Where to put speakers in room for 7.1

[mpauline]

Hi,

I am currently constructing a home theater which will be set up for 7.1 sound. This room will also have stadium seating. Just two rows of seats with the second row on a 12" riser. My question is where do I put the rear surrounds and the rear center speakers? Do I put the rear surrounds at the side and just slightly behind the first row of seats and then the rear centers behind the second row. I am confused :?

Mark

[Chris D]

Hiya, Mark. I think first you need to define what your PRIMARY listening location is. It's virtually impossible to make every seat in the house a "sweet spot", especially when you go with multiple rows. So, pick what seat you want to be perfect, and then design everything for that seat. Then make things as good as you can for the other seats.

So, most likely, you'll pick the center seat in the front row as being YOUR seat. Then place side surrounds slightly above and behind the first row, and the rear surrounds on the back wall behind the 2nd row of seats.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Azeke]

Mark,

Check out this URL, it should get you started.

http://dolby.com/Consumer/Technologies/PLIIx/

**Click on speaker positions (lower right).

BTW, congratulations Chris, nothing like a full plate huh .

Regards,

Azeke

[mpauline]

Thanks for your help so far. I was also wondering if the back surrounds should be at the same height as the side surrounds. I ask this because my rear row of seats are one foot higher than the front. I would like to have the back surrounds about one foot higher than the sides.

I realize that the side surrounds should be approximately 3 to 4 feet higher than the listener's ears. However if I wanted to put them at approximately 5 feet should I angle the speakers downward?

Thanks,

Mark

[Sonnie Parker]

Hey Mark... welcome to htguide!


I struggled with the same decisions as you are now when I was building my HT room. As Chris stated... it's hard to satisfy every seat in the room but I have compromised in regards to speaker positioning and what I like in my HT room.

I think it's important to consider your room dimensions in determining surround speaker placement.

What will your room dimensions be?

I tried 6.1 and it just plain didn't work. My room is 11.5' wide X 19.5' deep and 8' high with a riser of approx. 12". My main row of listening is at 11' from the front, hence 8' from the rear. My second row is about 3' from the rear wall. Even with the rear speaker at the top of the wall it is absolutely too much on the back row and with hardly any dialogue coming from the surround speakers it makes it hard for anyone sitting in the rear to understand dialogue very well in several movies we have watched. The same seems to occur with the side surrounds. While I originally had them placed slightly to the rear of the front row of seating they were a good bit in front of the rear seats which again caused problems for those in the rear seats. Think about it... if I sat in the rear I heard information from the side surrounds and rear speaker before I was hearing the front... it just doesn't sound right... especially when there's little dialogue coming from the surrounds. All the surround info was diluting the dialogue in several movies and hearing surround effects before hearing the front information is very confusing... at least to me it is.

So... how was I to compromise and still maintain a good surround effect in my main listening position?

To start with I disconnected my rear surround and immediately noticed I didn't need it. Because my room is so narrow the 2 side surrounds (PSB 10S's which are angled bipolars) filled the rear very well with surround effects without the need for a rear speaker that was hard to control for the rear seaters.

Secondly I temporarily moved my side surrounds to be almost to the side (just slightly forward) of the rear seating and moved them a tad higher up on the wall. When they were further forward the back angled side of the surround speaker directly faced the rear seater. Now it directly faces the rear wall and not so much the rear seating area. Plus raising it helped with the direct effect it was having on the rear seating. This obviously caused the sides to be a little further back from the front row but it didn't cause any problems with the surround effect.

My problem was with my room being so small I really didn't need as much surround as I initially thought I did. If my room was 24'+ deep and 16'+ wide or so I might could justify 6.1 or even 7.1. Plus having the bipolars with 2 sides and 1 rear was like having 6 speakers back there in such a small area.

In a nut shell I improved the rear listening tremendously without hurting the front listening.

Now I have to move them permanently which fortunately attic access will accommodate easily.

I don't think you'll have a problem with your surrounds, even if mounted up high, producing the surround effect without having to tilt them down. They are effect speakers after all.



Here's an older pic... (new ones are on the way soon) we have 6 of the beige recliners now and no black ones and the recliners are out from the rear wall a little more than it appears the black ones are in this pic:



The sides are actually moved further than it appears in the picture. When the sides were in the old location and I was in the center rear seat I could look up at the sides and imagine a perfect perpindicular line to the speaker face. Now from the center rear the side speaker is perpindicular to the rear wall and more of an angle to the rear center seating position. It may not look like it would make that much difference but believe me... it does.

The rear speaker is up but there is no connection to it and it will be removed eventually.

It was surprising that I didn't have to compensate the sound levels after moving the sides back. I suppose this could be as a result of the front half of the sides being more perpindicular to the front row seating now.

Of course if you don't care what the rear seated listeners hear none of this will make a rat's rump. :LOL:






SONNIE

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