How Far Your Speakers Should Be From The Wall For The Best Sound

The right set of speakers can make a major difference in your experience listening to music, watching movies, gaming, and more. However, choosing quality speakers isn't necessarily enough to optimize your home audio setup. Along with familiarizing yourself with the various settings you can tweak to get the most out of your audiophile gear, you should also consider how speaker placement can influence sound quality. Specifically, be aware that placing your speakers too close to the nearest wall can prevent you from leveraging them to their full potential.

If your speakers are too close to a wall or other such barrier, this can result in Speaker Boundary Interference Response (SBIR), also sometimes referred to simply as boundary interference. This effect is a result of the way bass sound waves travel. Because bass sound waves travel in various directions when a speaker emits sound, they can essentially be reflected off a wall. This can lead to bass inconsistencies that will prevent your speakers from fully delivering on their promise.

SBIR occurs when the sound waves from a speaker (again, usually bass sound waves) strike a listener, but are immediately followed by sound waves reflected off a nearby wall. Sometimes, this can result in a bass boost. Although a bass boost might sound like a desirable effect, it tends to be inconsistent. Such an uneven boost can negatively affect your listening experience.

A bass boost isn't the only potential result of boundary interference. Sometimes, the interference of the two waves arriving in quick succession causes dips. In other cases, the signals cancel one another out. Keep in mind that this effect can also occur if you place speakers in a corner. Again, the bass sound waves travel in all directions, so they can strike a nearby wall and be reflected back accordingly when speakers are in the corners of a room. 

Although some speakers are designed for corner placement, if a manufacturer doesn't specify this is the case, you should avoid placing them in corners, just as you should avoid placing them too close to walls. Try your best to keep the speakers a minimum of two feet away from the nearest walls in all directions. If you can place them more than three feet from the closest walls, that's even better. If this isn't an option, install bass traps near the walls to absorb low frequencies and reduce reflection, helping improve the room's acoustics.

Also, while speaker placement is an important factor, it must be reiterated that the right gear is still essential to a quality audio setup. For example, maybe you're looking to upgrade to smart speakers. If so, you might want to research smart speaker brand rankings before making a purchase. By doing your research and considering all factors that can affect audio quality, you'll be more likely to put together a system that truly impresses.