Must deal w/ worst possible room design for HT setup: Need Help on Placement Ideas! (1 Viewer)

[Mike Kao]

I know you guys are probably tired of reading placement threads, and I normally wouldn't ask for placement advice (I supressed myself over my last HT room), but this is a much more difficult situation. Take a look at the layout of the room and you'll soon see what I'm talking about:



I have a Harman Kardon AVR-525, so I want to take advantage of all 7 channels, but that would further complicate matters... if a 7.1 setup wouldn't work well in the room, I guess I could drop the idea. Here are the potential setup's I devised so far:

Setup 1:

It appears that the rear surrounds are overlapping the couch, but they aren't scaled to actual size, plus I would most likely mount them above the listener on the wall. Is this too close though? It would look pretty bad if I moved the couch up even a foot, so it's difficult to have it ideal...


Setup 2:

(center not shown, but would be on top tv)
In this setup, I would angel the front speakers towards the sweet spot

Which setup do you guys think would be preferable, and how should I setup the rear surrounds?
Also, I'm thinking of moving the Subwoofer to the top left corner simply b/c I heard from someone on these forums say that the sub sounds tighter placed on the outside corner walls (walls that separate the outside from the inside of the house) rather than the inside corner walls (interior walls). What are your thoughts on this?

Any critiques, suggestions and advice would be appreciated!

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

What's wrong with having the fronts against the north wall with the window. The couch would have to be out in the middle of the room more and not against the south door.

You could then have the rear surrounds on the L/R sides of south door. Surrounds could be placed on stands L/R of the couch for best flexibility.

If sound is a priority, then I would choose a setup that has axial symmetry.

Setup 2 would work if you placed the right surround between the 2 doors on the west wall and angled the couch towards the TV. Personally, I'd rather have the back channels in an odd positioning than the surrounds.

Setup 1 seems like it would have the most problems because the front left speaker is corner loaded while the right isn't, and the distances from each speaker to the listening position are different. I think if you have a speaker on the Left in a corner (or near wall), you want the speaker on the right to be near one too.

 

[Bill Lucas]

Mike,

I'd recommend that you go 5.1. Your room is simply too small to do 7.1 properly and with the couch against the back wall you completely lose it. Sometimes less is more.

 

[RobWil]

It really sucks when you move into a house BEFORE you pick up the hobby. It just kills me that I don't have that perfect room for my HT/listening room. I spend hours rearranging the only room I have available which is around 9' x 14' with doors and angles in the wrong places. It was originally a bedroom and I had to remove a wall length closet to increase the length or else it would have been 9' x 11'. If I was to move, the main priority for the new house would be a room perfectly suitable for HT.

I know this isn't of any help......sorry to use your thread to whine!

 

[ChadLB]

I would place the tv on the window side with the front l/r and sub up there and rears in back and couch in middle of room. I think that would be the best option. Would be the most symetrical setup.
Also why are there 4 openings into one room. Fill the bottom openeing. and use that wall.

 

[SkiingNinja]

I agree on losing the 6/7th channels. I was at a customers home this past weekend and he was attempting 7.1 in a similar room and the rear image was just confused. Way too much going on in a small space. Stick with 5.1 and I think you will be happier (not having been in the room proper, I am just speculating here).

Regards,

Sean

 

[Mike Kao]

Well the problem with putting the couch on the opposite side, is that I will need about 2 feet of clearance between the couch on the back door. As it is, the distance between the couch and TV is 6 feet... I don't think having the screen 4 feet from the viewing is more than pushing it. Unfortunately, I can't 'fill' in the door as there's a room there, and that's the only entrance to it... trust me though, I wish I could!