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Questions on Dolby 7.1 setup...

I am just putting the finishing touches on my dedicated theater room. The room is approx. 24ft x 12ft. With these dimensions, the front and center channel sound 'far away' from the seating position - especially with the rear channels being right behind my theater seats.

I am wondering if adding two side speakers will help. Will this help improve the sound coming from the front, or will it just make it sound hollow with more surround speakers?? I guess I could buy a set of speakers and try it out but I hate buying and returning stuff.

I guess this would be a Dolby 7.1 setup which my H.K. receiver supports. However I understand that no DVD's at this point are really made with 7.1 sound..??

BillSuneson

Re: Questions on Dolby 7.1 setup...

Have you callibrated the speakers with a SPL meter? If not this should help alot. Also the side channels will help while watching movies and it is the way of the future for DVD/HD-DVD/BluRay. Even now you can take advatage of that with THX Processing/DDEx/DTS-ES and will give simulated sound but it does a pretty good job.

HT-EXT

Re: Questions on Dolby 7.1 setup...

As long as you set everything up correctly you should not need extra speakers for the fronts if I understand the question. Make sure you set up the distance and gain for each speaker. I tend to set the fronts a little hotter(75db/78db) than the surrounds(72db/73db) with the SPL meter. The distance setting will allow you the get the timing right for each speaker regardless how close it is to you or away from you for that matter. The proper set up will cause the whole system to blend and give you the desire sound you are after.

HT-EXT