Do's And Don'ts Of Room Setup For Audiophiles - www.AcousticFields.com 

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Just cemented in the chimney and boarded up the windows. Shag carpet will be here next week.

LOL, We are looking at buying a new house. My wife doesn't know it, but every home we look at I mentally picture where my stereo setup would go....Is that bad?

straight to the point, no bs, not trying to sell you anything besides implicitly his services. Kudos

Well stated and true. But again, if you don't have a dedicated room but instead are using an L shaped living room with picture windows --- no luck. It'd be useful to have a video on how to deal with rooms that are far from perfect, since that's what many of us are dealing with.

sound like I should live in a box to get the best sound lol

After watching this, I've come to the conclusion that I'd be better off setting my stereo up in a train station than the room it's in. I'm sad now.

I died when you said "PLEASE no glass" hahaha

Every viewer of this video: "Oh man, I purposely installed a closet and a window thinking it would _improve_ my sound. What a beginner's mistake! Good thing I watched this video and learned I shouldn't do that. I guess since I have a closet and window, I should never listen to audio. Learned so much here!"

This gentleman obviously doesn't realize most people have their nice stereos in rooms where there is lots of furniture, a kitchen or dining room entrance, lots of windows and odd coves and angles. It's called a HOUSE. Virtually any room can be made acoustically pleasing with properly positioned sound absorption panels and bass traps. These things can also be disguised as things like hanging tapestries, floor rugs, and odd shaped art works and upholstered furniture.

This guy is like a stern professor. I was thinking “yes, sir” the entire time.

I drive 3 hours a day and i listen to the stereo all the time. The influence of the windows on my sound is the last of my worries. Getting the audio to beat the buzzy Honda engine with a 6800 rpm redline, that is the real issue!

I hate covering up the only window in my studio, I did it for a long time. I felt like I was in solitary confinement 😂 so came to the conclusion that it was more enjoyable to be in my studio for hours when I can get a break and take a look outside see the trees, plants birds etc... it doesn’t feel like I’m closed up in a box and I get more creative writing music. So I decided to get me a $600 pair of head phones to get the room out the way when mixing, I switch between my speakers 🔊and headphones 🎧 all the time and my room feels alive.

Wish I could afford to fix my theater room like Dennis recommends. He knows his shit. I have used his advice to make my room much better, especially by elevating my two subs at different heights. It replaced that boomy sound smearing with tight impactfull bass. It cleaned up dialogue as a result. You will not find anyone on RU-vid that gives you better advice. Thank you Dennis.

This is what I learned and how I made my at best average Philips HTR5000 sound actually unbelievably good (TL;DR): 1. Equilateral triangle is god 2. Tweeters at ear level (I use only 2 satellites, in stereo) 3. Speakers must face you (toed in so that you can only see their fron when looking directly at them) Suddenly my "setup" had real soundstage, separation and imaging. Physics is great. As far as room treatment goes the less echo the better. If you have echo in your room, treatment is the only solution. Echo means reflections. Reflections can lead to all sorts of disasters. Sound is a wave, waves reflect off of surfaces. Obvious, I know.

I kinda want to open a store called "Dos & Donuts."

I'm having my 8 ft window removed and taking my rear wall out. Gonna be chilly though, its 17° outside.

Ah yes, the old one eared robot head principle.

Cool, you really know what's going on, you must of seen so many situations to over come, I'm learning more watching your RU-vid tutorials than any other one, great work 👍😉

Wow! Nice to see instruction from someone who actually knows what they are talking about. Thanks.

I come along 9 years later and this guy has drawn my living room out to a T. Alcove and all.

Really excellent overview, thank you!

I’ve seen many a video about room correction, et. This was among the best, concise, and to the point.

I like this video because he talks about speaker distance from side walls. Not many others talk about that.

So basically build a rectangular bunker with no windows to listen to music :)

With all these modern open concept designs ill end up putting one of my speakers between the dishwasher and the fridge.

This is all great professional advice and well presented. At least it's very informative for room "set-up compromises" because very few family houses have the perfect room for acoustics. But I'm still a big advocate for the "Gomer Pyle Sweet Spot". If what you hear makes you close your eyes and smile - then that's all you need. :-)

I appreciate these educational videos, but they do not account for the typical rooms that we live in, nor the fact that the listed effects are NOT appreciated by the general public. Rooms are rooms, built as they are, without perfect dimensions. If the main speakers do not have the exact same distance from the walls, then all you do is to set up your AVR to delay the signal to the closer speaker by specifying a different speaker distance. While they suggest no fireplaces, glass walls/windows/doors, if that structure is there, what are you going to do? Only when you are building a room do you have control of this. Also, after the first or may second reflection, the amplitude of the sound has diminished enough to not matter in the real world.

Thank you too, nicely explained, regards from Australia

Here are some tips. Speakers should be placed about ear level above the floor, around 6 to 8 ft. apart. They should be at least a couple of feet away from walls, otherwise the bass can be "loose" and "boomy." Never stick speakers in corners. If you have a choice of several rooms to choose from, pick the one that has the fewest parallel flat surfaces, ie, a sloping ceiling is better than a flat one. Also, it's for the three pairs of flat surfaces to have different dimensions. For instance, a room that's 12 by 18 feet, with a 7 foot ceiling, is better than one that's 12' X 12' X 7'.

I have the situation described - a 2 metre wide patio door on one side of the speakers and an open area on the other side. I have to fire speakers across the room which is 4 metres wide (length is 7 metres) I have thick curtains over the patio door when listening and considering draping a similar curtain on the open side but this will make the room very small (4 x 4 metres). I am installing three 1200 x 600 x 50 wall panels on the facing wall behind me to absorb the reflected sound. Its all about experimenting but also accepting the limits of a home we have to live with

Man, it is a great lesson - 90% of people in the entire world listen to music on Headphones, silly Bluetooth speakers and they are so happy!

All very good points. Any room with a good system probably is not perfect and needs or would benefit from some acoustic treatment. For my 22x40' living room there is a glass and hard surfaces problem. I thought the floor rug over the uninsulated hardwood floor and 2 sofas would be enough. The 4 4x5' large windows each has a honeycomb vertical shade. Still not enough to stop all the echo and reflections I was hearing. The large glass frame wall art over the enclosed fireplace and large mirror across the room from it and me in the middle of them for my listening position was interfering with my music listening. So I draped 3x4 wool rugs with eggcrate foam behind (about 25% of wall space) and got such a great effect from it, I am a believer in acoustic room treatment for a better listening experience. My sound is dialed in now and fills the space with the warm 70's analog tone but with the clarity of cd which is the sound I have been chasing for years now. I have even ordered acoustic room fabric panels to make the room even sound better and for cleaner design. I also placed carpet tiles under each floor speaker and the sub. Yes, the room is not perfect. But I think my sound has improved 5-10 fold and I am hearing the cd thru the system with much less sonic clutter. I feel like I am hearing my cds the way they were intended for the first time. And yes, though I hate to do it I will probably take down my mirror and glass frame art for even better listening. A painful compromise for sure! But I can listen for hours now with no Fatigue. Sound is warm and focused, no longer hard and bright. And that was not the case before...It's like before I was listening to the sound interact with the room surfaces. Now I listen to just the music thru the mid-fi system closer to how it was intended.

Valuable information, thanks 🙏

I have an alcove in my movie room as well. I just use the space that I was given. It sounds pretty decent to me.

Some of us depending on built or bought later the dimensions are not always ideal. You do the best you can and get room correction software to do the best you can.

Glad I saw this. Instead of renting in a old house basement unit I decided build my own custom home. I'll have just enough money left over to buy my brothers 23 year old Bose system. And I DO mean 23 years old.

Very nice. I did not knew about glass.

I need a room.

That's it, I'm building a perfectly equally distant room just to play my tunes!

What about glass walls behind the speakers, e.g. in a sun room / conservatory ... ?

This is the difference between me and the audiophile business. I take pride in ALL sound reproduction, and that includes recording. My good quality audio isn't only reserved for my listening room. I record as high quality as I can, and even my PC speakers are set up correctly. So yeah, the difference between me (the guy with a passion for audio), and the audiophile business.

Thank you Dennis, for the response. I agree that anything worth doing, is worth doing well. Hence, my research. In addition to the laws of physics, the laws of economics dictate a compromise. In order to develope my craft, I will have to make the best with what I have at this moment. Which equates to thinking " outside the box", ( my 10x14x8ft room) to create the best environment to accomplish that. Its inspiring to learn from one who is at the top in their field. From one who is clinging onto his slippery slope. Thank you for raising the bar.

I have a horrible room, worst then most. I use the McIntosh MEN-220 room correction system. it completely changed my sound in positive ways. Best investment I have ever made. I could not move my room around to accommodate my system, so I decided to use Room Correction and it was amazing how it fixed so many issues. It was most likely less than flying a so called expert to tear up our living space to attempt to correct room issue that can't be corrected without some kind of room correction. If anyone needs feedback I am here to help.

And here I was thinking that my audio setup would cost too much. Turns out I need a new home to go with it.

Absolutely dense with useful information beginning to end. Thank you

Your take on L shaped rooms please . Great vids btw , learnt a lot , thanks !

Thank you for this video! Very informative and I learned a lot.

Dang, I can't afford to move to a new house with a perfect room....

Really great advice, if you are building a house or picking a house plan. For the rest of us in the real world, we have L shaped rooms, with fixed features like fire places and stairwells. These are not going to change, so maybe we need a video on how to cope with less than optimum speaker placement, or perhaps wall treatment to address these issues.

Hi, on 5.1 I ve put my surround speaker 1.5/2 feet above ear level, is it right? Sometime is fine, same case not. Dolby specifies this but most people say the opposite leaving surround on ear level, but they are distracting..

Also, another thing that comes to mind is when we have a listening room, will the amount/type/placement of room treatment change much when we change the speakers in the room? The reason why I ask is that some of the smaller speakers don't produce that much in the 20 to 40+Hz range as will some of the larger speakers. I'm just wondering if we have to be cognizant of that when we perform any room measurements and change from one speaker to another. Should we also be thinking about altering the room treatment to compensate for any such differences?

Thank you for the great tips. I adjusted my Triton One speakers so that the side walls were equidistant and the imaging improvement was immense. Thanks !

I have a problem with the living room that I am refurnishing and including a new table for the Hi-Fi and a pair of speakers I bought abroad. The left side of the room is not exactly the same as the right side. It has a reentrance and a window. Usualy I have a thin curtain covering the window from above the window to the floor. In this case would you suggest something? I apreciate your reply. Thanks a lot. Regards. Arnaldo Goncalves

So a question... walk in closet a bit behind the listening position, on the side. Pretty large. Put a door there or not? Was originally thinking yes door for symmetry but now wondering about the loss of cubic feet and bass for what is a normal sized, neither tiny n or large rectangular room, small enough there will be bass room nodes. One might imagine some damping in the "closet" if that was an issue but of course it creates an asymmetry, albeit behind the listening position and not on the back wall. Good place for records.

So, if you have an open floor plan where the room isn’t created by four closed in walls, but walls with very large openings and no doors, you’re screwed?

What about that alcov, what solution do we have here? Can a thick curtain partially solve this problem or it's useless, you really need a wall?

Good informative video. It makes me cringe when I see 95% of people who spent so much money on gear and cables, yet their rooms never have any treatments and are always oddly shaped with lots of windows, tile floors, and full of furniture.

QUESTION - i want to flush mount a pair of KLIPSCH CORNWALL 3 speakers into a wall. as you know these tower speakers are ported in the front. i've done a little bit of research on this (its hard to find any information on this though) and what i came up with was a design such that i would build a 4 inch concrete structure inside the wall that would house my cornwall 3 cabinets with about 1 inch clearance on the top and sides and then seal the speaker cabinet against the concrete structure with a rubber foam. this design meant to isolate the speaker from the actual wall. its a baffle type wall that will house the rest of my equipment also. speaker cabinets will be flush with the actual wall. what are your thoughts? from what i've read, if i understood it correctly, is that the sound will be amazing except the bass will need to be turned down quite a bit as it will be overwhelm the mids and the highs. my room that i'll be installing this in is not the perfect room shape. its in my home. i'll be compensating a lot with electronics and whatever sound treatments that are practical. the main purpose for this is to build my entire home theater system into a wall for a cleaner look, security, and saving space. your thoughts?

But why some home theater speakers have hook holes so you can place them on the wall, if it is not recommended to put them near the wall?

Thank you 😊

I'll remove any picture frames in my room because they contain glass... No reference of family or friends I'll cover my windows with sound dampening material... So there is no light I'll suspend my equipment with rope and rings... Like silence of the lambs I'll completely void my room of furniture... Standing naked with my junk between my crossed legs and both hands in the air

Well shit, it sounds like we shouldn't have any speakers in our cars and have a perfect square basement for stereo listening only. I wonder what his listening room looks like? He should make a video showing us his setup. Its impossible for lots of us to have a room anything close to what he's describing 😬

My room is 186 X 140 and I have to set up my speakers on the "140 side" because of doors. Also if I place them the same distance from the wall I'll hit a speaker w/ the door. I have acoustic treatment on the walls to help, is there anything else I can do to make sure I'm not missing out on a better sound. If I spaced them = distance from the wall they would be almost 8 ft apart.

Hi Mr Dennis, I would ask you this, what is more apropiarte on a HI FI or called today HI END audio system for home app, apply a DPS Equalizer with a previews análisis with RTA and Software, and then apply the transposed equalization in order to moderate the room+audio-system response, OR, analice the room acoustics problems and design the specific treatments? or in your own opinión what do yo prefer and why? Your answer surely will be interesting to me!

So what do you do if you that have a wall that’s not symmetrical? I was thinking of putting a shelf and use it as rack and building some thick acoustic panels to put on the side. Will that work? I have one speaker that’s next to the wall and another one that’s like 4 feet from the wall

Good one!

Hi Dennis. Have watched many of your videos. Your knowledge of acoustics and the science of sound is impressive. If I am understanding correctly, there is no perfect room size to conquer all sonic issues. We can, however, minimize these issues to get the best results possible with any given situation. Having said that rooms under 1500 sq ft are not worth considering, the majority of viewers out there, (myself included) are using a spare bedroom which usually falls at, or below that number. Although it is the goal to obtain a final product, our recorded music, as clean as possible without transient frequencies, noise, and the like, our main objective is to sound proof the space we work in so as to keep from having the police show up at our door. lol. Though I do not subscribe to the "fix it in post" to solve issues that could have been avoided during setup before recording, some issues can be cleaned up in the software. Adding reverb at the final stage, for example, will emulate room size. In short, could you maybe do a video that addresses the small room scenerio which will accomplish a compromise between sound-proofing and best equipment arrangement to achieve the best results? At the end of the day, anyone listening to our masterpieces of musical art will probably have their windows down while driving or have earbuds on. If the song is good, most will forgive a little 200hz rumble...Thank you for your efforts.

Another excellent video. Thumbs up. However, most of us do not have all of these ideal conditions! My stereo system is up against a wall, but behind it is a window; but covered with curtains, and with a middle light curtain. Therefore, what am I going to do to try to get the ideal, correct sound so that music directed to that central point, or area from the two speakers gets? Later I am going to add a small subwoofer. However, for now what can be done if there is a window in front of the house; the living room?

I have room 15' X 20'. Almost just like drawing in this video. Unfortunately ceilings are only 7' high + right above the coach there is a metal support beam that goes from side to side (it's a basement). When I sat in the middle of the room listening to music, all rear part of the room behind me always felt somehow dead. No reflection was coming out at all. I guess that is because that metal beam on a ceiling which creates some sound barrier . After some experimenting I put in the rear corners another set of speakers .That worked .It's still very far from ideal listening room but it somehow compensates sound in the dead area behind me. I keep rear speakers not as loud as the front ones and this somehow revives whole room acoustically. Looks like there is no better way for this particular room. Anyway thanks for all your videos. I really enjoy them .

This video hit my small problem. Your drawing shows the “ alcove” ( pocket on the left of the loudspeaker.) My room has a 4’ wide a opening by 1 foot deep alcove at the middle of the left speaker position to the front adjoining to back wall. I seem to get a touch of image shift to the left... depending on program sources. The right side is STRAIGHT- drywall to the front wall. How could that ‘alcove’ be fixed? 2 bass traps on both sides equally to the front wall? A small room divider ( what material??) on the left alcove strait to he front wall??? Thanks Howard

how about a door or entry way to get into a room? kinda hard to get into a listening room if there is no way in

I was going to upgrade my sound system but looks I need to upgrade my house. I guess 500k is essential for a good sound.

I would've liked to hear more about surround sound speaker placement, e.g whether or not to mount them on the ceiling facing down, how far away from the walls and behind the listening position, does it matter if the sub can't be centered? most people who have a home theater setup can't have a center subwoofer because the cabinet the TV sits on is in the way so it has to be left or right of the cabinet. And other stuff like the floor material e.g carpet, stone, wood etc.

No glass? So a listening room woth windows is a no no? Personally I can only have my system in one room and there is plenty of glass (wardrobe mirror doors cant be helped) My solution has been to ensure every corner has furniture and thick curtains. Ultimately listening to yr stereo should be fun not a forensic experiment

Than you. Very good advice l.

What can you do with a room that's small say 5' x 10' ?

Very informative video. Thanks for the advice

At 2:08 you mentioned no cavities. If their is a closet with a closet door would that door cancel out the cavity of the closet or will it just go right through the door?

What do I do with the 8 Windows I have???

so simple. so informative

Good stuff. My room has some challenges for sure. My system is enjoyable but I would love to hear what dialing in a remedy for my issues would deliver. Left side cavity depth issue. Right side brick fireplace and window with wood blinds.

wow I just set my living room reference system up before watching this and it's actually 100 percent how I set it up even took out my huge floor model coat rack with huge mirror and it sounded better good stuff man !

That's nice but if your system is located in the living room that's irregular on all sides? What do you do? Solutions please...

assuming the right side where the glass is, is also your first reflection point, if you place a 20cm thick rockwool basstrap infront of it, but leave the top bit open (because you dont want to make a 3 meter high absorber obviously) would that help the situation?

Great video! love your videos. Learning a lot from your videos. Appreciate it so much!

While I don't doubt this man's expertise..but ummm...I literally don't live in a square box

How can the distance between the sides of a speaker (usually solid wood) and the walls possibly affect sound when the speaker cones are in the front of the speakers facing the sofa? Your comment would have some merit if the speaker cones were angled towards the walls or the ports were at the sides but otherwise I cannot see what you are getting at with your diagram.

Ahh my god. Everything you just said to NOT do is my room. I have two cubbies on either side of my speakers and each have a large window in it. The rooms about 3300 cubic feet. Behind the listening position i have 10 feet or so but to one side of a large long cubby hole and on the other side a smaller one but its full of shelving and AV equipment. DO you think hangng curtains to cover up the cubbies would have any positive effect? My issue is lack of mid range bass, mapping my speakers out they should be around 135 db's @ 20 hz. I was only at 108 last time I tested with my REW mic.

what if you cant achieve same distance due to how the room is designed?

Not to take anything away from Dennis and the importance of room acoustics and treating a space so that you get the most accurate representation of what you're actually hearing but.... if you're an artist who lives in a less than ideal situation where it's not an option to go blocking up alcoves and spending thousands of pounds on treatment then don't forget that the most important thing is the song and the performance. If you look at an artist like Billy Eilish for example, who probably has the biggest selling record in the world at the moment, her brother Finneas recorded that record in a small bedroom with next to no acoustic treatment at all. The microphone used for the vocals was a Neumann TLM 103 which is by no means a high end mic. My advice is to get on and make some music now, regardless of what stage your at and improve things as you go - don't wait until everything's perfect cause it never will be. Do what you can with what you have. At the end of the day you only have to produce tracks that to an average listener don't stand out like a sore thumb in relation to what they are already listening to and with the technology available today it's possible to do that without breaking the bank.

Real World Studios (Peter Gabriel’s studio) has a ton of glass in the control room. How did they treat it?

Hi Dennis, greetings from India. wealth of information in your channel. Thank you for your time and effort. Learning a lot from your channel. :-) Quick question- i do not have the liberty to place my front speakers equal distance from the sidewalls,my right speaker is about 4 ft from the sidewall but I have only 2 ft for the left speaker to play around. Any suggestions for this setup. Thanks.

You demonstrate a 2 channel system being equidistant to each other and the walls, but what about the rest of the channels in a home theater; especially, the center channel?

I have a stunning vintage audio setup in my room. After watching this video I can see that my room and the surrounds are perfectly placed as well as the speakers. However I've been wanting to move my system into a 2x3 meter garden shed, sheet metal. Do you think this is plausible with sound dampening?

Hi! Is it ok to put speakers closer to the front wall, if I use diffusion for front wall?

Good basic advice for speaker placement...BUT, I'd add sound treatment on all walls and ceiling and floor. This is after doing some custom reno work to the walls. Sound suppressing maybe. As the walls might be "paper thin". Basically build a HT sound treated room. If it works for a custom HT room install...

Well there goes every home I’ve ever lived in. LOL.

My left side doesn't have a wall for a while due to a door opening. Any tips on how to help with that?

My room is identical to the one you have shown here, left side being bigger than the right and unfortunately I can't change the position or re construct the wall. Can I add some home made Panels of rock wool to both the sides with equal distance? and have more panels behind the these panels on the left and right side for left over frequencies to be absorbed?