room's bass response is weakest along these lines.

This was a mistake I was making, thinking that imaging would be best here, I ended up in these locations longitudinally. I didn't factor thirds, quarters, or any of this into what I was previously doing, I used a different recipe. In many room's the difference between thirds and fourths can be very small. Which is the reason many are so astonished at the effect of moving the speakers even an inch or two.

When I went with this theory, it certainly reaped wonderful benefits for me. Every facet of sonics improved. And, like people always say, speaker placement is free. My new room gave me an incredible improvement in sound, correct speaker placement took it to an even greater level.

GOOD LUCK everyone!

Trejla, very nice post and a spot-on accounting of my own experience. Amazing the difference of even an inch movement, huh? It is worth the time spent to get it right.

We recently moved and my older son said, mournfully, that he bet it would take me a month of tweaking to get things the way I wanted. The younger said, "Yeah, but Dad likes to do that tweaking". He was right, of course. ;-)

Speaker placement is probably the biggest effect on sound for my system, and small one inch adjustments can make significant differences. Thanks for the details Trejla... my speakers are at the 1st and 3rd latitude and longitude lines, and that was me adjusting by ear!...

IMHO if you put your speakers against a wall you may as well shop at Circuit city ... it makes that much difference. The Audio Physic site is a great resource ... it's what I stumbled upon a few years ago, and it showed me what my Spica's are capable of.