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The old speaker placement problem

post #1 of 6
4/1/09 at 3:37am
Thread Starter 
Lesson first:

"Never let soft furnishings rule your life"

I have a conundrum which I could do with some help with. I have a square front room (squareish, 4.2m x 3.9m). My wife and I thought it would be an excellent use of our wedding present money to buy a new leather sofa. The corner group was duely purchased and now has pride of place. This has forced the screen to the opposite corner of the room.

I'm in the market for 5 speakers for my home theatre setup. The conundrum I have is the surrounds. What should I use and where should I use them. With the sofa being a corner sofa, it is tight up to the two 'rear' (relative to the screen) walls. Dipoles? Bipoles? Mount them on the walls behind the sofa? Mount them on the walls facing the sofa?

Any help would be appreciated, I'll try and draw up a plan as well to give a better illustration.
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post #2 of 6
4/1/09 at 5:47am
Thread Starter 

Re: The old speaker placement problem

The product of 2 mins on MS Paint! One basic layout.

[IMG]frontroomlayout[/IMG]
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post #3 of 6
4/1/09 at 7:05am

Re: The old speaker placement problem

It seems to me you have 2 options. If you mainly sit on the long part of the couch, the green dots would work fairly well. If you use the whole couch often, you might want to go with the red dots. Either way, I'd just use direct firing speakers and have them face each other.

It seems a bigger problem is going to be your front sound stage in that space.
525x525px-LL-vbattach1386.jpg
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post #4 of 6
4/1/09 at 7:30am

Re: The old speaker placement problem

This is what I would do. I would use direct radiating speakers and mount them to the wall at either end of the sofa. You also want to diffuse the sound, so I would actually aim them up and inward. In other words, bounce them off the walls and ceiling so there isn't actually any direct radiating sound to the listener. In your setup, dipole and bipole speakers really won't work. With those, the viewers really need to be in the "null" area with open space in front and behind the speaker. At least, models with the drivers on opposite sides (180 degrees from each other) won't work well, but ones with them at more like a 90 degree angle might. I would just bounce the sound off the walls and ceiling.
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post #5 of 6
4/2/09 at 12:19am
Thread Starter 

Re: The old speaker placement problem

Thank you all for your responses. The front soundstage should be easily achieved as I have a little bit of wall above the bay window, so I can mount my fronts on brackets above the opening, and on the corresponding corner wall (yellow positions).

Photobucket

As for the surrounds, I have a little bit of speaker making skill (I've built HT and Car sub woofers, since I were a lad), and was actually looking at making my own set. This obviously gives me some flexibility in the surround configuration. Just to clarify. The surrounds should be aimed INTO the corner and up to the ceiling?

Bear in mind for the most part, my wife and I sit more in the corner of the sofa, directly diagonally opposite the screen.

With the above in mind, and given that I can produce any configuration of surround (multiple drivers, angled etc) What would be my best bet?
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post #6 of 6
4/2/09 at 1:14pm

Re: The old speaker placement problem

Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyBurnWorld
Just to clarify. The surrounds should be aimed INTO the corner and up to the ceiling?

Well, I wouldn't. I'd just put them approximately where the red dots are (above ear height) and aim them at each other. That would be a pretty close approximation of Dolby's 5.1 recommendation.

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