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Which room for home theater?


Kain

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I have pretty much decided that I'll be using room 2 when I completely re-do the home theater. Since I don't have side walls to place the left/right surround speakers, will placing them on the back wall and pointing them slightly towards the listening position work well? The couch will be around 3 feet from the back wall.

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This would be ok, you would get better response from corner loading. But understanding if you can't, I would maybe put the center on a shelf. Like others are saying, I would pull the couch out a foot or two. I would go with room 2.

Duder, this may be just my ears but i always found corner loading to produce more boomy base. It may be just the acoustics in my room but i found that i get less accurate and not as dynamic sound. Moving the sub away from the corner(s) produced a much better result. However, i would agree doing so takes away from the response and being able to fill the room with sound. I was able to fix that issue though with a 2nd sub [:D] [6]

I kind of like Kain's idea putting the sub in the middle with the center on top. That'd be pretty cool and probably produce a more "even" base throughout the room. Althought not sure how well that would work in terms being able to fill the room. My suggestion would be to try it out but also try other possibilies as you [Kain] may just find a much more sutable position.

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I have pretty much decided that I'll be using room 2 when I completely re-do the home theater. Since I don't have side walls to place the left/right surround speakers, will placing them on the back wall and pointing them slightly towards the listening position work well? The couch will be around 3 feet from the back wall.

Kain, i see from your sig that you're using dipole surrounds not bookshelves. Because of the way those speakers are designed to work, you should be able to hang them behind the listening position straight on the wall without tilting and you'd still get the same quality sound. Don't forget, those surrounds [in particular] are not meant to be directional, really, they're supposed to provide you with the more ambient effects [talking home theater/movies perspective]. Especially since u'll have ur couch out from the wall some distance, u should be good to go.

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Duder, this may be just my ears but i always found corner loading to produce more boomy base.

Me too. I believe I read somewhere that they suggest putting dual subs 1/3 from each wall (which is where I currently have mine. Each sub is on the inside of the main speakers.

I kind of like Kain's idea putting the sub in the middle with the center on top. That'd be pretty cool and probably produce a more "even" base throughout the room.

I'm not sure subs work that way. Subs are omnidirectional so they do not travel in straight line (for the most part) like direct reflecting speakers do. Depending on acoustics of your room, the center may be the very worst place to put the sub. Doing so you might find that there is a bass null in your primary listening position (which would not be good).

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Duder, this may be just my ears but i always found corner loading to produce more boomy base.

Me too. I believe I read somewhere that they suggest putting dual subs 1/3 from each wall (which is where I currently have mine. Each sub is on the inside of the main speakers.

I kind of like Kain's idea putting the sub in the middle with the center on top. That'd be pretty cool and probably produce a more "even" base throughout the room.

I'm not sure subs work that way. Subs are omnidirectional so they do not travel in straight line (for the most part) like direct reflecting speakers do. Depending on acoustics of your room, the center may be the very worst place to put the sub. Doing so you might find that there is a bass null in your primary listening position (which would not be good).

Have a look at the Harman subwoofer whitepaper. Go to page 28.

http://www.harman.com/EN-US/OurCompany/Innovation/Documents/White%20Papers/multsubs.pdf

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I have pretty much decided that I'll be using room 2 when I completely re-do the home theater. Since I don't have side walls to place the left/right surround speakers, will placing them on the back wall and pointing them slightly towards the listening position work well? The couch will be around 3 feet from the back wall.

Kain, i see from your sig that you're using dipole surrounds not bookshelves. Because of the way those speakers are designed to work, you should be able to hang them behind the listening position straight on the wall without tilting and you'd still get the same quality sound. Don't forget, those surrounds [in particular] are not meant to be directional, really, they're supposed to provide you with the more ambient effects [talking home theater/movies perspective]. Especially since u'll have ur couch out from the wall some distance, u should be good to go.

Thanks. But I'll be completely re-doing my home theater in a year or two and will use room 2 for it. I'll be replacing everything in my current home theater and most likely will be using monopole speakers all around. So, with monopole speakers, will it be okay to place them on the back wall when they are setup to be side surrounds? If so, how should I angle/toe them?

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Have a look at the Harman subwoofer whitepaper. Go to page 28.

http://www.harman.com/EN-US/OurCompany/Innovation/Documents/White%20Papers/multsubs.pdf

Have a look at this Audioholics Article. 1/4 placement is also a viable option.

Figure 1c. 1/4 W Placement

Although this isn't spelled out in the CEA recommendation, Dr. Toole references it in his book as a good solution for two subwoofers but suggests additional subwoofers may be needed. In my experience I've had excellent results placing two subs against the front wall at locations of 1/4 the room width. I've had even better results placing two additional subs in a similar manner against the back wall. This configuration can achieve nearly as good frequency response performance as the 4 Corner placement with nearly as much bass gain as well.

image_preview

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I have pretty much decided that I'll be using room 2 when I completely re-do the home theater. Since I don't have side walls to place the left/right surround speakers, will placing them on the back wall and pointing them slightly towards the listening position work well? The couch will be around 3 feet from the back wall.

Kain, i see from your sig that you're using dipole surrounds not bookshelves. Because of the way those speakers are designed to work, you should be able to hang them behind the listening position straight on the wall without tilting and you'd still get the same quality sound. Don't forget, those surrounds [in particular] are not meant to be directional, really, they're supposed to provide you with the more ambient effects [talking home theater/movies perspective]. Especially since u'll have ur couch out from the wall some distance, u should be good to go.

Thanks. But I'll be completely re-doing my home theater in a year or two and will use room 2 for it. I'll be replacing everything in my current home theater and most likely will be using monopole speakers all around. So, with monopole speakers, will it be okay to place them on the back wall when they are setup to be side surrounds? If so, how should I angle/toe them?

Bump!

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Just out of curiosity, what were u pondering for ur rears? In any case, since you'll be ridding of ur RS's and going with bookshelves (i'm assuming), y not instead of mounting them on the wall, you place on them stands behind your couch? In that kind of scenario, i believe they should be 110-130 (can't remember exact) degrees off axis of the sweet spot to either side (directed at the sweet spot). Doing it this way, will pretty much remove the guess work of mounting them correctly on the wall. Not sure though if you have this option?

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I most likely will be leaving the Klipsch realm for my new speakers. [:$]

The speakers that I am considering for the surrounds are the Seaton Sound Catalyst 8C. Here are some dimensions and weight specs:

28" H x 11" W x 11.75" D

Weight: 66 lbs

They are not "officially" wall mountable. I was thinking of building a shelf and placing them on the back wall (which will be about 3 feet away from the seating position) and experimenting with toeing and height.

I might feel a little uneasy using stands for them as someone might knock them over.

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So, placing monopole speakers on the back wall, about 3 feet away from the seating position, and slightly toed-in will work well? I researched surround speaker placement a bit on the Internet and Dolby actually recommends that the surround speakers be placed just behind the listening position and toed-in for 5.1.

Note I am talking about 5.1 placement. For 7.1 placement, Dolby recommends that the surrounds be placed exactly on the sides of the listening position and the back surrounds behind the listening position.

http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/setup/connection-guide/home-theater-speaker-guide/index.html

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True, but I would still like to get some feedback from you guys because different people are saying different things. Dolby recommends what I posted above but THX recommends that even in 5.1, the surrounds be placed exactly on the sides of the listening position.

5-1-speaker-setup-400x300.jpg

http://www.thx.com/consumer/home-entertainment/home-theater/surround-sound-speaker-set-up/

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