Surround Placement Priority (1 Viewer)

[Louisp]

I have the room from hell as far as speaker installation goes. Please help me out by providing the answer to the following.

Which is more important -

a. Ensure the left and right surround speakers are approximately the same distance from the listeners?

or

b. Ensure the left and right surround speakers are approximately the same distance from the front left and right speakers?

In my configuration I cannot accomplish both.

Harman Kardon specifies surround speakers should be at least two feet about the listeners position. Do you agree?

 

[Ilkka R]

A and agree. Someone else can explain why.

 

[Brian L]

Some feel that the holy grail for a rig that will do MC music and film is to have the listener equidistant for all main loudspeakers, so "B" if you can do it A (assuming I under stand what you mean by "B").

But since most of us live in the real world, where putting a chair or couch in the middle of a room, surrounded by 5, 6, or 7 speakers is not always possible, we make do with "A", and use the channel trims and distance compensation to compromise.

IMHO, of course.

In my rig, I am much closer to my surrounds than my fronts, but sit evenly between them, down the center axis aligned with my center channel.

BGL

 

[Rob.melone]

Generally speaking, "A" but you should experiment. Try listening to the same movie track with the surround speakers in different positions and angles. You can even try them on their backs, if possible. Because you have a difficult room, it is important that you setup your receiver properly with items such as speaker level and distance. Especially, if your surrounds are a different distance from your listening position. Some dvd's have a THX Optimizer so you can use this in conjunction with the setup feature on your receiver. Good luck!

 

[Frank PW]

I guess the type of surrounds is also something to consider.

F

 

[Chu Gai]

You may find this link to be of some value with regards to speaker placement and other matters.