Speaker Placement: How far from the wall should I place my speakers?

The reflections directly surrounding the speakers can cause all sorts of acoustic issues. In this video, we beak down the science behind Speaker Boundary Interference Response and how to counteract it's affects.

Free Advice:

Monster Bass Trap:

"Speaker placement can have a drastic impact on your frequency response, but the ideal location for your monitors is going to change based on your room size, personal preference, and whether or not you’re using a subwoofer.

Just looking at a speaker, we might infer that all of the sound is projected out of the front face. This is mostly true for the higher frequencies, but lower frequencies radiate in a sphere around the speaker meaning that they can create reflections and pressure zones on any of the surfaces directly surrounding them.

This is where the concept of Speaker Boundary Interference Response comes into play. Just like how the first reflections off our side walls can cause interference, the reflections off the front wall, side wall and floor can also cause issues directly surrounding the speakers.

No matter the distance from the speaker to the wall, there will always be phase interference at the frequencies that correlate to that distance.

So any distance between your speaker and your wall will create phase cancellation at 1/4th the wavelength. This is because after the sound reflects off the wall back to the speaker position it has traveled one half of the wavelength and arrives at the sound source 180 degrees out of phase with the original sound.

At one half the wavelength to the wall the sound travels the full length of the wave so it’s completely in phase when it bounces back to the speaker.

There are a few different strategies to mitigating these effects. Many high end studios build their speakers into the walls to eliminate the extra reflections all together, but this isn’t always an option for those with budget or space constraints.

One common solution is to bring your speakers out four feet or more from the front and side walls. This will ensure that the phase interference occurs in lower ranges that can be rerouted through your subwoofer instead of your front speakers."

This isn’t always viable in a smaller room and it requires that you have a subwoofer that can work at a high enough frequency to pick up where the stereo monitors cut off. You’ll still need to deal with the Boundary interference when it comes to placing the subwoofer.

The further the speaker is from the wall the lower the affected frequencies, So pulling the speaker out far enough to place acoustic treatment behind it often causes the interference to dip below the effective range of the panel. If we can place the speakers far enough out that the interference is mostly below the audible range, then we can treat behind the speakers with Soffits or range limited monsters to clean up the rest.

For smaller rooms it’s better, to place the spreaker as close to the front wall as possible, without actually touching. This will minimize any SB interference and you can then focus treatment around the speaker.

No matter where you place your speakers you’ll want to avoid having the same distance between multiple surfaces. If the distances from the speaker to the side wall and the front wall are the same then the same peaks and nulls will manifest from both sets of reflections which in turn will stack and create even larger peaks and nulls. This is also true for your floor as well.

[mrnobodyz]

If you are in the mood it’s well worth playing around with your speaker placement. In my experience even budget speakers can produce some unusual and mind blowing results when placed in the certain positions.

[hifijohn]

All very nice if you have a dedicated sound room, otherwise it's the wife that dictates speaker placement and that usually means in some corner out of sight.

[andrewchadsey]

Wow one of the quickest most detailed speakers placement videos on the tube!! Thanks for real info not dumbed down too far

[Buxtonphil]

This is an outstanding video! Never seen a better video show the placement like this. Fantastic work.

[Bigromeo]

6 inches increase to a foot from wall with adjusted toe in drastically improved volume and clarity. It was scary. Makes wonder what else I'm doing wrong.

[jas_bataille]

FINALLY, a video about placement that uses common sense and great knowledge! I'm a sound engineer yet didn't knew about the wavelength thing. It's very logical. I also find that placing your speaker high-up and then angling them down in smaller rooms works wonders for phase issues and really open-up the sound. I used to always put PA speakers around 7 feet in the air in any small club. I could even do it alone (not recommended). The difference was really big! I don't believe in the whole "put the speaker at head level" thing from experience. Right now my system is set up on each side of a square shelf in the corner, meaning the distance between speakers and wall is about 20x smaller than the distance between speakers and floor, and there are pretty much as close to the wall as possible, and a good few feet away from the ceiling. Modern small speakers tend to have a very narrow and focused image, which is great for small rooms since you do not need them to stand further appart than a few feet. Glad to know my instinct isn't bad :)

[times]

Interesting take to say "in smaller rooms, it is best to place speakers close to the wall and focus treatment around the monitors" I can see why...I thought more distance was generally better so I'd manage what I could.

[shotgunmasterQL]

I initially heard this advice and took it to heart. Then I later heard people talk about ports and passive radiators and how they behave differently closer to a wall, mainly with rear ported designs needing to be pulled further away from the wall, while front ported can be a bit closer to the wall. Because of that, I actually started assuming the positioning regarding walls mostly concerns ported and passive radiator speakers, while sealed/acoustic suspension speakers are much less affected.

But this video again would indicate that all speakers need to consider their placement in regards to walls.

Couple of questions/takeaways I still have about this:

1) I have seen people say that walls are what you should consider, so if you have something like a bookcase between the speaker and the wall, that's still fine if the distance to the wall is decent. I assume it has something to do with how the bookcase would help to further diffuse rest of the backwave, while the wall would help to bounce it or make the room sound bassy? The bookcase isn't as solid and flat of an object as a wall, so it would dissipate the backwave a little bit, reflect it a little bit, and lastly muffle the last bits of the wave reflecting from the wall behind it?

2) Would front ported/passive radiator designs still behave differently in regards to phase interference from the wall? To my understanding, the port/radiator becomes another source of bass noise, extending the frequency response lower. Since the port/radiator is producing some of the much lower frequencies that the driver isn't directly producing, would there still be the similar type of risk of phase interference? So the frequencies coming directly from the woofer are more affected, while the port/radiator frequencies are less affected?

[Clarity-]

Mind blown about the tip for small rooms to place speaker against wall (without touching). Will try it out!

[imrulhaque]

“ The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again”- Don Henley

[danmaycock]

On a surface, bring em as close to the edge as possible for bass response. I theorise that theres more room for the lower frequencies to resonate within the material.

[williamchen]

Finally a good video about this subject. Took me ages to learn this on my own.

[isaiahnova]

Thanks for these such well made videos! I love learning about acoustics. I know you have a few videos about diffusion already, but I’d love to see one showcasing the GridFusors 👍

[garyhedden]

Nice presentation but remember to consider the ceiling as a boundary, as well as the floor and walls

[deankim]

Clear and concise video on this topic, which is very rare on this topic.

[weareallbeingwatched]

Directivity is complex, and boundaries are often resonant / full of group delay.

Soffit mounted mains are amazing.

[snapascrew]

I’m dealing with a crap small room so genelec SAM series monitors with the tuning kit and a SAM series subwoofer have made all the difference!!!

[VaughnCordero]

I just put speakers on corner for louder response, works well on subs, it gives nice thumping BASS on chest

[andyh]

Can you elaborate on the 1:58 mark? Are you suggesting an acustic panel behind a monitor that is close to a wall is not a good idea?

[cmgerner]

At what specific measures you define a small room?

Right now the room my studio is in measures: Width: 3.16m . Length: 2.80m. Height: 2.18m.
With one door on each width wall...