Sould rear speakers be pointed to the front or at the listener ? (1 Viewer)

[anthony_b]

I'm curious as to what is the optimum position to place surround speakers....Do you have them pointed directly at you or behind you facing to the front of the room ?

 

[Scott-C]

Hi Anthony,
I'm not sure there is an "optimum" position that fits for everyone. To a certain extent you have to experiment with placement to determine where it sounds best. And, the type of surround speaker may in part dictate some rules of placement. For example, I have DefTech bi-polar surround speakers that fire to the front and rear of the room that are placed to the sides of the listening position, and just slightly behind. If I were using direct radiating surrounds, I would probably place them differently.
You could do a search of this forum and I think you'll find other great placement ideas.
Good luck!

 

[Phil Iturralde]

I placed my surrounds (identical speakers to my Front R&L) on the side walls, about 3' back of my 'sweet spot' (had the room), and up, off the ground about 3' above my listening level (http://www.geocities.com/p_iturra/HTRoom.html
See Dolby website (link above) for Alternative surround speaker placement alternatives.
Phil

 

[Ron Eastman]

I have my speakers placed just about exactly as the Dolby room diagram that Phil posted.

As someone who has experimented with just about all manners of surround placement (ear level at the sides facing the listening position, just off the rear wall facing the front soundstage, behind and toe'd in, etc.) my personal experience says that this placement is best. Your room may be different so try as many different placement types as you can. Your experience may vary from others.

 

[anthony_b]

I've tried almost every position myself except for hanging them on the wall.....If I were to put them on the walls, how high above my head would be the ideal height ?

 

[Andy_B]

Question,

My sound setup is exactly as the picture Phil showed.

My surrounds have a switch to be bi or di pole.

Which one should I choose for the type of setup shown in the picture above?

Andy

 

[Neil Joseph]

This is certainly a subjective topic. I have tried many surround speaker types (directs, dipoles etc) (right now I have dipoles on the sidewalls) but for directs, I always liked to have them behind me (a few feet back at least) and facing straight forward much like the main speakers are set up. For me, it was a distraction looking at an object moving from the front of the room to the back of the room but hearing that object pan from the front of the room to the sides.

 

[Phil Iturralde]

...on the walls, how high above my head would be the ideal height ?

Following the above 'linked' guide from Dolby Labs 3.2 Preferred surround speaker placement . . .

Figure 9: Install the surrounds two to three feet above listeners
It basically follows the same layout in Dolby's Typical 5.1-CH Room Layout Studio.**
**NOTE: Because my website is 'free', hosted by GeoCities, if too many HT enthusiasts visit, GeoCities will shut it down for an hour or so because it exceeded the specified 'freebie' Data Transfer Rate. Sorry about that, just bookmark it and visit my site an hour later or when everyone has gone to bed!
Phil

 

[James Zos]

The problem with Dolby's advice is that it seems more designed for the old mono Dolby surround channels. They have you mount the speakers above your head do it will be difficult to pinpoint where the sound is coming from. But many movies these days have discrete sounds that are supposed to come from specific points in space. If you see a car drive off screen toward you and suddenly that car sounds like it is above your head, to me that is a little odd.

 

[Roger Kint]

.

But many movies these days have discrete sounds that are supposed to come from specific points in space.

Which point in space? What if there is no speaker there?

I think the idea re: surrounds is that you are not supposed to be able to pinpoint them. While it's true that sound mixing quality has increased, I believe that the sound still is mixed to surround you and not to be localized from a specific point in space. This is because every theather has many surround speakers on the side playing one signal. If a sound effect emanates from a specific point in space then the experience for the people in front will be different from the people in back of the theater. The sound mixer cannot send a sound effect coming out of just a single surround speaker (that would mean a 23.1 format or something crazy like that!!)

Also, in movie theaters the surround speakers are mounted up high, not right at ear level, so the car speeeding past you will sound like it comes from all around the side (using dipoles). You're right in that the car shouldn't sound like it is speeding over you, that's why for HT we have the speakers mounted high and away from your ears or even more effective, use dipoles to difuse the sound.

In theaters, the surround speakers are mounted high enough and far away enough to difuse the sound and the biggest factor is probably that there are many of them. So for HT, IMO, I would recommend following the movie theater implemetation and that is to mount the surrounds as far up and away as practical. And since it's not pratical to have 10 surround speakers, we can do just as well with using bipoles or dipoles.

Of course there will be some which prefer the sound of monopole surrounds pointing right at your ears at ear level, either out of convenience, a J6P, or geniune preference.