Your center channel speaker:
Your center channel speaker should be the first speaker you place in your home theater room. Because your center channel speaker's job is to anchor dialogue and other on-screen sounds to the screen, its position depends upon where you put your TV.
•If it's atop your TV, make sure the speaker's front edge is precisely aligned with the front edge of your TV screen. This reduces distortion caused by sound reflecting and diffracting off the TV's cabinet.
•If possible, the height of the center channel speaker's tweeter should be close to the height of your front speakers' tweeters — ideally, within about 24" or less. If you're placing the center channel on a particularly low cabinet where this might be a problem, then you can also use your center speaker's cradle (if it comes with one) to angle the sound up towards your listening position.
•Your center channel speaker should be precisely the same distance from your listening position as your front left and right speakers. (See below for details on front left and right speaker placement.)
Your front left and right speakers:
Your front speakers pull double duty: along with handling movie soundtracks, they're responsible for reproducing all of the sound when you listen to stereo music. This makes their position relative to your listening position especially important.Try to place your left front, center channel, and right front speakers equidistant from where you sit.
•If you'd like a more precise guideline to follow, your front speakers should be at a 22°-30° angle with respect to your television. In other words, imagine you were to draw two lines — one from your listening position to your television, and one from your listening position to your right speaker. The two lines should create an angle somewhere between 22 and 30 degrees. The same holds true for the left speaker. (See illustration above.)
Your surround speakers:
Your home theater's surround speakers are there to envelop you in a cloud of atmospheric sound and special effects, so you feel like you're actually in the middle of the action. We've offered some recommendations to help you achieve this effect, but it's important to note that surround speaker placement is one area where positioning may vary widely. An approach that works well for a friend or neighbor may not even be possible for you, given the shape and layout of your home theater room
•If you have a 6.1-channel or 7.1-channel system with more than two surround speakers, or if side placement isn't available for your surrounds in a standard 5.1-channel setup, consider placement behind your listening position, facing the front of the room.
•Surround speakers should be placed high enough so that the drivers do not fire directly at your ears when you're sitting down — one rule of thumb is to place them at ear level while standing. (If your surround speakers fire directly at your ears, they can overpower your front speakers.)
Your subwoofer:
A powered subwoofer delivers crucial impact in a home theater system, but is one of the least demanding speakers to position. Since low bass frequencies are omnidirectional, you can usually place your subwoofer just about anywhere in your home theater room, with good results.
•Placing your subwoofer near a wall will generally result in more bass, and placement near a corner — where three room boundaries come together — will get you even more. Keep in mind that even though the bass increases as you place the sub near a wall or corner, the quality of bass may be slightly "boomier" and less controlled. Aim for a spot where you get a compromise between quality and quantity of bass.
•One cool technique for placing for your subwoofer is to put your sub in your listening spot, play some music, move around the room, and listen. You'll probably notice that the bass sounds a little bit different as you move around from location to location within the room — where it sounds the best may be where you want to put your subwoofer.
•Many powered subwoofers are equipped with a phase control — usually a 2-position switch. Choose the setting that produces the most bass while all your speakers are playing.
5.1-channel setup with the surround speakers wall-mounted to the sides of,
or slightly behind, the listening position.
6.1-channel setup with the surrounds wall-mounted to the sides of the listening position,
and one back surround wall-mounted behind the listening position
7.1-channel setup with the surrounds wall-mounted to the sides of the
listening position, and two back surrounds wall-mounted behind the listening position.
The best two listening modes for surround sound are Dolby Digital PLX-II and DTS Neo 6/TrueHD. Some AV's like Onkyo, Yahama and Denon will provide extra modes like Theater Dimesions, DTS ES. Sony provides DCS (Digital Cinema Surround).
The preffered movies for experiencing surround sound will be continued in future posts. Keep reading!!!