Answers | Q&A (Week of 5.26.25)

More on room treatments and speaker positioning...

Question:

In my house the only place I can set up a dedicated listening area has a wall behind and only on one side of the speakers which means I get no reflections from one of my speakers. Right now I have a pair of older DyneAudio Audience 72s which are front ported and would like to replace them with something newer. Any recommendations on what I should be on the lookout for?

—MICHAEL HENN

Answer:

In normal acoustical theory, the lack of early reflections is actually a good thing. So, on the side without reflections, you are ahead of the game. In principle, you want to absorb reflections from walls that are within 4-5’ measured from the front of the speakers to the first reflection points. This would include reflections from the front wall (the wall behind the speakers) and from the side wall or walls. We want to emphasize that this is distance dependent; once your listening position is more than about 10’ along the reflection path (about double the distance from the speaker to the ref…