Ask me for the cheapest upgrade in all of hi-fi and I won’t point at a product — I’ll point at where your speakers are standing. Placement costs nothing and, done well, transforms a system. Here are the fundamentals we use every day.
Give them room to breathe
Most speakers sound best pulled a little way out from the wall behind them. Push them hard into a corner and the bass swells and thickens, blurring everything above it. A few inches of breathing space tightens the bass and lets detail through. Exactly how far depends on the speaker and the room — it’s worth experimenting an inch at a time.
Build a triangle, and toe them in
Your two speakers and your listening seat should form a rough equilateral triangle — the speakers as far apart as they are from you. Then angle them inwards (“toe-in”) so they aim towards your listening position. This is what conjures that almost magical effect where the sound detaches from the boxes and a singer appears in the room between them.
Get the height right
As a rule, you want the tweeter — the small driver that handles high frequencies — roughly at ear height when you’re sitting down. That’s why good stands matter for bookshelf speakers, and why a solid, level support like a Blok rack pays dividends: it keeps everything stable, at the right height, and free from vibration.
Respect the room
Your room is part of your hi-fi whether you like it or not. Bare walls, big windows and hard floors make sound bright and echoey; soft furnishings, rugs and bookshelves calm it down. You don’t need to live in a recording studio — just be aware that a rug between you and the speakers, or a bookcase along one wall, can make a real difference.
Symmetry helps
Wherever you can, try to keep the area around each speaker similar — a speaker jammed beside a solid cabinet on one side and open space on the other will sound lopsided. Perfect symmetry isn’t always possible in a real living room, and that’s fine. Small improvements add up.
We’ll happily help
Placement is the heart of what we do on a home installation — often we’ll get a system sounding dramatically better simply by moving things a few inches and listening carefully. If you’d like a hand, or just want to hear proper placement done well, visit the showroom for a coffee and a demonstration. Get in touch anytime.
— Duncan Lewis, Chief Sound Enthusiast, SMC HiFi
