When localizing sounds in a free‐field environment, listeners frequently confuse front and back. Careful study of these front‐back reversals reveals a dependence on factors other than the lack of a reverberant sound field. In the experiments described here, median‐plane localizations were produced by single and symmetrically disposed pairs of loudspeakers. Front‐back discrimination was examined as a function of source position, head movements, signal type, frequency, and bandwidth. Subjects differed in their sensitivity to each of these factors, but it was clear that source position and signal bandwidth had the most pronounced effects. Some subjects demonstrated front‐back localizations that were almost entirely dependent on source position; others exhibited localizations that altered as a function of signal bandwidth but that appeared to be substantially independent of source position. Experiments in which head movements were progressively restricted have shown that small involuntary head movements cannot be of more than slight importance in front‐back discrimination.