Placement of Rear Speakers (1 Viewer)

[Slade]

I'm trying to set up a new surround sound system. The only place I have to place the rears, is approximately 9 feet up, about 1 foot back from where we sit. (The speakers would be about a foot behind us, 9 feet up, with a big open space below them.

Is this a bad setup? I don't really have a better choice.

Thanks.

 

[Slade]

Update - I could also place them on side walls, 7 feet high, about 4 or 5 feet behind. Would this be better?

 

[Phil Iturralde]

It should work, though without an overhead view of your HT room layout, it would be hard to qualify any recommendations.

I use six identical bookshelf speakers (JBL S26's) w/timbre-matched Center.

My side surrounds is 3' behind my sweet spot, 6' high pointing @ each other across the room.

My two rear center speakers are aprox. 2-1/2' from the Center point (5'-1-1/2" apart) and 10' high, pointing forward with a very slight tilt down.

See my 20'x 30' HT/family room overhead view showing the speakers dispersion pattern's (closely emulates the 5.1/6.1 Mixing Studio patterns)

Once you REF Calibrate everything to your 'sweet spot', all the speakers SPL will be equalized and most your seating locations around your 'sweet spot' will hear the surround effects.

With identical speakers, the 5.1/6.1 surrounds provides a 360-degree seamless directional effects - basically I hear whatever the Mixer designed for the blockbuster DVD!!!

Hope this helps,
Phil