Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

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Yes and no…

Posted by David Aiken on January 13, 2010 at 21:46:46:
Yes re it all depends on how the designer intended them to be placed.

No, or at least a very big maybe about the foam on the wall.

Most acoustic foam products placed directly on the wall aren't particularly effective at bass frequencies so they'll do little to help the excessive bass reinforcement that proximity to the wall produces. You can improve the bass absorption of such products by increasing their thickness and/or spacing them out from the wall but the more you increase the thickness of the foam and the bigger the air space you leave behind it, the further away from the wall the speaker is going to be and the less need you have to use such techniques.

Anyone trying to get effective absorption below 100 Hz by using foam placed on the wall is virtually doomed to failure, even with foam that's 4" to 6" thick. It will absorb at higher frequencies and reduce the reinforcement there, but that's only likely to make the bass reinforcement even more noticeable.

You can probably get better results with some rear ported speakers by using a foam plug in the actual port, and many speakers come with just such plugs for just such a purpose but even then you probably still need to place the speaker a reasonable distance from the wall.

If you want a speaker that can be placed very close to a wall, the best option is to buy a speaker that has been designed for just such placement. They do exist.