Is 8' too high for dipole surrounds? (1 Viewer)

[Clinton McClure]

Since I moved my equipment into the living room, I have the surrounds (Paradigm ADP-170s) sitting on speaker stands on either side of the listening position. It is kind of akward that I have a speaker standing beside a recliner about 2' in front of a sofa along the side wall. (And the wife doesn't like it either. :wink: ) We can live with it but it is kind of an eyesore and in the way, not to mention the wires running across the carpet under the recliners and out to the stand.

I want to mount the ADPs on the side walls but the way the room is designed, the lowest I can mount the surround on one side is 8'. There is a partition wall with a window in it and the only place I can mount is above the window.

Has anyone had experience with mounting surrounds that high? How did it sound? I'm willing to experiment but I don't want to start drilling holes and putting anchors in the walls if it isn't going to work.

 

[chris_bester]

can you only mount them 8ft because of the window on the one side???

 

[MikeGee]

i had my rear surrounds Athena AS-R1 dipole speakers at about 7' to my ears the difference when i lowered them to just a couple inches above the height of my couch was a noticable difference. They were not as pronounced when they were so high up.
You could always try to angle them downward a little bit which should sound great.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Yeah, one of the sidewalls is a partition wall with a window in it which is beside the listening position. The only place to mount the surround is above the window, about 8' up. I could move it back past the window and lower it to about 6' BUT directly across the room along the other sidewall is a doorway. To mount both surrounds at 6', one would be almost 3' closer to the front of the room than the other.

 

[chris_bester]

you got any pics of the room???.....my right surround is hanging in front of a side window. All I did is take window trim off & run a 2X4 vertically & Attached speaker with bracket onto it to get speaker in correct spot. Heres pics of mt hometheater. Check out where my right surround is by the window. http://www.geocities.com/kitchenergu...etheater1.html

 

[Carl Gaff]

I have a design problem with my room also. I was forced to put my Martin Logan Script side surrounds 10' off the floor. They are on swivel brackets, mounted horizontally, and are pointed at an angle towards the ceiling for best diffusion.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Chris - Covering part of the window is not an option. Sorry.

After remeasuring, I was able to make the surrounds fit. I had originally measured the long wall and found a good place to hang the surround, then measured along the partition wall, but left out a crucial part of my calculation. The partition wall with the window is straight back from the front living room door. The door is set in a boxed area which sticks out 2 feet from the front wall. I didn't take this into account when measuring from the front wall and that 2 foot difference was putting my surround into open space where it couldn't go. After I figured out my goof, I found it would barely fit just past the window and I could then drop the surrounds to a height of 6'. Even though they are the same height now, the right surround is about 4' further to the side than the left surround but calibration fixed that.

Hopefully soon I will get a digital camera and I can take some shots and post them online.

Thanks for all the input guys!