Height of Speakers?????

[saurabh]

I am confused in the height of speakers. I know that the height of speakers should match the ear levels of the listeners, but I am confused about center speaker, I can either place it on top of TV (which becomes slightly above ear levels, above the head to be precise) or below the TV(in the rack) (which will become at knee levels, in sitting position).

Also should I align the front L/R speakers with the center speakers(whereever they are placed) or is it best to keep them at ear levels.

[soundhound]

For 2 channel listening it is best to keep the "mains" or "fronts" @ ear level, but from there on out many things like speaker type, enviroment, come in to play. Pre-amp/processors let you adjust for distances and placement with db adjustments, and delays. Do not be afraid to experiment. I use bookshelves for surrounds and found they sounded best up near the ceiling and tilted down a tad. It was out of need to move them up and out of the way of new furnuture that made me discover this. Each system and each room has it's own characteristics so don't be afraid to "tune" to you're enviroment.

[David Meek]

Rule of thumb is you want the tweeters at or near ear-level for the mains. The center channel is somewhat more problematic.

You can angle the center-channel speaker up or down depending on its height. Ideally, it should point directly at ear-level at the listening position. There are various CC stands that allow this, or you can use generic items under the speaker's front or rear edge if you don't want to spend the bucks on a stand. Rubber door stops are one that gets mentioned a good bit. Some better suggestions are sorbothane rubber feet like Big Feet, etc.

If your mains are towers, personally I wouldn't raise them much, but experimenting is always a good thing. FWIW, a good isolation base will raise a speaker a couple of inches or so. If you're running monitors, well what the heck, try various heights during listening tests and go with your favorite position, because in the end it's all about what you like.

[PiDD]

My wife LOVES this!! ops:

Get out a lazer level ... sit your lovely significant other in the prime listening position and start aiming speakers at her ears. I thought I had it dialed in pretty good but the lazer on the center channel showed I was too high by over a foot.

[Nick M]

I use five monitors on stands, all on axis with the sweet spot with their tweeters at ear level. Using a horizontal center with a TV, I would put it on top and aim it at the sweet spot which should reduce the problems of off-axis response and diffraction (somewhat). This will also keep the center from sounding muddy by keeping it above instead of below.

[Neal_C]

I will disagree that it will sound "muddy" when placed below the television.

I have my center below my tv on a shelf on my tv stand and have no problems at all. I just use its "feet" to point it more toward the listening area and ear height and it sounds very good.

Both ways can be made to work.

[whoaru99]

I have my center below the TV and angled up towards my listening position and it seems to work fine.

The Anthem pre/pros have a setting (Center EQ) to allegedly adjust the fr response to help compensate for having the center positioned on top of or underneath the TV. Have not yet experimented with it to gage the effect on my setup.

[ti33er]

I had my B&W Nautilus HTM2 below my screen on its HTM retail stand.

I had always heard about people raising their centre speakers to match the height of the other tweeters and so one day I did try it by putting a few phone books under the stand - lo and behold it does make a difference, the blend was a lot more seamless, and the centre speaker even sounded a little different in it's tonal characteristics!? ...however I could not live with my projector screen being 4 foot up, so for practical (and aesthetic) reasons the HTM stand was used at normal height of about 1ft up - I like my screen to be right in front of me, as centre/centre as possible...the picture in HT is the most important thing of all IMO --> 80% of the experience I have heard?

B&W did say that I could buy extended legs for my HTM if I wanted to in the future, but this was mainly for using my (now ex. because I sold it instead) HTM2 as a rear speaker in 6.1

[David Meek]

Angling the CC upward if it's below the screen or downward if it's above it (to point at ear level at the listening position) will get rid of the muddiness being mentioned. That is if the muddiness is being caused by off-axis response. If you have the CC on top of a TV, then separating the speaker from the top with spacers and moving the face of the speaker out past the screen as far as you safely can will also help with clarity. This frees the speaker from any resonant coupling issues with the large box-like surface of the TV's top and front.

Been there, done that. . . . :yesnod:

[pvs]

For projector users, Stewart has an "Acoustically Transparent Screen". You can put the center behind the screen.