Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions M80 Distance from side wall

Guys, the way my HT room will be set up is that there is a walkway on one side of the room pushing the seating, screen and speakers to the opposite side. My question is how close can I set up the m80 to the side wall? The closer I can get it to the wall the larger the screen I can purchase...

Thanks in advance,

Jason

There really is no set distance, it takes experimenting. You normally don't want the driver on the front of the speaker to be the same distance from the side wall as it is from the wall behind the speaker. Obviously, you would not want it shoved right up against the wall either, would look stupid.

You also want to allow room behind the speaker for the rear ports to breath, maybe 4-6" or more. Also keep in mind to big of a screen can be distracting, it depends on how far your going to sit back that determines the screen size and/or projector.

I am sitting back 16.5' the total wall I am talking about is 13.5' wide, but I have a walkway of 41" on one side making the distance I can use 121" for the screen and one M80, the other m80 has the 41" walkway to work with.

Hi Jason,

A good rule of thumb to remember in placing any floorstanding speaker or subwoofer that's capable of extended deep bass is that the closer you put the speaker to "nearby room boundaries", which means the walls and the floor, the greater the emphasis of deep bass there will be. With floorstanding speakers, we can't do anything about the floor, but you can vary the distance from the side and back walls. If you hear too much bass, then move the speaker farther out from the wall behind and/or side walls.

It's very dependent on your room and setup, including where your couch or chairs are located, so you will need to experiment.

Regards,
Alan

I have a stupid question... Ahem. If the speaker was too close to the wall, and you blocked the port with something like a block of wood to make it a little smaller, would that lower the volume on the bass?

Not so stupid, actually. Blocking the port will sure change the loading of the system but I'm not sure how you'd predict what would happen. I think it would reduce the overall bass output, but it might introduce a peak higher up in the bass. I've never tried it.

Alan