🔊 Speaker Placement Calculator

Enter your listening distance from the front wall to get recommended lateral speaker offsets for a standard 5.1 surround layout.

Listening distance from front speakers (ft)

How the offsets are worked out

Each speaker has a fixed angle off the centre line, and the tool turns that into a sideways offset with a right triangle:

lateral offset = listening distance × tan(angle)

Front left / right    26.5°
Centre                 0°
Surround left / right 105°

At the default 10 ft, tan(26.5°) is 0.4986, so each front speaker sits 5.0 ft either side of centre - 10 ft apart, a near-equilateral triangle with the seat. The centre channel stays on the axis, under or over the screen.

The tangent method only holds below 90°. Surrounds are specified at 105°, which is behind you, and tan(105°) is -3.73, so that row reports 37.3 ft - read it as "behind the listening position", not as a measurement. Place surrounds on the same radius as the fronts instead: at a 10 ft radius, 105° is 9.7 ft to the side and 2.6 ft behind the seat.

Getting it right in the room

Equal radius, not equal depth. All three fronts should be the same distance from the seat. A centre pushed 2 ft further back arrives late and smears dialogue.
Tweeters at seated ear height, about 38-42 in, and toed in towards the seat. Surrounds go 2-3 ft above ear height.
26.5° is a compromise. Dolby and THX allow 22-30° for the fronts; ITU-R BS.775, the reference standard, specifies 30°.

No room gain is assumed. A speaker against the front wall picks up roughly 3 dB of bass per nearby boundary plus a cancellation notch from the reflection behind it, so treat the geometry as a starting point for measurement.

Frequently asked questions

How far apart should front left and right speakers be?

At a 10 ft listening distance, 5.0 ft either side of the screen centre, so 10 ft apart. The rule scales: the separation roughly equals your listening distance at these angles.

What angle should 5.1 surround speakers be at?

Slightly behind the seat. This tool uses 105°, inside Dolby's 90-110° window and at the low end of ITU-R BS.775's 100-120°.

Should my front speakers be at 22 or 30 degrees?

30° is the broadcast and mixing reference, so it matches how films are mastered. Narrower angles like the 26.5° used here tighten the centre image and suit rooms where a 30° speaker would end up in a corner.