Minimum distance between speakers? Minimum distance listener should sit from said speakers?

Not happy with my set-up so need to tweak.

Thanks chaps. 🙂

Depends on the speakers and room I would have thought.

About 2m separation and seated perhaps 3m away would perhaps be a good place to start.

You also need to consider how close are speakers to the room corners, how close to the wall should the speakers be (sealed or ported speakers), speakers given any toe-in.

Also the room to consider…soft furnishings, carpet, wooden flooring etc.

And finally what drink to enjoy while listening to the music…!

Thanks, can you explain the thinking re room corners and how near to wall. Toe-in? What’s that about then !

Happy to move furniture too.

I’d recommend taking a visit over to hifiwigwam – there’s endless talk about this sort of stuff.
Depending on how anal you want to get this can range from “if you’re happy then just enjoy the damned music” to “better rebuild your house to give the right room dimensions then”.

BTW “Toe-in” = angling the speakers so that they point at you.

Here you go.

http://www.audiophysic.de/aufstellung/regeln_e.html

Works well for most speakers

this thread is useful and simple

https://www.avforums.com/threads/speaker-placement-wide-vs-narrow.1806652/

Speakers in a corner tend to boom and you get multiple reflections (from the 2 walls an ceiling) which messes up the sound.

Regarding how close to a wall…it depends on the speaker. As I understand it (which isn’t very well), a speaker with a rear facing port which helps to reinforce the bass output needs a bit of room behind it for the port to work properly…for an average sized speaker it’s probably around a foot from the wall. But, you can play around with it yourself a bit to tune the sound you are after. I’ve heard of people putting socks into a bass port when the speakers are used in small rooms to dampen the bass a bit.
Sealed or speakers with front facing ports can generally be placed right up against the wall.

Toe-in, as above is pointing the speakers in slightly to change the stereo image.
If you think of the two separate speakers working together to create a stereo image, pointing the speakers inwards slightly will alter how that stereo image is formed.
At uni I had a very small room in my final year. Toeing the speakers in a bit helped quite a bit in such a small space….although a lot of all this stuff is subjective.

The normal starting point would be to form an equilateral triangle with the speakers and listening position at the corners, speakers pointing in towards the listener. But that’s a starting point, it comes down to experimentation and preference after that.

I would start with the speakers more than 2m apart so you don’t end up sitting on top of them. As stumpy01 says different types of speaker (sealed, front or rear ported) respond differently to their position relative to walls and (especially) corners. For a start. keep them out of the corners.

As for toe-in, I wouldn’t point them directly to the central listening position as that “focuses” the stereo image directly to that point. If you point the speakers slightly to the sides of the central position it makes for a larger “sweet spot” allowing for 2 or 3 people on the sofa rather than one “hot seat”. But this is a) subjective and b) dependant on the characteristics of the particular speakers.

Varying the amount of toe-in will affect the stereo imaging (though personally I think people get too hung up on this – just how good is stereo imaging at a concert?). Moving the speakers towards and away from the back wall will affect bass. You need to get a balance between weak bass and overblown bass, but again depending on the speaker type such adjustment may give noticeable or minimal effects.

Someone will along before long to tell you playing around with your room – bass traps, curtains, etc. will do far more than mere hi-fi could ever do. Hopefully no-one will try to persuade you to buy “conditioning” mains leads or directional cables.

Thank you, really helpful info and links but forgot to mention it’s a budget system. Shall have a good read tomorrow.

Just thought I’d update this … I read the links and some of it really was way over my head although did follow the basic principles. Spent some time putting speakers in different places including the corner, experimented with distance away from wall plus toe-in. This was done in conjunction with playing the music and, yes, definitely noticed the difference.

Furniture was moved and rearranged so that was a pain but do feel that there was a good result from the effort.

Thanks again, there’s so much knowledge and expertise on here. 8)

Glad you reposted. I missed this thread the first time, and have picked up a few tips. I slotted a new all in one unit in place of another last year, both of reasonable quality, but have never really been happy with the sound from it compared to the old one.
Experimentation to be done!