How would you place these speakers? (1 Viewer)

I need some good advice! I'm moving into the guest bedroom (yes, I'm a college student moving into my parent's basement, hehe). I am trying to figure out how everything should lay out. I'll do my best to describe the room for ya's. It's basically a 12ft x 14ft x 7.5ft ceiling. From the plans in my mind, I was thinking of putting the head of my sound stage against the front 12ft wall (so that stereo orientation will make the room long, not wide). I was planning on wall mounting my bookshelf speakers on both the front and rear, but I have a few concerns about the rear speakers.

(1) the "rear" portion of the room has the doorway, which has an alcove of about 5ft wide x 3ft deep. Therefore, I would not be able to mount the back left speaker on the wall to be directly across from the front left speaker. I am afraid that if I simply scoot my system close to the side wall, the right speakers will be in the corners and might distort the imaging. Also, mounting on side walls aligned with listening position is not a choice due to a window.

(2) I'm also unfamiliar with recommended distances for the rear speakers from the listening position. Should they always be a certain distance away, or is it relational to how far the fronts are from you? I'm starting to think that rear stands might be a better choice than wall mounting (even though wall mounting would be much cleaner).

By the way, my fronts are Polk RTi38's, center is Polk CSi30, and rear (surrounds) are Polk RTi28's. I Just ordered fronts and center tonight... I'm looking forward to the 38's; I'm very pleased with my 28's! Don't think it matters, but my receiver is H/K AVR 225.

Thanks again for the help!

Not wall mounting the fronts is the biggest thing. Pulling them away from the walls helps the soundstage a lot, and will reduce any boominess induced by near placement to the walls, ESPECIALLY if they are rear-ported.

Ideally, you'd want all speakers equidistance away. This is, however, largely not necessary. With calibration, you achieve both volume equity, and time delay, which allows you to place your rears far closer than you otherwise might need to. Through calibration, they will not be louder (because they are closer), and by entering the distance in your receiver menu, correct distance compensation will be applied, so the sound arriving from the fronts doesn't lag behind sound arriving from the rears(again, because your rears are closer).

The rears are generally less picky, IMO, in the vast majority of situations. I would not worry so much about wall mounting there. The correct position for "rears" is actually to the SIDE of the listening position. This has been covered many times, if you're still unclear im pretty sure you could dig up an answer via a search, or via dolby's website.

I too am a college student in a similar situation, so i better get back to studying. I am assuming you have a finished basement, as concrete walls are hideously reflective. If you DO have concrete walls, REALLY think about putting up some drapery or something to cut down, or your room will sound like a bathroom, and sound like crap no matter how nice the system.

Yep, it's a finished basement. Currently I have two speakers in there just to see how room acoustics are in general, and the room seems to accept the audio nicely. =)

Thanks for the tips on pulling speakers away from the walls. The polks are rear ported so I will definitely rethink this. I don't think it will be a problem at all to pull the speakers away from the walls a bit in the front; that area should be pretty open.

I'm glad to hear the rear positioning is not as key... I am not afraid of taking time to calibrate -- I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be locking myself into a position I don't want to be in. I might be able to put them on stands on the sides of listening position, depending on where I decide to put certain furniture. That's one of the good things about planning this out before I move my stuff into the room: I can move all my other crap around to fit the needs of my audio!

Anyone else have suggestions as well?

Matt,

If you wind up with your rear speakers beside you on stands, you may want to experiment with facing them away from the listening position to create a more diffuse sound field. Being monopoles, I think they will be too localizable if pointing right at you. Just play around with it and see what you prefer.