For our ‘neglected’ stereophile readers

Here at Rapallo we have two ‘camps’. There is Deano, the stereophile/vinyl lover and Bart, the home theatre buff. Young Ben is on team Switzerland and bats for both camps. He is learning fast and we can see a serious amount of audiophile spending in his future.

While on one hand it is somewhat silly to talk about ‘camps’ (in the end, we’re all on the same awesome Rapallo team), it also provides for some animated discussion at times. Whether it is about the warmth of vinyl sound versus the accurateness of a digital track, or about the sensibility of the purchase of silver speaker cable as opposed to the much more affordable copper cable; it’s fair to say that the Rapallo guys keep each other on their brotherly toes.

And so it happened that while discussing the next topic for our blog, stereophile-Deano pointed out that we have spent several blogs on home theatre speaker placement, but never as much as written a word about stereo speaker placement for the discerning music listener.

‘Well.. doesn’t that come pretty much down to the same thing’, you may ask, as did home-theatre-Bart. ‘Yes, to some extend, but not quite…’, was the reply.

And so, for all you stereophiles out there, budding and seasoned; we sincerely apologize about the neglect. Here’s what we have to say about stereo speaker placement….

We’ll give Deano this: Incredible sound is what we are after when we are watching a movie in our home theatre, we want to be IN the movie, we want it to be real and complement the image. Sound is extremely important, but it shares the centre stage with the image.

But when Deano listens to his vinyl collection, he listens to every detail that might have previously escaped him; be it an extra layer of backing vocals or the gasp for air from the trumpet player. Hi-fi nuts like Deano get carried away with ‘imaging’. After all, it is what stereo was invented for and simply means that you get a sense that the singer is in the room. When Deano listens to his stereo set-up, there is nothing but him and the music.

Our point: it’s a very different way of listening. And because of that, getting the best out of your speakers and therefore speaker placement is important in a home theatre surround set-up, but it becomes even more vital in a stereo set-up dedicated for listening to music.

And then there is the other difference that is the audience. When Bart retreats for his daily dose of movie watching, more often than not, he shares the experience with other people. Because of that, a good part of the challenge of speaker placement in his home theatre is making sure that all seats in the home theatre are good seats. (We have discussed this issue in previous blogs)

This is less of a problem for Deano. When Deano listens to his music, he enjoys a solitary experience. Setting up your room for just one exquisite seat, is a hell of a lot easier than avoiding nulls for 4 seats.

The easiest way to make your stereo set-up an awesome one involves adjusting the location and orientation of your speakers. In fact, correct speaker placement may also be the most effective means to immediately enjoy fantastic audio performance from your stereo system. Every room is different, but there are several speaker placement tips that will make your system sound better.

Some tips Deano swears by:

• Give your speakers at least a meter of space from the back wall. In general, when speakers sit too closely to walls (especially corners), they can reflect sound off of surfaces as well as exhibit an over-amplified bass response (makes the bass sound too loud and/or boomy). This is bad when watching movies, it’s disastrous for the vinyl lover. We would like to add that all this can be equally useful if you need to work with limitations or slight imperfections (for instance like when you have small speakers that don’t produce much bass). In that case, placing your speakers slightly closer to the wall might actually help increase bass and compensate for the limitations of your speakers to a certain extend.

• You’ll want to angle the speakers – also known as toe-in – so that they focus towards the listening spot. This way, you can experience the sharpest-possible acoustic imaging (the sweet spot)

• Unless your speakers are floorstanders, you don’t want your speakers directly on the floor. As with your left and right front channel speaker in a surround home theatre set-up, bookshelf speakers should be placed on speaker stands tall enough so that the tweeters are at ear height. What you want from a speaker stand is to help absorb reverberations (ensure they are very stable) and prevent the inclusion of noise. Speaker stands come in a variety of types and sizes, metal and wood being the most popular materials, and each has a character that it adds to the sound. As a general rule, the heavier the stand the more solid the sound. Some experts advise to blu-tack you speakers to the stand, if it is heavy and made of metal so you get a tightly focused, controlled sound. Alternatively, you can get a more open and ‘fast’ sound with a lighter stand. That said, the interface between speaker and stand is equally critical and if you use sponge pads or similar between the two you will get less of the stand character and a better overall balance.

• For floorstanders, make use of spikes or pads that come with most floorstanders to ensure your speakers stay as still as possible. Vibration-free speakers is the aim.

• Don’t put anything in front of the speakers. This can mean small furniture, home decor, books, DVDs, you name it. Any objects in front the speakers will end up reflecting sound, causing distortion or blurring.

• If your speakers have grilles on, you may find that removing them makes for a crisper, clearer sound.

• Deano uses masking tape on the floor to mark the speaker position as you experiment with placement options.

Talking about experimenting with speaker placement, there are several ways to determine stereo speaker placement. The one that is used most often is probably the Golden Triangle Rule.

Apply the Golden Rectangle Rule

If your room permits, try placing the speakers about a meter from the front wall. This reduces reflections from the front and side walls (and it also helps to tame boomy bass). But the distances from the side walls are equally important too. The golden rectangle rule states that a speaker’s distance to the nearest the side wall should be 1.6 times its distance from the front wall. So, if the distance from the front wall is 1 meter, then the distance to the nearest side wall should be 1.6 meter for each speaker (or vice versa if your room is wider than longer).

Once the speakers are in the ideal spot, angle them in by 30 degrees to face the listening spot. Essentially, you want the two speakers and the listener to create an equilateral triangle. If you want perfection, a protractor and measuring tape will help immensely. Just keep in mind that you don’t want the listener’s head to be exactly at the corner of the triangle.

Sit several inches closer so that the point rests behind the head. This way, your ears will pick up the left and right stereo channels perfectly.

So while this golden triangle rule, certainly has its usefulness, it’s is also not gospel. Finding the right placement is a matter of pulling the speakers out from the wall until you get a good tonal balance, one where bass, mid and treble are all at a similar when playing a variety of records.

To find a balance that suits your room, your equipment and your music, try moving your speakers 10cm at a time away from the wall and stop when the bass looses power, then maybe move them back a bit to find an optimal balance. You want to feel the bass but also be able to hear what the bass line is doing; can you hear different bass notes is a good question to ask. If they all sound the same the speakers are probably too close to the wall.

Also, Deano is finding the Cardas website quite helpful in determining stereo speaker placement for your room.

And while we are discussing bass, also look into subwoofer placement if you use a subwoofer (you should). We have previous blogs on this topic, but considering we are writing for music lovers who tend to favour less bass than the average movie fan, we recommend to keep the subwoofer away from walls and corners.

On a final note…

Just like we suggested above, don’t be afraid to experiment with speaker placement. Every room is different and the methods presented above are as always just guidelines. Just whatever you do, you really want to work for improved soundstage and imaging rather than aesthetics.

And finally there is the matter of acoustics  that we want to mention here.

When you listen to music you listen to two things: Sound coming from you speakers and reflected sound. It may pay to consider the use of acoustic treatment in your room to reduce harsh sound caused by too much reflected sound coming from the rooms hard surfaces (like timber or tile floors and windows without curtains). Just don’t overdo it; you don’t want a dead room that lacks spaciousness either. Treatment can be as simple as putting up some curtains or putting down a rug or can involve acoustic wall panels if you choose to go there.

Sources: The Lifewire, ecoustics, Audioholics, The Vinyl Factory