Speaker placement - advice needed! (1 Viewer)

[Richard_E]

I am thinking about finally getting rid of the bose cubes and upgrading to JBL S36II or S38II fronts, plus the S-Center of course.

Please look at pictures of my home theater using the link in my signature and give me some advice:

Should I

(a) use multi-directional mounting brackets and mount the speakers directly in place of the front cubes?

- or -

(b) replace the wood panel in the top-left and top-right cabinet doors with cloth (like where the center speaker is behind the center door now) and put the bookshelf speakers in the cabinet.

I am wanting to stay away from putting the bookshelves on stands or using free standing speakers because I'm running out of room on that wall, and I don't want the toddler to have something to knock over.

Please tell me (a) or (b) and why you recommend that choice!

thanks,

Richard

 

[Neil Joseph]

How high is the ceiling and how big and heavy are the bookshelf speakers? From the looks of it (based on the information I have from the photos) it looks like you may have an easier time choosing option (b) unless you can find a bracket solution to hang the bookshelves off the ceiling, considering you don't want stands.

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

I would use option B because the JBLs might not sound good mounted that high above the screen. They arn't bose so their sound comes from the speaker itself.

Ideally you'd want the mains to be mounted directly to the left and right of the screen with the center channel not further than 2 feet above the mains. This may be hard unless you're willing to put them on stands. Option B seems like your best bet as the speakers give a tighter sound stage than A and definitly not as far away from the screen.

With "A", I fear that even if the speakers are pointing towards the listeners ears, the sound will be as if its coming from above.

Perhaps remove those panels and use that black cloth around the opening. I'd get the S38s over the S36 btw.

 

[Richard_E]

Thanks guys. I was kind of thinking B would be the better choice too, not to mention a bit easier.

Here's a followup question - The TV in the picture is a 57" Sony, so from that you can see that the cabinet areas that would house the bookshelf speakers would be much higher than the listeners ears. Do you think that poses a problem if they are just aimed straight out? Or do you think I should rig some sort of mini-stand to have them angled slightly downwards?

FWIW, I haven't noticed the center speaker sounding too "high" and it is currently in the same height these speakers would be. The voices sound like they are coming through the TV.

Thanks again.

 

[Neil Joseph]

I would aim all 3 front speakers downward slightly toward the l.p. level, yes. You should notice some improvement. You will need some kind of "insulator" like rubber feet to isolate the speaker box and the wall unit as well.