Perfect Speaker Placement - Put next to the back wall as much as possible.

That placement works great and is absolutely the very best speaker placement.... 

Not. 

"...May I suggest reading the articles the op has posted then. That will tell you how to do it..."

I did read it, sorry but my Triangles, Martin-Logans, and Maggies don’t work if they are against the front wall.


"...Okay, we are already 11 feet to the seating position from the front wall. We are no longer talking about a tiny room as I certainly hope that seating position was not close to the back wall..."

I had to open the closet door for best sound. Yes it was a very small room. It could saturate if you played too loud, I had some treatments but minimal.


"... If it was close to the back wall, then it was no where near ideal unless there was serious acoustic treatment on the back wall which can be quite difficult to do well..."

Well my audio friends, some audio pros, raved about that system...but what do I know? Ever get an audiophile to rave about anything?

I wish I could push my speakers against the wall and get good sound but that hasn't been possible with the loudspeakers I owned in the last 45 years. YMMV.

May I suggest reading the articles the op has posted then. That will tell you how to do it .


The long wall is rarely the best place because room modes are much closer together which makes placement difficult to impossible. Of course, if you are never treating the reflections off the side walls, then the long wall may be better to keep the speakers farther away from those walls.

The best nearfield system I put together had the loudspeakers 5 feet out into the room and the seat 6 feet from that in a tiny room.

Okay, we are already 11 feet to the seating position from the front wall. We are no longer talking about a tiny room as I certainly hope that seating position was not close to the back wall. If it was close to the back wall, then it was no where near ideal unless there was serious acoustic treatment on the back wall which can be quite difficult to do well.

@audio2design  I recommend you go the whole hog and just build your speakers into your front wall.  I'm sure that way you'll gain inestimable enjoyment from your system.

A lot of people got up on the wrong side of the bed this year!  ;) 

"...the long wall is rarely the best wall for speaker placement..."

Let's just say this has not been my experience with the dozens of locations and systems I have owned. And there is no need to try to discount the opinions of others. The suggested set-up does not work with all loudspeakers and is not seen in any true hi-fi system installation that I know about. Perhaps it's geared for working systems (that have different requirements) rather than home systems, I don't know. The best nearfield system I put together had the loudspeakers 5 feet out into the room and the seat 6 feet from that in a tiny room. The soundstage was awesomely wide and deep, way beyond the room boundaries. Perhaps my best system to date. That didn't happen by luck. 
I wish I could push my speakers against the wall and get good sound but that hasn't been possible with the loudspeakers I owned in the last 45 years. YMMV. 

It's the new year we've all been waiting for...sadly MC continues his arrogance and mean-spirited contributions just like 2020 and all years prior.  Sigh..  

My gosh look at the people without an understanding of acoustics (probably who didn't even read the article in detail) puffing their chests.

While bipolar and omnidirectional speakers obviously were not a consideration for any of those articles, Klipsch would still come into consideration and for any normal dynamic speaker, it would come into play.  Really how many of the people responding actually read the article in full and understood it before replying?  Thank you Erik for obviously digging deep enough to see the comment w.r.t. damping.

russ69, the long wall is rarely the best wall for speaker placement.

twoleftears:  Sorry the 2nd sentence is absolutely correct, but your wrong conclusion is certainly possible if you didn't actually read the article or understand it.

For those of you far more interested in extolling your "expertise" instead of learning, the articles very clearly discuss the aspects of moving your speakers into the room. Heck, they even talk about the distance from the front wall, and what frequencies that causes issues with, and how far they need to be out from the wall, even dependent on the frequency response of the speaker. IF you had read and understood the articles instead of being keyboard warriors, maybe you would have discovered that.


If you can't move your speakers out from the wall, which can be often the case in small rooms, home theaters, small mixing studios, etc. then you need to deal with having the speakers close to the wall, and if they have to be close to the wall, it is often better to have them really close. Why? ... well if you read the articles you would know. It is because of the frequencies affected, the closer to the wall, the higher the frequencies and the easier to address with acoustic treatment.  Will you get boundary reinforcement. Yes. Do the articles address this? Yes. Again, if you read that, you would know that.

The articles were written by people who obviously have a much deeper understanding of speaker placement, acoustics, and general implementation than most of those commenting.

Yeah, not for home use. The long wall is usually the best wall and your loudspeaker will determine where it NEEDS to be. From Maggies out 6 feet from the front wall to Klipsch Cornwalls that like wall placement, your speaker design overrides all pseudo science formulas. 

"The guidelines I’m going to give you are based on best practices for both pro and home recording studio setup. But most of this advice applies whether your room is a mastering studio, hi-fi listening room, project studio or home theater."

1st sentence: fine, OK.
2nd sentence: wrong, wrong, wrong. Pity you crossed that bridge.

Looking at it, briefly, these recommendations are for the driest possible sound. As close to wearing headphones as possible, which is good for mixing, maybe not for listening, and certainly not how home speakers are balanced, especially when it comes to bass vs. mid and treble ranges.

He's also relying on a lot of damping behind the speakers, not just bass traps.  It's pretty close to the old Live-end, Dead-end technique which made a huge splash int he 80's and then kind of disappeared from audiophile consciousness.

Really hard to imagine this set up working for a living room.  You do not have to follow this advice. Look at your speaker manual for recommended placements and ask pros at GIK or ATS acoustics for advice.

When Mike Lavigne built his room he hired an acoustics expert, not you Miller and you still fail to understand it is not simply about a recording studio (where the sound YOU listen to was created) but about understanding the REAL impact of speaker placement and acoustic treatments and equalization on actual sound output, not perceived impacts from limited experience and limited knowledge.   Mike knew his limits and hired someone.

In a small room putting speakers far into the room is often not possible. In a large room that is not dedicated or a home theater room that may also not be possible. However, if you understand the mechanisms at play then you can use speaker placement close to the wall with little negative impact. Understanding room nodes, symmetry, and measurement further improves setup.  Some people have more tools in their toolbox than a hammer.

That’s a recording studio setup. If that’s what you’re doing, fine. Listen to the one above. He pretends to know a lot about it. If doing a home system though you could hardly do worse. Talk about unwilling to learn.

My system https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367

Mike Lavigne’s system. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/615

Similar size rooms, vastly different budgets, yet look how similar the results, at least in terms of speaker placement.

Let me assure you, Mike Lavigne is the furthest thing from, what did he call him? Oh yeah, a clueless parrot you will find in all of audio. There is a clueless parrot here but its not us.

Our speakers and listening chairs are way out into the room for some very good reasons. Which you will understand very well only after absorbing an awful lot of information, which can be done most efficiently by reading the Harley book I recommend above. 

Thank you @sangbro for posting these links. I am still experimenting with speaker placement and unlike @millercarbon am open to the idea I might actually able to learn something I don't. 

@millercarbon I will continue to read your post and learn what I can but why do you always have to be so caustic and condescending? Not everybody has your financial resources to buy thousand dollar plus power cords and all of the accoutrements you have. It's hard to reconcile the graciousness you've displayed to people who've been able to hear your system and the arrogance you put on display in your post. Have you considered the possibility someone else might know something you don't?

Oh, that should be FRONT wall not back wall.

"p.s. what should I do with half of the room left... :?"

Obviously, you should put another system at the opposite end! The listening chair can be swiveled to allow enjoyment of either system. I strongly recommend you have two very different systems setup for maximum variety and enjoyment. 

I am glad to have been such an influence upon you that I have helped to revolutionize your participation in the hobby.  ;) 

Ignore Millercarbon’s comment. He would never let someone else’s obviously superior knowledge get in the way of his bravado. Odds are he didn’t even read it.

The article is targeted at near field monitor usage with emphasis on accurate frequency response for best mixing. Pretty much the article is spot on. Many audiophiles who have no clue how acoustics work just parrot others rules of thumb. Getting the speakers far into the room, in a small room, is one of those. This article explains why that is often a problem, but also says you need both acoustic treatment AND equalization to fix the resulting placement, but at least the final result will work properly while a speaker far from an untreated wall will leave you with a result that can’t be fixed and even if treated may not work properly.

It’s a good article in my opinion.

Just read the other article. They pretty much say the same thing and both are good. This was the one in your replies.

In Ethan's section on Real Traps he says 38% rule from front or back wall and then clarifies that's purely theoretical and is best measured.

The best part about speaker placement is that it cost zero to try for one self. 

Just to be clear, of course things are dependent on situation. Many speaker manufacturers recommends equilateral triangle set up as the starting point yet notably the engineer of Harbeth recommends a 1:1:1.5 triangle shape. 

Isn’t it written by the world class professional studio engineer? I thought that it’s professional standard. 
Any industry insider?

It’s interesting that there are two completely different ideas. 
https://proaudioblog.co.uk/home-studio-monitoring-speaker-placement/

I would put a bookshelf in the back half, stocked with copies of Robert Harley's The Complete Guide to High End Audio. The article you cited can then be printed out crumpled up lit on fire and used to light your barbecue. Might as well get something useful out of it.