Surround speakers when your couch is right against the back wall

[Jim85IROC]

My living room is pretty shallow (but quite wide), and our couch is right up against the back wall. To make it worse, that back wall is actually our staircase, so one end of the couch has that wall all the way to the ceiling, and the other end of the couch is at the base of the staircase, so it's wide open behind. I've been here 15 years and never wound up installing my surround speakers, but now that needs to change.

Every setup I've had in the past had my couch against the back wall too, and I mounted my speakers on the wall, facing down toward the couch. This gave the surround channels a "headphone" effect and I never liked it anywhere except right in the sweet spot between them, so this time I want a more diffused sound, but I'm not sure what the best way is to get that. I have a couple ideas that I wanted to bounce off the experts:

1. Speakers mounted just below the ceiling facing straight up
2. Same thing, but the speakers angled slightly toward each other, directing the ceiling reflection more toward the seated area
3. Speakers mounted directly to the ceiling, facing straight down
4. Speakers mounted directly to the ceiling, but angled more toward the listening position
5. Something else entirely?

Most of the commercial designs I see utilize multiple baffles with multiple woofers to diffuse the sound, but those seem like they're still designed to be mounted behind or further away from listeners. If I were to install this style of speaker, I'd still have 1 driver shouting directly at me, or broadcasting out over my head, so it doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

When I get home I'll take a picture of my seated position to make my description more clear. Either way, the plan would be to design & build a set of surrounds that can compliment my mains as well as possible, but also provide a diffused sound. I just don't know what approach to take, so hopefully some folks here can help.

[Bear]

My living room is pretty shallow (but quite wide), and our couch is right up against the back wall. To make it worse, that back wall is actually our staircase, so one end of the couch has that wall all the way to the ceiling, and the other end of the couch is at the base of the staircase, so it's wide open behind. I've been here 15 years and never wound up installing my surround speakers, but now that needs to change.

Every setup I've had in the past had my couch against the back wall too, and I mounted my speakers on the wall, facing down toward the couch. This gave the surround channels a "headphone" effect and I never liked it anywhere except right in the sweet spot between them, so this time I want a more diffused sound, but I'm not sure what the best way is to get that. I have a couple ideas that I wanted to bounce off the experts:

1. Speakers mounted just below the ceiling facing straight up
2. Same thing, but the speakers angled slightly toward each other, directing the ceiling reflection more toward the seated area
3. Speakers mounted directly to the ceiling, facing straight down
4. Speakers mounted directly to the ceiling, but angled more toward the listening position
5. Something else entirely?

Most of the commercial designs I see utilize multiple baffles with multiple woofers to diffuse the sound, but those seem like they're still designed to be mounted behind or further away from listeners. If I were to install this style of speaker, I'd still have 1 driver shouting directly at me, or broadcasting out over my head, so it doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

When I get home I'll take a picture of my seated position to make my description more clear. Either way, the plan would be to design & build a set of surrounds that can compliment my mains as well as possible, but also provide a diffused sound. I just don't know what approach to take, so hopefully some folks here can help.

For a 5.1 system, try pulling the speakers further away from your couch to reduce the headphone effect.

https://www.dolby.com/about/support/guide/speaker-setup-guides/5.1-virtual-speakers-setup-guide/

When you look at a 7.1, the surrounds can move closer to perpendicular to the seating position.

https://www.dolby.com/about/support/guide/speaker-setup-guides/7.1-virtual-speakers-setup-guide/

What you describe as surrounds seem like the old dipole surround concept. Most surround mixes are designed for direct radiating (monopole) speakers. However, what works in your actual environment is what matters.

https://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/surround-speaker-dipole-vs-bipole

Something to consider to add depth to the rear soundfield would be to add ceiling mounted speakers (in-ceiling having the highest WAF) in addition to your surrounds. Whether you use them as rear surrounds or Atmos speakers is then a matter of perception and preference.

[Jim85IROC]

For a 5.1 system, try pulling the speakers further away from your couch to reduce the headphone effect.

https://www.dolby.com/about/support/guide/speaker-setup-guides/5.1-virtual-speakers-setup-guide/

When you look at a 7.1, the surrounds can move closer to perpendicular to the seating position.

https://www.dolby.com/about/support/guide/speaker-setup-guides/7.1-virtual-speakers-setup-guide/

What you describe as surrounds seem like the old dipole surround concept. Most surround mixes are designed for direct radiating (monopole) speakers. However, what works in your actual environment is what matters.

https://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/surround-speaker-dipole-vs-bipole

Something to consider to add depth to the rear soundfield would be to add ceiling mounted speakers (in-ceiling having the highest WAF) in addition to your surrounds. Whether you use them as rear surrounds or Atmos speakers is then a matter of perception and preference.

thanks for the information. Moving the surrounds further out may be difficult because I have a bump-out on one side right at the end of the couch, so I'd have to move them forward a bit in order to widen the distance. I've done some searching and I can't find anything that deals specifically with situations that have the seating position against the back wall, which honestly, is how the vast majority of the living rooms I've been in are set up, yet everything I find pertaining to setups always show placement behind the listener.

My setup is ultimately going to look like the 7.1 example that you linked to, except without the rear speakers. I guess I'll just have to experiment with this, but then that brings up the question of how? I don't think my wife and kids are going to want to stand on the arms of the couch holding surround speakers near the ceiling while I sit there and listen to an Eagles concert. :rofl:

[Bear]

They will if you're enough of a Desperado. Or they will send you packing down the Seven Bridges Road to go check-in the the Hotel California. You definitely won't say that Life's Been Good so far, at that point.

With fewer lyrics: there are plenty of options to anchor speakers to walls/ceilings, plus their are lots of in-wall options - including DIY (Zaph made an in-wall version of his ZA15-series of kits over at Madisound).

[Jim85IROC]

They will if you're enough of a Desperado. Or they will send you packing down the Seven Bridges Road to go check-in the the Hotel California. You definitely won't say that Life's Been Good so far, at that point.

With fewer lyrics: there are plenty of options to anchor speakers to walls/ceilings, plus their are lots of in-wall options - including DIY (Zaph made an in-wall version of his ZA15-series of kits over at Madisound).

There are definitely ways to anchor the speakers, my issue is that I don't want to put 75 holes into my ceiling nor my speakers while I experiment. Because of my couch being backed up against my stairs, I don't have a wall to mount to on one side, so no matter what I do, it's got to mount either to the ceiling, or maybe to the wall on one side and my floor-to-ceiling banister on the other side. Should be fun.