7.1 Upgrade In Small Room?

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • gostan
    Senior Member
    • May 2003
    • 445

    7.1 Upgrade In Small Room?

    With the new Dolby PL-IIx available for upgrade on my Rotel-1098, I am trying to decide if it will be worthwhile for me to upgrade from a 5.1 to a 7.1 setup. My dilemna is that my room is quite small (13' x 11') and my rear speakers (B&W CDM 1's) are actually positioned at the left and right side(s) of my couch which is positioned on the rear wall of the room. I could place a pair of CDM-SNT's on the back wall behind the couch (almost immediately behind the listening area) or on the side wall above the rears. My setup is 60% HT and 40% music, including sacd-dvd-a.

    Help Please.
    Stan
    Stan
  • David Meek
    Moderator Emeritus
    • Aug 2000
    • 8938

    #2
    Hi Stan, another option to consider if you REALLY want 7.1 in your room is to mount the speakers high on the wall behind the couch and angle them down, or do like I did in Cinemeek I and mount them on the ceiling above the listening position - however, I was using di-pole surrounds which are much more difficult to localize than your B&Ws. There are potential drawbacks to these arrangements with direct-radiators. For helicopter fly-overs and other action movie scenarios, this is a "way cool" way to do it, but for other types of sonic pans (like music) it can be a bit disconcerting based on the mix on the disc.

    In a room that size (Cinemeek II is 13'-3" x 11'-3") I strongly advise you to focus on optimizing your 5.1 if you haven't already done so. That will lead to very nice soundstaging including "seamless" pans. If you are already satisfied there, then go on to the 7.1. I'd say not to stack the extra channels above the existing surrounds. That could lead to some really strange soundstaging.

    As always this is just my 2 cents. Good luck and keep us posted on what's going on, okay?




    David - HTGuide flunky
    Our "Theater"
    Our DVDs on DVD Tracker

    .

    David - Trigger-happy HTGuide Admin

    Comment

    • Lex
      Moderator Emeritus
      • Apr 2001
      • 27461

      #3
      My room is long. I have my side speakers about 4 feet off the back wall, and position the rears right behind the sofa. This works pretty well for me. I get a pretty good presentation on the rear soundstage I think. Ideally, I'd like to have the rears further behind. But I can't do that.

      Your situation is even tighter. Certainly not easy to make work. What David suggested is about all that could work I guess.

      Lex
      Doug
      "I'm out there Jerry, and I'm loving every minute of it!" - Kramer

      Comment

      • Andrew Pratt
        Moderator Emeritus
        • Aug 2000
        • 16507

        #4
        The biggest issue will be getting enough distance from the back wall...so to that end you might try something like in wall speakers as they'd be flush with the wall.




        Comment

        • Chris D
          Moderator Emeritus
          • Dec 2000
          • 16877

          #5
          Gostan, I think you would still benefit from at least a 6.1 setup in your small room. Maybe not 7.1, but you could always try it.

          I think Andrew has a great idea, to use in-wall speakers. You would have much less intrusion into your room space. But another benefit is that in-walls really give a clean, classy look to the room, instead of having clunky equipment in it that you have to try and blend in or hide. I chose to go with in-walls in my bedroom, to hide the A/V equipment and not detract from the room.




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

          Well, we're safe for now. Thank goodness we're in a bowling alley.
          - Pleasantville

          Comment

          • David Meek
            Moderator Emeritus
            • Aug 2000
            • 8938

            #6
            An in-wall may be a good solution, but one thought: be certain to "sound" them with respect to your other speakers. The nature of the in-walls causes them to sound differently than your "exterior" speakers. That could lead to a noticably large change in tonality, enough so that a pan across the back would change the sound enough to pull you out of the watching/listening experience.




            David - HTGuide flunky
            Our "Theater"
            Our DVDs on DVD Tracker

            .

            David - Trigger-happy HTGuide Admin

            Comment

            • Chris D
              Moderator Emeritus
              • Dec 2000
              • 16877

              #7
              True, true, David. Of course, the best solution if you're going to use SOME in-walls is to then use ALL in-walls. That's what I did in my bedroom, and using all in-walls will give you a very clean look, as well as a nicely matched sound.




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

              Well, we're safe for now. Thank goodness we're in a bowling alley.
              - Pleasantville

              Comment

              Working...
              😀
              😂
              🥰
              😘
              🤢
              😎
              😞
              😡
              👍
              👎
              Searching...Please wait.
              An unexpected error was returned: 'Your submission could not be processed because you have logged in since the previous page was loaded.

              Please push the back button and reload the previous window.'
              An unexpected error was returned: 'Your submission could not be processed because the token has expired.

              Please push the back button and reload the previous window.'
              An internal error has occurred and the module cannot be displayed.
              There are no results that meet this criteria.
              Search Result for "|||"