7 Home Sound Set-Up Mistakes I Always Notice as an Audiophile, and How You Can Solve Them, Easily
These sound system design and layout pitfalls will mean your home's audio doesn't reach its full potential
We spend months creating the perfect living room, from obsessing over the exact shade of limewash for the walls, to finding the ultimate low-slung sofa that looks great while still being suitable for a Sunday snooze. But the tech that fills the room with music or movie soundscapes is often treated as an afterthought.
I completely appreciate the desire to make bulky black boxes disappear — they just don’t complement Farrow & Ball’s Scallop, do they? But the quest for a wonderfully minimal aesthetic can lead to some major acoustic faux pas.
If your sound system, whether it's a surround sound system, soundbar, or anything else, feels a bit flat, here are the seven setup mistakes I regularly see (and have been guilty of myself), plus how to fix them without ruining the vibe of your room.
Article continues below1. Tweeters That Are Too Low
DO INSTEAD: Put speakers on stands, or choose designs like these Bang & Olufsen Beolab 18-3 floorstanding speakers.
I see this constantly in otherwise gorgeous, relaxed spaces: beautiful bookshelf speakers sitting directly on the hardwood floor, a very low media console or the bottom shelves of a new paneled media wall. None of these positions will allow you to get the best from them.
High-frequency sounds (which are handled by tweeters) are highly directional. If they are pointing at your shins or your sofa cushions instead of your ears, the sound can lose its crispness and clarity.
Instead, consider investing in a pair of sculptural, minimalist speaker stands (like these from Amazon) that bring the tweeters to ear level when you are sitting down on that new squishy sofa. If you feel like stands will clutter your space, you could think about using floating wall shelves instead.
2. Positioning too close to walls
DO INSTEAD: If not in the center of the room, leave at least a little buffer from the walls.
In a bid to keep floor space clear and wires out of sight, instinct is to push speakers flush against the wall, or worse, cram them into a block in IKEA’s BILLY bookcase. We’ve all been there, and while it delivers a streamlined look, it isn’t going to make your Saturday night movie sound as good as it could.
Speakers need to breathe. Pushing a speaker against a wall causes sound waves to bounce immediately off the wall, resulting in muddy, boomy, and indistinct bass.
You should instead try to position your speakers at least 15cm to 30cm from the wall. I suspect you will be surprised at how much tighter the bass becomes and how much wider the soundstage feels.
3. Tucking the Subwoofer Into a Corner
DO INSTEAD: Find the right spot for your sub, and pick a stylish one if you do.
Subwoofers are rarely pretty, though the Sonos Sub Mini and Marshall’s Heston Sub 200 both try their best. Traditionally, though, I completely sympathize that your first thought might be to shove the heavy black box into the furthest corner of the room and cover it with a plant for good measure.
You should know, though, that corner placement causes something called room boundary loading. It artificially inflates the bass (sometimes by up to 12dB), making it sound overwhelming and disconnected from the rest of your audio.
Try the ‘subwoofer crawl’. No, that doesn’t mean crawling around the room with your subwoofer in tow. Instead, it means putting the subwoofer on your sofa where you normally sit. You should then play a bass-heavy track and crawl around the room at floor level — I didn’t say this method didn’t involve crawling at all. Wherever the bass sounds the tightest and most accurate (not just the loudest) is where you should place the sub. You might find a spot right next to your media console that works perfectly.
4. No Soft Surfaces
DO INSTEAD: Soften a room with lots of hard surfaces with textiles, whether that's a large rug, or swathes of curtains.
The current trend of hard surfaces, such as concrete floors, huge glass Crittall doors, and bare plastered walls all look incredible, but they are a nightmare acoustically.
Sound waves bounce off hard surfaces like a ping-pong ball. If your room is too reflective, your music will sound harsh, and movie dialogue can become difficult to understand.
You don’t need to cover your living room walls with acoustic foam to rectify the problem, but it is worth leaning into soft, textural elements. A plush rug, heavy linen drapes, a canvas art piece, or a fabric-upholstered sofa can help to absorb the reflections and make your room sound warmer and more inviting.
5. Suffocating the Center Channel
DO INSTEAD: Give your center speaker room to breathe.
If you have a multi-channel surround sound system for your TV, the center channel is the most important element for film lovers. It handles most of the dialogue in a movie, so if you want to hear what is being said, you should avoid placing the centre channel speaker deep inside an enclosed media cabinet or at the back of a shelf. This causes the sound to echo inside the cabinet before it even reaches your ears.
If possible, position the center speaker right to the very front edge of your media console so the sound can project freely into the room. That should mean you won’t miss the all-important line.
6. Ignoring the Tuning Software
DO INSTEAD: Tune your system properly from the outset.
Many premium wireless speakers and soundbars come with sophisticated room-correction software built into their companion apps — Sonos is a prime example with its Trueplay tuning. It’s very easy to just plug a sound system in and skip this software tuning until later (by which I mean then never bothering to do it).
Every room has its own unique acoustic thumbprint. By skipping the software tuning element of setup, you are letting the physical quirks of your room, like the distance to the sofa or the height of the ceiling, dictate how your music sounds rather than the speaker or soundbar taking those into account.
Usually, it only takes a matter of minutes, and it can make a noticeable difference to how your system sounds in your space, so open up that companion app and run the digital room-tuning process. Most tuning software uses the microphone in your smartphone to listen to a series of tones as you walk around the space. The software then creates a custom digital profile that counterbalances your room's hard surfaces and odd angles.
7. Not Managing Cables
DO INSTEAD: Avoid visible cables for a tidier room, and avoiding any 'hum'.
You’ve curated a stunning, minimalist media wall, only to have the entire look dragged down by a chaotic web of wires cascading down from the TV and speakers. Neglecting cable management isn’t just an eyesore; it can also be a hazard and make cleaning a nightmare. Power cables tangled up with audio cables can also sometimes introduce unwanted electronic hum or interference.
Try not to let wires just hang. If you are doing a full renovation, consider planning for in-wall conduits so you can completely hide cables. If you are working with an existing space, use paintable D-line trunking or invest in a media console with built-in cable management. For the speakers themselves, you could also look for stands that allow you to route the wires directly through the neck of the stand.
Of course, there are plenty of other features out there that promise you better home sound quality to explore, but there are some soundbar features that are overhyped, that you can probably ignore if you're just getting to grips with your sound system.
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