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Hello to all. I got some good advice and found some helpful info here in the research and selection process for equipment and now need to determine speaker placement. Having recently purchased a house after years of apartment living, I was delighted to find a home with a room that, despite some shortcomings, is ideally suited for a dedicated home theater. Rough drawing cannot be attached as I have fewer than 15 posts in this forum but if someone else can post it please advise and I'll email it to you for adding. The room is about 9.5 x 19 feet in size.
Here's what I have:
NHT Super One XU for RF and LF, Super Center for the center, Super Zero Xu for the rear centers and a pair of Boston Acoustics VR/S dipole surrounds. Atlantic Technology T70 sub rounds out the gear and power is to be provided by HK-525. This is the best I could afford for now but I think it will sound good if placement is correct. I recognize and acknowledge that the dipoles should be more or less at the sides of the primary listeners but the unique structure of this room raises some questions about sound dampening and reflectivity.
The room was originally a sun porch but is part of the actual house (has basement underneath, hardwood floors and an existing heat duct - all good things). The problem is the windows - there are three on each of the short walls, all grouped together and a total of six on the long wall, spaced in groups of three with a small bit of wall space between the groups.
I know the LF and RF speakers need to be more or less at the same height as the center channel and have heard that dipoles should be higher up - about 12 - 18" down from the ceiling, right? The problem is that I have so much window area. I plan to leave the existing cheesy white mini-blinds in place and make my own neutral gray fabric window treatments to cover these areas (I already have 18% reflectance neutral gray paint for the walls - no spousal acceptance issues in effect here).
The question is this:
Should I put some sort of sound reflective surface, i.e. thin plywood inserts under the fabric covering on the back wall and on the sides where the dipoles are? The rear channel speakers will likely be angled down slightly towards the listening area but the dipoles depend in part on reflections. I could just put fabric covering onto a hard surface and fit the blanks intot he window space. Light control is an issue as the mini-blinds only diffuse the light - this is a bright room even in the early evening during the non-winter months.
Second consideration: I've given thought to adding a riser so I can comfortbaly have more than one guest at times - perhaps a full length sofa or some recycled real theater seats - across the back wall under the rear channel speakers. This requires moving my double recliner further up. How far up can I be from the rear channel speakers before the distance becomes an issue or is it just not a concern in a room of this size?
Comments and suggestions appreciated as always.
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