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SPEAKER PLACEMENT GUIDE

Bookshelf speaker placement: a practical starting point

A comfortable seat and a practical place for two speakers are enough to begin. Use a simple stereo layout as a starting point, then adjust it for your room and furniture.

By Plan My Speakers · October 26, 2026

Start with spacing and a centered listening position

Genelec’s studio-monitor guidance uses a 60° stereo arrangement: the two speakers and listener form an equilateral triangle. It also recommends left/right symmetry, aiming toward the listener, and an acoustic axis near ear height. These are useful reference ideas to adapt to a home setup; follow your own speaker manufacturer’s instructions. Read Genelec’s placement guidance.

Example of an equal-distance stereo triangleLeft and right speakers are six feet apart. A centered listener is six feet from each speaker, about five feet two inches behind the line joining them. This is an illustrative geometry example, not a required room layout. LRListener6 ft6 ft6 ft
Example only: with speakers 6 ft apart and a seat 6 ft from each, the seat is about 5 ft 2 in behind the speaker line. That is not its distance from the front wall.

The example comes from triangle geometry, not an acoustic optimization. You can use different distances. In Speaker Planner, Center listener places your seat on the pair’s centerline in the top-down plan without showing a triangle in Basic. Aim speakers at listener turns the cabinets in place. Centering does not promise equal sound in an asymmetric room, and moving the markers later does not automatically re-aim them.

Fit the speakers around walls, a TV stand, and your couch

Check your model’s manual before choosing cabinet-to-wall clearance. The planner’s editable 30 cm example is not a universal recommendation. In Advanced, enter cabinet dimensions under Your sizes and inspect Your wall clearance. The clearance reading is measured from cabinet edges; marker coordinates describe cabinet centers.

In Basic, if your speakers sit on a TV stand, place them at a realistic depth, then choose TV stand / keep wall distance under Speaker furniture. This constrains a speaker recommendation to sideways movement. For a couch that cannot move closer or farther, place the listener at its real depth and select Sideways only / keep couch distance. The planner does not know your stand’s width or walkway space, so review the suggestion before applying it.

Try your bookshelf speaker layout in the planner

  1. Choose your speakers. Search a preset or enter your own cabinet specifications. Presets supply dimensions and reference specifications, not measured sound-response data.
  2. Map the room. In Basic, enter rectangular room dimensions in meters or feet and inches. Drag the L, R, and listener markers into place. Imported floor plans are available in Advanced for placement; sound analysis uses the manual room.
  3. Set what can move. Lock speaker spacing if you want to move the pair together, then choose practical TV-stand or couch constraints.
  4. Compare a suggestion. Speaker recommendations hold the listener fixed; listener recommendations hold both speakers fixed. Review, Apply, or Undo. Save a layout file to keep a backup.

Try the free speaker placement planner

Use sound coverage as an estimate, then listen

Basic’s Sound coverage map shows relative modeled levels and readings at the listener. Its dB values are not calibrated sound-pressure measurements. Advanced adds wave illustrations, interference estimates, listener response, and optional reflection assumptions.

A recommendation compares positions within the app’s simplified model. It cannot guarantee the best placement in your home. Full room resonances, furniture and measured speaker response are not modeled. Keep furniture constraints realistic, try promising positions with familiar music, and use room measurements when you need to verify the result.