Center speaker placement dilemma (1 Viewer)

[Kevin Stewart]

I'm currently building a house that will have a home theater room, so I'm doing the wiring now. Here's my question:

The main viewing wall will have an entertainment unit that takes up most of the wall. Inside of this unit will be a RPTV (for normal viewing), but I will also have a projector screen that drops down for DVD viewing (and future HDTV viewing). Due to the fact that there is no wall space I'm having the feeds for the front left and rights placed on the ceiling. The ceiling, however, is sloped at the front of the room (and back) creating a 45 degree angle from the wall to the ceiling so that the speakers will have a natural angle sending the sound down toward the seating area.

Originally, I was planning on having the center speaker placed under the RPTV (bottom of the entertainment center). This, however, would mean that when watching the RPTV the center channel would be about 8' below the left and right fronts (but angled toward the listener). When watching the projector, the center would still be under the screen, but it would also be slightly behind it. Will this cause big problems with the sound?

My only other alternative would be to wire the center so that it mounts on the ceiling even with the fronts. I think this would be OK for projection viewing because they'd all be angled toward the viewer with the ceiling slope and they'd be just slightly about the screen. When viewing RPTV, however, the center would be quite a bit farther above the screen (since the top of the RPTV is not as tall as the screen would be). This seems like it would be even worse than having it below both screens.

What would you recommend. They'll start sheet-rocking this weekend, so any input would be appreciated.


Stew

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

That's a tough situation, Kevin, and equally difficult to say in advance which would be better.

How 'bout this? Speaker wire is cheap - why not have them run a line to both locations? That way you could try out each location and decide which you like best.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[JohnnyN]

My theater is the same way... I have six foot wall in the front, slopes up to nine feet, runs a few feet at nine feet, then slopes back down to seven feet. Depending on your seating arrangment, I don't think placement of the center channel above or below horizontal will be that big of a deal... for the longest time I've had my center placed above my monitor, soon I'll have to have it placed below and angled up. If you are getting a motorized screen, consider getting an acoustically transparent one if your center might be behind the screen.