Horrible room design, can it be helped? (1 Viewer)

Our living room is a large rectangle with one open wall that opens to the kitchen eating area. Our couches are corner wrap, and down the long wall with a passage open to get to the foyer between them.The television is not quite in a corner, but it's never straight across from any seating area. I really hate this room because I know a home theatre can be made to sound good with a lot of left to right and front to rear definition, but this room seams to prevent even a acceptable performing sound system from being achieved.I have a 48" Visio LCD, Yamaha RX-V371 AV Receiver, infinity minuette MPS front left and right speakers, cheap RCA 5" 2-way center channel, and a set left over and no longer wired in Toshiba SS-SR94 rear left and right speakers. My sub is a Sony SA-W2500 250 watt box.

I think more fireplaces have ruined potential home theater setups than anything else. Putting the TV where the fireplace is seems like the most obvious place, but definitely not above the mantle. Do you use your fireplace? It will look a little goofy and may not pass muster with the spouse, but that seems like your best option. Or in front of the window.

To help viewing angle. Get a plasma.There are numerous mounts that allow the TV to swing down from above a fireplace. That looks like a gas fireplace...so no issues.

It's a log fireplace with a gas line across the bottom to start the fire with.Yea, I have argued that flipping the room and having the tv on a stand in front of the large glass would be the way to go. The female will hear nothing of that!We actually do use the fireplace on weekends, a lot of great times have been had in front of a dying fire there.I was really hoping that there was magical speaker set up, maybe combined with an amp that is built from the flesh of unicorns? Some way.... done technology to polish my turd of a room into a half way decent (not expecting awesome) sounding room for watching movies.

Looking at the setup and the available equipment - I would try the following for at least a little bit better sound.

-- Move the Center Channel into the space in the cabinet
-- Remove all of the flowers/vases on top of the cabinet
-- Move the TV onto a Stand on top of the cabinet - Better placement for viewing - too high at the moment.
-- Remove the Sub - and place on the other side of the Cabinet
-- Move the entire Cabinet (with TV and center channel fixed) closer to the fireplace - fit the sub on the right in the new gap created
-- Take the surround sound speakers from on top of the sub and mount them as surround speakers in the corners of the room where the couches are - if not possible, remove surround sound speakers from where they are and go with a 3.1 system.
-- Take the Right side speaker (on the top of the large book case) and mount it on a shelf on the side of the case - to be level with the left one that is on the fire place mantle.

View attachment 15467

-- Right now - see the following issues - above movement will help fix them:

-- Right and left front speakers are at different height levels
-- TV is mounted too high on the wall and too far to 1 side of the room.
-- Surround speakers are sitting on top of the sub in the front of the room

View attachment 15468



-- Bad edit job -- but would end up like that...