Center Speaker Placement

Hi all,

I am in the middle of construction on my new house and have a decent room dedicated to HT. As I have been researching everything but the kitchen sink, I came across a reference to placing the center speaker behind the screen (96" Carada), aligning the tweeters with the left and right mains. Granted, I am a complete neophyte when it comes to HT audio, but does this make sense? Isn't the screen going to cause some problems? Is this a bad/good/best placement for the center? Thanks.

[Tonto]

It depends on your screen. Some are not going to pass the audio (DIY polymers/painted screens, etc). If it does, you should have no problem.

[Sonnie]

Hi Jerry and welcome to the Shack!

Is your screen perforated for audio? I would not place it behind a regular screen. I know there are several manufacturers that are making the audio transparent screens and they do a good job enabling you to place your center and/or all three front main speakers behind the screen.

All in the planning stage at this point, nothing purchased yet. I figured that I needed to make some decisions while the framing was going on in order to have the stage correctly made. If the center channel goes behind the screen then the stage is framed one way, if over or under the screen then it is framed a different way. I can go any way I want at this point, I just am not sure what is best.

[Sonnie]

I knew someone was just talking about this recently...

John Simpson wrote:

Yes, this is the second best position it can be in, with the tweeter(s) flush with the surface of the screen. The *best* position is actually behind the screen, one third of the way up the height of the screen. If you intend on building a cavity for the centre channel, you should look into this, with an acoustically-transparent (AT) screen.

You might check in our screen forum for the proper audio screen to use. Those guys are on top of it.