You’ve done everything right—speaker placement, room treatment, cable upgrades. Still, the sound feels off. The stage is flattened. The center image won’t hold. You lean back in your plush recliner, and suddenly everything gets worse. Could the problem be the seat itself?
What to Do
Use a listening chair with a low back—no higher than your shoulders when seated. Avoid headrests or heavily padded cushions directly behind your ears. Leather can reflect sound; cloth or perforated fabric is better. Place the chair with a minimum of three feet between the headrest and rear wall if possible.
Here’s Why That Works
The area around your head is acoustically active. High-backed chairs cause early reflections and phase smearing at the listening position, especially in the midrange where vocals and imaging live. Reflections from dense materials near your ears distort spatial cues, collapse depth, and confuse your perception of stereo width.
The chair isn’t just where you sit—it’s where your ears live. Get it wrong, and the best setup in the world won’t sound right. Get it right, and the music snaps into focus like never before.
