How should I set up 7.1 in my 11' x 11.5' room?

[Blatz]

I am moving everything from a very large rectangular shaped room with high vaulted ceilings into on of my extra bedrooms which measures 11 feet by 11.5 feet. How should I set up 7.1 with the following equipment:

RF 62s

RC 62

RS 52s

RS 41s

Three subs: velodyne 8" and 10", and Mirage 12" (not do concerned with the subs as I will play around with different locations.)

As for TV, I have a Samsung 52" LN52750A or a 42" Panasonic Plasma.

My biggest needs are help with speaker location and height, and how high to place the TV.

Thank you for any help. I have measured everything in the room if you need.

[SuBXeRo]

i think your size room is a very comfortable and cozy size (about the same size as my bedroom). I also think you have chosen speakers appropriate to the size of your room and I rarely ever say that. I speak from experience after having my wf-35's in my bedroom. Your system is beefier and will perform great! As far as placement goes....Well, trial and error will help you with placement.

Here are a few questions for you:

1. What furniture will you have in the room? (this is used to determine speaker placement options)
2. Will you have an entertainment center/console/equipmnent rack (can be helped to determine placement options for your center)
3. Are you wall mounting the television? (height can vary on your personal comfort as well as layout of furniture)
4. What model receiver or processor/powrr amp do you have? (we can determine if front-high speaker placement is an option)
5. Having multiple subwoofers can be tricky and the fact that you have 3 subs all of which are different models/sizes/brands complicates things much more. It isnt impossible to get things to sound good but it can be a very daunting task. First things first, get your main speakers place first, then move to your subwoofers and at that, you will be doing a lot of trial and error.
   
   Here is an example of a 7.1 setup (The placement of the subwoofer is just a suggestion as you know, placement will vary. Also note that toe-in of the speakers here doesn't have to be as dramatic, you should test different toe-in angles for the best sound)
   
   

[Blatz]

Thank you for the diagram, as for my side and rear surrounds, they are both WSDT type speakers.

I plan on having a two or three seat movie chair loacated about in the middle of the room. I have a closet in this room and will set up all equipment there. I have an IR repeater kit for this.

Integra 6.9 reciever with 120w per channel.

I plan on using a sub or two in the living room, so I will pry only use one in this room.

The TV will be wall mounted and all cables ran through wall into attic and down into closet.

Should I mount side and sur speakers at the height on the TV?

Only items on front wall will be TV, Center, and Front R/L speakers.

[CECAA850]

Side and surrounds are normally mounted about 2 feet above the ear of the listener in the seated position. You may have to adapt to your particular room at times.

[garyrc]

The speaker placement diagram an earlier poster sent you is good.



Unfortunately, your room is nearly square. Length and width that are
almost the same cause negative acoustical effects. Each dimention
reinforces the same set of frequencies. This is mainly a problem below
about 350 Hz. Hopefully, the ceiling is not around 11 feet high, or you
would have a cube. Is the house a Victorian?



Audyssey room compensation might help. It is available in
many modern AV receivers and AV preamp/processors. Instead of just
working on the frequency domain, it addresses the time domain as well.
If you end up using Audyssey, go to "Ask Audyssey" online and read as
much as you can.



My guess is that any way you can make the room less square (or cubic, if
it is) would be a good thing, even if you need to make it a LITTLE smaller.
What are good room proportions? There are several room mode
calculators online. You pump in the length, width, and height, and they
give you the modes. You don't want the modes clumping together
excessively, the way they do in a nearly square or cubic room. There is
also a very old graph called Bolt's Contour allows you to see the
effects of L,W, and H in a different way. Paul Klipsch included it in
the '60s or '70s in The Dope from Hope, which is available somewhere on
this forum. It is my understanding that you don't need a perfectly
proportioned room, just one that is not nearly square, and not one that
has any one dimension near 2 times or one half of any other. Klipsch
made a point in his DFH paper of listing a few rooms that did not fit in
Bolt's Contour that still sounded quite good.



Here are some options:

• Try
  the room for a period of days, and see how it sounds. With good
  equipment like yours, almost any room might sound good at first, then
  not so good as you get past the initial pleasure of a good 7.1 system.
  If you don't like it, talk to someone on this or other forums who knows a
  lot more than I do about bass traps &/or find a dealer who
  is not focused on selling you whatever s/he has, but can help you in an
  analytical and evidence based manner. From what I know, flat looking
  absorbers and diffusers won't help you with room modes (very low
  midrange and bass), but you may want a few of these to prevent
  the midrange and treble from bouncing straight back at you very soon,
  due to the room's size. I once had a room with good proportions, but it
  was only 11.33 feet deep. The midrange and treble slap back were tamed
  by covering the wall behind the listeners with 4" Sonex (foam anechoic
  wedges) about 6 x 9 feet in size, and using the natural diffusion of
  bookshelves, art objects, and books in the rest of the room.
  
  

• Switch
  that room with one that is less square -- perhaps a less square spare
  room, or even the family room or living room if you have both.

• This may sound extreme, but knock out a wall and create a more sound friendly shape.

[Blatz]

Side and surrounds are normally mounted about 2 feet above the ear of the listener in the seated position. You may have to adapt to your particular room at times.

This is my main concern as I have been shopping for a reclining love seat so I could get an exact idea on how high to mount my TV and center speaker.

I have read a couple a places that say to mount the side surrounds 18" to 24" down from the ceiling. The ceiling in this room is a standard 8'.

Do I moun the side and rear surrounds the same height?

Thanks.

[garyrc]

I have read a couple a places that say to mount the side surrounds 18" to 24" down from the ceiling. The ceiling in this room is a standard 8'.

Do I moun the side and rear surrounds the same height?

• Since ceilings are different heights, I wouldn't think measuring a certain distance down from the ceiling would be good advice, except to keep the surrounds at least 24 " below the ceiling. Putting them too close to the ceiling keeps them from sounding airy and free floating enough, in my limited experience. With your 8 foot ceiling, 6 feet might not be as good as 5 feet (tweeter/midrange), IMO. See below.
• Where do the filmmakers expect the surrounds to be when they are placing the effects? This is a difficult question. In a theater with stadium seating, they start on the side wall not too far from the screen and are either hung 1) in a straight line from there to the back of the theater, or 2) in a gradually rising line toward the back (roughly parallel to the rising floor) Since all surrounds on a side (e.g., left) usually get the same signal the signal would be expected to seem to come from the midpoint of their height, BUT the SPL of the speakers closer to you will seem greater, so, if you are sitting toward the front (with most of the film buffs) that changes the slope of the line a bit. In a theater, maybe the relative height of the surround nearest you (for that channel) counts the most. Many theaters have surrounds across the back that could sound a little high, or rather high, depending on the theater.

All of this makes me think that about a 5 foot height (off of the floor) might be best. A pretty tall person sitting on a couch might have their ears 4 feet off the ground (a love seat might be a little higher), so the speaker would seem to be slightly above the ear, but not so much higher that the sound of a railroad train passing off of the screen toward the rear of the home theater would seem to curve up toward the sky behind you (does Super 8 have a shot like that?) When Patton played in San Francisco, it went to a 70 mm theater with the then standard 70 mm 6 channels with only one of them surround, but the surround speakers went very high across the back wall, and some were in the ceiling. Since the movie was intended to be shown in D-150 (a superb, but atypical 70 mm process) there were 8 soundtracks rather than 6, and the theater was loaned a 8 head pick up to handle it (I don't know if this was a "double system" set-up with the sound on a separate, synced, full coat film -- I've lost contact with the "D-150 guy" they sent up). Someone temporarily assigned the extra two channels to the high rear and the ceiling. The local papers had a good time reporting that a tank passed overhead, then climbed the back wall. I think they terminated those channels after the first couple of days.

Don't put a surround exactly one half way up, or three quarters of the way up.

If your center is high, point it down toward the listeners (if possible), and if it's low, point it up.

[Blatz]

Thank you to all who helped. Tomorrow is the big day. I will update with pics after I get it all set up.