Dolby Laboratories Home Theater Speaker User Manual
Home Theater Speaker Guide
Optimize your sound system that includes Dolby® technology with this step-by-step guide to
the best speaker setup, including room considerations and other valuable tips.
90º
110º
22º 22º
30º 30º
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90º
110º
2.1
5.1
2 Speakers
5 Speakers
1 Subwoofer
1 Subwoofer
5.1-Speaker Room View
1. Seating Position
2. Left and Right Speakers
3. Center Speaker
4. Left and Right Speaker Angle
5. Subwoofer (the “.1”)
6. Left and Right Surround Speakers
Fine-Tuning
Once you’ve done your basic speaker setup, you’re ready to enjoy the home theater
entertainment experience. Keep in mind, however, that every room is dierent; you may
be able to further improve the sound by going beyond the general guidelines and ne-
tuning the speaker placement within your room. You could, of course, hire a professional
installer; however, with just a little time and some careful listening, you can do it yourself.
Your Environment
An Ongoing Experiment
There is no objectively “perfect” setup. All speakers, no matter how good, are bound by
the laws of physics. What you can do is put them in the best locations to take maximum
advantage of their capabilities, both individually and within the total system. Remember
that the best sound is what sounds best to you. It’s your system. If you’ve set it up and it
sounds great, you may not need to read any further.
However, if you’re not hearing any bass, or there’s no sense of spaciousness and depth, or
something seems to be missing, some ne-tuning may be in order. Even small adjustments
in placement can have clearly audible eects. And that goes for your furnishings as well
as your speakers.
First, do some extended listening. Do you hear a convincing sonic “image” between
your main (front left and right) speakers? This is the soundstage, and you want to
maximize it for depth and richness. Ideally, the speakers will “disappear,” and the sound
will ll the space between them. Focus on dierent types of sounds—voices, motion,
music, sound eects—in turn. Individual vocals or instruments, or eects such as
footsteps, should be precisely placed across this space.
Now try positioning your main speakers farther apart and then closer together and listen
to the results. Move the speakers in small increments, a few inches at a time. Generally,
the greater the distance between your main speakers, the wider your soundstage; the
closer they are, the more centered the sound. If the speakers are too far apart, they will
start to sound like separate speakers rather than a coherent system.
Similarly, when ne-tuning the placement of the surrounds, keep the idea of the
coherent system in mind. Surround sounds should emanate from within a general area
(covering the sides and rear of the room). Even if the surround sounds can be localized,
the localization should be from within this overall area and not just from an individual
speaker. The sonic image should be a single entity or environment.
Many of the more full-featured A/V receivers include a calibration microphone and can
generate test tones for each speaker individually, then automatically calibrate distance,
levels, and other settings. An increasingly popular receiver feature goes further, providing
full and automatic room equalization. These features greatly simplify setting up your
system properly.
Be aware of standing waves in your room, which are caused by sound waves reecting
o the walls. Because the reections can overlap, the waves will cancel each other out at
some spots (dips or null points) and reinforce each other at dierent spots (peaks). All
rooms have standing waves, and they’re most noticeable at low frequencies in smaller
(and especially squarer) rooms. Play some music with strong, steady bass, and walk
around the room. If you hear very little bass in some spots and lots of it in others, then
you have a standing-wave problem, and you want to be sure that your listening spot
HOME THEATER SE TUP GUIDE
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