How Close To The Wall Can You Put Your Speakers? | The Boundary Effect Explained

How Close To The Wall Can You Put Your Speakers? Have you been eying up a new pair of speakers, but you're not sure if they'll work in your room?  For a lot of people it comes down to the question how close to the wall can you put your speakers?

00:00 Start
00:10 Do this experiment
01:00 Too close to the wall | The Boundary Effect
02:11 Try pulling out 1-2 feet
02:52 Too close to the sidewall
04:26 Speakers sounding thin? | Too much bass?

In this video Andrew Welker gives you an experiment to try (some tape and a good mixed tape required!) and then explains some common phenomena: boundary loading, boundary effect, and what to do if you're experiencing any amplifications at strange frequencies.

Free Download: Four Sound Improvements That Don't Cost a Dime!

Fall in love with your music🎵 all over again❤️
Get speakers you’ll listen to at any volume for hours on end.🎚️

Questions?
-

[zzxxyy]

My wife dictates where my speakers go..thinks they're "decoration"

[Daniel_Ho_Status_]

So can basic tone controls or a graphic equalizer compensate for boundary loading?

On a side note, I once lived alone in an apartment with a 14 x 18 living room, and I owned a pair of tower loudspeakers with rear ports. I spent many months optimizing speaker placement and furnishing around them. They ultimately sounded best 6 feet from the back wall, 4 feet from the side walls, slightly toed in, and with six 4 cu.ft empty cardboard boxes draped with blankets as bass traps to tune the bass. Ugliest. Thing. Ever. But it was epic, I’ve never had better imaging, soundstage, and non-subwoofered bass since. The life of a bachelor!

[ditto_]

The trouble I have with my speakers needing to be close to the wall is imaging. Thanks to the wonders of REW and Eq APO I have a great frequency response. The center image is good but very narrow, and all the sound comes from in front of the speakers. This makes it very hard to make the speakers disappear in the room. Not many people talk about this when placing speakers close to the front wall. Every well setup two channel system I have heard has the speakers about a third of the way out in the room. None of the sound comes from the speakers themself but from behind them and or all around them. So, imaging is what I would say is affected the most from speakers being too close to the front wall. Frequency response is a fairly easy fix or at least there is more opportunity to fix it.

[rudolfhuijs]

Sometime ago I did these adjustments and did the listen, analyze, decide steps. Afterwards, I did the same with the sub, but I played with the height. Yes, it is rare but best option came when the center sub driver was 2 feet and 2 inches from the floor. Then I removed the carpet near the floor standing speakers and everything changed. Carpet back, 2 feet high and I am happy :)
Thanks for passing this valuable information!

[JillDinardo-mbii]

Thanx, Im gonna try moving my front speakers away from the wall.This has been keeping me up at night.

[doubledrat]

You and Paul from PS Audio are helping me have a better sound. Thanks

[SoundFreqsOnline]

Thanks! Where should I put the subwoofer ?

[garygray]

Thx I’ll give this a try I have 2 pioneer tower speakers about 5 inches from the wall

[TheHammerofDissidence]

My KLH's use acoustic suspension and I have them a little over a foot from the back wall, 3 feet or so away from side walls. They don't sound bloated at all with a sealed design!

[valantj]

Hi Andrew. Nice and interesting stuff. I own modified Energy 22 monitors... Due to small room i consider moving them close to wall. However, there will be dual closet in between. Since move also require some furniture moving (epic problem!! ;) ) i would like to hear your view on that. Shall i move them back and allign front side almost near closet front edge to reduce sound to bounce off, etc. Anyway, thanks for good tips!

[iandev]

Since my B&O beovox s45 type 6302 sounded a bit lacking in base, at about 30cm from the wall, when I first set them up, I moved them closer to the wall. Guess what? They sounded really harsh with far too much trebble! So I moved them back to about 50cm. Low and behold, the sound came out really nice with good base and a really full sound. I know this defies logic, but there you go.

[pogolas]

My front speakers are mounted on the wall. The distance between the wall and the speakers is about 15cm. Should I putt something on that wall. Some absorbing material?

[wadia]

When you say distance to the front wall. Do you mean to the back of the speaker of front?

[adamant]

I have two systems in a carpeted 17 X 10 foot room. A futon bed sits in the middle of both systems. My reference system's floor standing stereo speakers sit 8 feet from the back wall while the 7.1 HT front speakers sit 4 feet from the front wall. Both systems front speakers are toed in but pointed behind me while straddling their respective side walls. The HT systems subwoofer, center channel and TV sit in a cabinet a foot from front wall. The only issue I've had for some time was the front firing and front ported sub rattling during heavy bass pounding movie scenes. My solution was to pick up four hockey pucks and put them underneath the sub. I find that not only does it rarely rattle now but the bass is a little less boomy and noticeably smoother all the while elevating the sub slightly. This room sounded terrible in that it was lacking bass and reverberating sound when I first hooked up the systems. With the addition of the futon lying flat it in the middle of both systems they both sound great. BTW, I find the best sound comes positioning your ears between the tweeter and mid/bass driver.

[WEtter-wcnk]

How does this apply to wall mounting speakers with Axiom's full metal bracket? I have a pair of wall mounted M22s that I use as stereo speakers and I think they sound fantastic. I have seen lots of comments about M22s needing a subwoofer, but I have never felt the need to add a sub because the bass already sounds great to me. Could this be due to the boundary effect?

[bindaredundat-uvwz]

I MOVED MY SPEAKERS 3 FEET FROM THE BACK WALL AND THEN I MOVED THEM RIGHT UP AGAINST THE WALL AND IN BOTH CASES NICLELBACK STILL SUCKS !!

[haukehuckstadt]

Hello Andrew, can you tell me, do the axiom outrigger also fit the bryston middle-t?

[ricklohr]

I have my speakers on shelves behind my projection screen so I don't have the option to move them around. Other than blocking the port, are there other options I can try like sound deadening material? I have a pair of Axiom m2i and a matching center speaker?

[emdfph]

My M5's are about 6" from the wall back and 4' from the sides. I've played around with plugging the ports before and found they worked best open. I am curious to see what effects I get with moving as I do have a half wall about that's 3' high that juts out into the room on one side. I have noticed the sound differs from left to right.

[MrSkyTown]

Can being close to a walk help extend low end frequencies that the speaker can’t produce well