rear surround placement (1 Viewer)

[Philip_G]

I'm trying to decide where to put the surrounds in a new house, and I'm not sure what I should do. The floorplan shows where the monitor and seating will be, but I'm undecided about the surrounds, I can put both on that back wall, either side of the loveseat, or I can put one on that wall, and one to the right of the couch, but that might be a little funky.
What do you guys think?
planning to run the wires down the wall and wallmount them after I move in.



here, in case you want a pic of the space- the niche where the TV/rack/probably sub will go is about 9' wide, for reference.
www.miataturbo.net/philip/4.jpg

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Phillip,

I see a lot of problems with your proposed layout.

You will never get anything resembling a decent surround sound effect with all the seating to one side of the room. For a real life example of what you’re looking at, vs. the way it should be, go to your local theater and sit in a seat up against the wall. Later in the show, move to the center of the room (this would be easy to do at a matinee or late-night viewing) and see how much better everything sounds.

Simply put, your primary seat (the sofa I presume) should be located about where it says “LIVING ROOM” in your floor plan, or perhaps a little further back. This would allow your rear speakers to go on the outside wall between the windows (rearward of the seat).

Another problem with either seating arrangement (both yours and the one I suggested) is that your front speakers will not have enough spread for good left-to-right separation. Ideally they should be right where the openings to the entryway and the third bedroom are. Plus there’s no good place for a subwoofer up there. :frowning:

Personally I think I’d put the TV on the wall where you want to put the sofa and arrange the room around that. That will allow for better spread of the front speakers and give you a good front corner for your sub.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[RyanJE]

How many Cubic feet is bedroom 3? Is anyone going to live in it??

 

[Philip_G]

room 3 is the office.

the furniture layout isn't changing. Having a liveable room is more important than a perfect setup, so we'll have to maximize that layout the best we can and that's all there is to it.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Okay then, the loveseat location is a better option than the other one.

Having the rear speakers “in your face” like that (or firing over your head towards the front wall) with the front speakers so far away - I hope you’re expectations aren’t too high.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[JerryNO]

I agree with Wayne. It could be a very nice setup with the TV placed where you have the couch and the couch out by the letter "l" in the word "living". What's not liveable about that? Leaves you plenty of room to walk to the dining room behind the couch without disturbing tv watchers.

If you place your rear surrounds just on the edges of your rear windows, your side surrounds will go where you have your tv and loveseat now. You will have a very fine setup.

According to Dolby, this is how it should look:

h**p://w*w.dolby.com/images/consumer/home_entertainment/room_d2.gif

replace the asterisks with the appropriate letters.

 

[Philip_G]

Because then you have a couch floating in the middle of the room, a 5 foot viewing distance to a 65" TV, and a hell of a lot of wasted space. If I put the couch over between the two windows the first thing you see in the door is the couch, that isn't going to fly. Like I said before the furniture isn't moving and the point of this thread is to do the best I can with what I've got. hell I really don't even care if I have rear surrounds at all anymore.

We're just hashing over the same things over and over without really going anywhere.

Why doesn't a mod go ahead and delete this waste of space.

 

[JerryNO]

Well, your blueprint doesn't list dimensions. Are you sure the room's that small?

Put the couch by the "g" in "living."

Why did you start the thread if you didn't want to know what people think?

 

[Philip_G]

of course I want to know what people think, but within the parameters of the question. I realize it's not an ideal setup. It's a tough room and it'll never be perfect, I don't care, all I want is to do the best I can with what I have to work with. This obviously can't be a dedicated theater room.

I don't know the exact dimensions, I'd have to take a WAG from the photo. It's somewhere around 18x16

I think what I'll probably do is float the speakers around on stands and try various setups, I guess I'll probably hang one surround in the corner in the upper left, and one on the wall at the right between the window and that annoying little waste of space half wall thing, and face them at each other and see how the calibration turns out. Maybe it's a good time to build and play with some dipoles.

the sub will stay in the niche, I've got enough bass that placement isn't a concern.
I think I'm also going to build some kit51's, I can move them outward if I need to and hang them on the wall. They'll take up less room than my floor standers.

Oh and something else I notice, that plan isn't quite to scale. I know the garage is a square 21x21 but on the drawing it's not square.

 

[Phil Iturralde]

I guess you figured out where to put the Front, Center and sub so, ... I recommend that you put your Left Side surround a few inches away from the left side window (it will be basically a little in front of your loveseat), about 2' to 3' above your seated ear height, facing (no tilt) the Right side wall.

Using the same height, place your Right Side surround facing the Left Side surround.

Your REFERENCE Calibration 'sweet spot' will be on your loveseat, as close to the center of your HDTV (tripod, seated ear height, pointing towards your Center and angled up about 45-50-degrees**. (**Dolby Labs recommendation - not AVIA's)

If your Front speakers have good horizontal dispersion, don't toe them in since your additional seating is off to the side. ((Dolby Labs Fig. 21-3)

It's a compromise, but at least the basic 5.1 surround pattern SPL is recreated & equalized around your loveseat 'sweet spot'.

Although the side couch is not optimum, they will still hear some of the surround effects, ... like, ... as much side surround sound you would hear if you were seated on one of the side chairs in a Cinema Theater.

Hope this helps,
Phil

 

[Philip_G]

thanks Phil, that's sort of what I had been thinking.
the mains now are set about 10' wide and are fine, I don't know how the kit51's will sound yet. We'll give her a shot and see how it goes.

Not moving for another 1-2 months as you can see, so I've got some time to stew about it.

 

[Charlie Campisi]

Philip-

Wayne is one of the most generous forum members with his time and willingness to help people maximize their systems. I am a newbie at this and Wayne is often the first person to respond with very helpful information. His response was accurate, but blunt. I've come to appreciate blunt because I want to know what people think without sifting through a long post (like the one I am about to make). Take a deep breath and realize that Wayne basically agreed with you -- your room is not a HT dedicated room, but a living room that will be used for HT. Your initial post said nothing about not being able to move the seating and tv. That's fine. We all work within the limits of our budget, sig other's preferences and most importantly, space.

Your sound will not be perfect because of the way the seating is skewed to the side. Is it possible to flip-flop the sofa and loveseat? Or I suppose you can do most of your watching from the loveseat. The biggest problems are where to put the LR and sub. If you use the loveseat as your primary seating location, maybe you could try the LR on the entry way wall across from the sofa? Looks like a long distance from the couch, but with good calibration, it might be better than having it on the rear wall firing over your head. I am assuming you don't want it hanging from the ceiling in the entry way to the dining room. Are the surrounds large? Maybe stands would be the way to go that you could stow behind the loveseat when not in use?

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Neither was huge screen mentioned – that was crucial to any recommendations. But it’s not unusual for these things to come out after the fact.

Phillip, hopefully you’ve gotten enough information here to get you on the right track for your place. When it gets right down to it, your plan to experiment with the rears in different locations is the best thing you can do. It took some experimenting to get my rears right, too.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Philip_G]

to add insult to injury, that hole in the ceiling is an air return to the furnace, so when the heat/ac is on I'll get some nice noise

 

[DevinJC]

wow what a disaster. If you can't move anything, why would there be any question about where to put the rears? Left and right of the love seat is the only place that even begins to make sense.