Speaker placement for whole-room audio (no single listening position)

[artishard116]

Lots of information out there about setting up speakers in a room with a single listening position, but what about secondary rooms like kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, etc?
When trying to fill a whole room somewhat evenly, would speakers in the ceiling corners angled down be best if in-ceiling isn't an option? And in that scenario, would it be better to run them all mono or have multiple stereo pairs?

 

[staticV3]

With highly variable listening positions, minimize the number of sound sources reaching your ears at any given time.

So ideally a single speaker placed strategically for good coverage. Could be in a corner, along a wall, or in ceiling.

 

[Bjorn]

In order to fill a whole room with good sound you need speakers with broadband constant directivity. The required beamwidth depends on the width of the room and placement of speakers. Vertical reflections should be minimized as much as possible.

So what speakers achieve this? A big horn speaker and CBT.

 

[artishard116]

Don't think I'll be fitting a big horn speaker in a bathroom but would be fun to see the reactions when people come over! Whatever they are, they'll have to be small bookshelf size at most. Single speaker idea is interesting.

 

[diablo]

Don't think I'll be fitting a big horn speaker in a bathroom but would be fun to see the reactions when people come over! Whatever they are, they'll have to be small bookshelf size at most. Single speaker idea is interesting.

I seem to remember someone, well known, who spent lots of time developing a single speaker system. Can't remember who it was though.
I assume it sent stereo angled to the sides? Most of the sound from the two channels would arrive at your ears at the same time and be similar volume?
Now who was it?

 

[Bjorn]

Don't think I'll be fitting a big horn speaker in a bathroom but would be fun to see the reactions when people come over! Whatever they are, they'll have to be small bookshelf size at most. Single speaker idea is interesting.

Missed that fact that you're talking about such rooms....

Wide constant directivity still counts but it's really impossible to achieve good sound in room with so challenging and poor acoustics. A bathroom would be particularly bad. Don't waste much resources on it.

 

[staticV3]

Don't think I'll be fitting a big horn speaker in a bathroom but would be fun to see the reactions when people come over! Whatever they are, they'll have to be small bookshelf size at most. Single speaker idea is interesting.

Placing in a corner would reduce the beamwidth requirements as you could at most be 45° off-axis.

For placement along a wall, take a look at the Sonos Five:

Sonos Five Smart Speaker Review

This is a review, listening tests, and detailed measurements of the SONOS Five streaming wired/wireless smart multi-room speaker. It was kindly drop shipped by a member and costs US $549. The Five is solidly built and feels rather substantial in hand. Packaging is always is apple-like...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Honken]

In secondary rooms, even speakers such as the Era 100 makes sense to me. "Smart" speakers are pretty darn great these days.

 

[artishard116]

In secondary rooms, even speakers such as the Era 100 makes sense to me. "Smart" speakers are pretty darn great these days.

Yes agreed. But the question remains… where to put them?

 

[staticV3]

Yes agreed. But the question remains… where to put them?

There is no one size fits all solution to speaker placement.

Room dimensions, furniture placement, aesthetic requirements, and listening positions all need to be considered.

 

[artishard116]

There is no one size fits all solution to speaker placement.

Room dimensions, furniture placement, aesthetic requirements, and listening positions all need to be considered.

Hmm I can’t say I fully agree. Of course those things are taken into account and yet for the majority of single listening position setups, we agree that two speakers centered on a wall with tweeters roughly at ear height in an equilateral triangle from the LP works well.

Why should it be any harder to come up with some broad general advice for blanketing a whole room in sound?

 

[Blumlein 88]

Empirically, I've found 4 speakers placed at points one third of he way along the long room dimension and fed stereo to work well. It helps if you don't feed in low frequencies in the smaller rooms, but with small speakers that is unlikely to happen. This from putting up small speakers in ceilings of record shops and large ones in strip clubs.

 

[artishard116]

Cool that sounds worth a try. When you say ‘fed stereo’ do you mean two lefts and two rights? Or each speaker gets fed a stereo signal summed to mono? What about heights? My first instinct in a room where the listener would be both sitting and standing/moving around is that speakers up high angled down might be best but maybe that’s wrong. Now, how to try some different configurations without drilling a bunch of holes in the walls and ceilings…

 

[Blumlein 88]

Cool that sounds worth a try. When you say ‘fed stereo’ do you mean two lefts and two rights? Or each speaker gets fed a stereo signal summed to mono? What about heights? My first instinct in a room where the listener would be both sitting and standing/moving around is that speakers up high angled down might be best but maybe that’s wrong. Now, how to try some different configurations without drilling a bunch of holes in the walls and ceilings…

Stereo as in two left speakers and two right speakers. I would shoot for the intersection of wall and ceiling angled down though getting close is fine. I think I would get some tall speaker stands to try out prior to drilling holes. Now this is never going to equal a pair of speakers dialed in for a main listening position. It will give acceptable results generally over a wide area while there will be a few areas of anomalies. Just no way around that I am aware of.

 

[No. 5]

Hmm I can’t say I fully agree. Of course those things are taken into account and yet for the majority of single listening position setups, we agree that two speakers centered on a wall with tweeters roughly at ear height in an equilateral triangle from the LP works well.

Why should it be any harder to come up with some broad general advice for blanketing a whole room in sound?

You might look at what is done for low level sound reinforcement or PA (i.e. 70 volt systems), that is, create a distributed low level sound field in the space. Stereo is for spaciousness and imaging, but it only works in a fixed location relative to the speakers, so sum everything to mono.

If you have a target goal of what you want for SPL variations around each room, and you have the coverage angles of the speakers, it's not that hard to figure out how many speakers you need in each room. In fact, I think some distributed audio speaker manufacturers even have software that'll help with that.

Edit: found one.

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Yes agreed. But the question remains… where to put them?

Too many variables… sounds like your trying to land a jet on an aircraft carrier in a windstorm while blindfolded.

Put them on your head …use ear buds etc.. cause you are always moving anyway.

 

[Ultrasonic]

The single speaker idea makes sense provided stereo signals will be combined to a single mono one.

I have a pair of Kali LP6 v2 active studio speakers that I use as rear surrounds, which as well as sounding good also have built-in EQ options to account for being close to walls. One of these sited in a room corner may not be a bad option if not too large. (Being sold for studio use they are readily available individually.)

I'd try not to overthink this for music in general use rooms though, as with other things going on you'll probably be rather less critical of sound quality. I have a small bathroom radio shaped like a frog that I still enjoy listening to while in the shower for example .

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

Doing this well just takes some experimenting, and lowered expectations. And it is VERY room dependent.

In very small rooms (bathroom) a single powered speaker is likely the best option.

For general area listening, I have gone with setting them up as close to the "proper" location as possible, and point them close to but not exactly straight into the room. Then go for more of a "wall of sound" approach with small adjustments, meaning instrument locations are in the right place, but they overlap somewhat, have "fuzzy" edges. So my goal will be to be able to walk through the room and hear the musicians on one end, and walking across the room sounds like walking across the back of the venue for a live performance.

So no weird shifts in center/left/right location as I move through the room.

I've had luck with asymetrical speaker placement, where the speakers are shifted to one side of the room, one pointed to the middle, and one pointed to the side just enough to bring enough sidewall reflections to balance out the center toe of the other speaker But this really worked well because they were pointed at a part of the room that vented sound, in a normal sealed room it would be a bad idea.

Ceiling/wall and pointed down is a good way to go, imo. You can space them well, and downward (if done right) can lower reflections. While a corner placement can work, I think you are better off being 1/3 of the wall down from the top of the wall. And on one wall, not right in the corner.