The Audiophiliac

Read all 'John Atkinson' posts in The Audiophiliac
October 10, 2008 7:56 AM PDT

Speaker-placement tips for audiophiles

by Steve Guttenberg
  • 14 comments

Stereophile magazine editor John Atkinson's recent article, "Getting the best from your loudspeakers," provides gobs of useful information.

Atkinson's observation that "inexpensive speakers, optimally set up, may well outperform more expensive models just plonked down willy-nilly" is absolutely true. Proper speaker placement is crucial to getting the best sound out of your speakers.

This CD can help tweak the sound of your speakers.

(Credit: Stereophile)

The article explains how room acoustics affect the sound of speakers, and it's definitely a complex relationship. You won't need a microphone or any technical skill to get the job done, but an Atkinson-produced Stereophile test CD can be a big help when fine-tuning speaker placement.

Perhaps his most important bit of advice comes early on: "Entire books have been written about the relationship between loudspeakers and room acoustics, but the starting point for any successful setup is to position the two speakers and your listening chair as the pieces of an equilateral triangle; that is, the speakers are each as far away from you as they are from each other."

... Read more
  • prev
  • 1
  • next
advertisement

15 sites that went kaput in 2009

Web sites launch all the time, but they also shut their doors. We highlight 15 that bit the dust this year.

Top 10 news stories of the decade

Let the debate begin: Was the iPhone more important than iTunes? Was anything bigger than Google finding a great business model? CNET offers its list of the 10 most important stories of the '00s.

About The Audiophiliac

Ex movie theater projectionist Steve Guttenberg has more or less successfully hitched his future to home theater, but he still pines for the clickity-clack of 35 MM projectors and all the stale popcorn he could eat. Between projectionist gigs he worked as a high-end audio salesman for sixteen years, and produced records for an audiophile label. Oh, and one more thing, nothing annoys Steve more than being confused with the other Steve Guttenberg, the washed-up Police Academy actor. The wordsmith Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to a number of magazines and websites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

Add this feed to your online news reader

The Audiophiliac topics

Most Discussed

advertisement

Inside CNET News

Scroll Left Scroll Right