Speaker Placement Optimizer
Enter your room size and get a proven starting layout: the 38% listening position, an equilateral stereo triangle, speaker separation, side- and front-wall distances, toe-in, and where to put the subwoofer — with a top-down diagram.
ℹ These are well-known rules of thumb, not laws. They assume a rectangular room with the speakers on the front (short) wall, firing down the length, and a symmetric setup. Left/right symmetry matters most — keep each speaker the same distance from its side wall. Rooms, speakers and tastes vary, so treat this as a great place to start and then trust your ears (and a measurement — see the Room Frequency Analyzer). All maths run in your browser.
How It Works
The calculator places your listening seat at 38% of the room length from the front wall — a position (popularised by George Cardas) that tends to sit between the worst low-frequency modal peaks and nulls along the length of the room. It then builds an equilateral triangle: the distance between the two speakers equals the distance from each speaker to your ears, which works out to about 30° of toe-in when you aim the speakers at your head. From your chosen speaker-to-front-wall distance it also reports the SBIR (speaker-boundary interference) cancellation frequency, f = c / (4·d), where a reflection off the wall behind the speaker arrives a half-wavelength late and partially cancels — one of the biggest causes of a suck-out in the bass.
Two things matter more than hitting these numbers exactly. First, symmetry: the left and right speakers must be the same distance from their nearest side wall, or the stereo image and bass response will differ side-to-side. Second, your room’s modes: the 38% seat and the front-wall distance interact with standing waves, so confirm the result by ear and, ideally, with a measurement. Use the diagram as a map, set it up, then nudge the seat and speakers a few centimetres at a time while listening to a familiar bass-heavy track.