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Placement of large surround speakers


vasubandu

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I am getting a set of speakers that has KLF-30 fronts, the C-7 center and KLF-20 surrounds.  I read an earlier post where @Alpha Lima asked about surrounds for a CF-4 system, and almost everyone said KSP-S6.  Someone said he could use the RS-7, which I have, but that it would not be as good. The guy selling me the speakers has used the KLF-20 for the surrounds.  I can see why that might be interesting, but I have no idea where they would go.

 

My room layout has the couch against the left wall.  Right now the RS-7 are mounted about a foot from the ceiling directly above the back of the couch.  The other is the same height on the wall direclty   opposite it.  It may not be ideal, but it seems to work.

 

If I instead had surrounds that were 12x17x42 and weighed 92 pounds, where would they go?  If I stick them behind the couch, they would be blocked. I could build stands and raise them 36 inches, but that seems weird.  And then they would be behind the ends of the couch, not to the sides.  So is this just impractical, and I should go hunt for the KSP-S6, or stick with the RS-7.  Or can the speakrs just go through the couch?

 

 

 

Alternative Layout.png

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I'm using La Scalas as surround speakers.  They're about 24"x24"x34.5" tall and weigh 125 pounds each.  The sofa would block them, so they're on 13.5" tall stands.  The stands are folding step stools, four per speaker, rated at 300 pounds each, so the speakers sit very solidly.  The stands are not stylish, but they're mostly out of sight.  The tweeters and squawkers are above ear level and above the sofa and neighbouring armchair, but the bass horns are firing at the sofa.  I reason that bass tones are not greatly affected by upholstered furniture, so that's okay.

 

So that's the answer to one of your questions:  the output from the tweeters and squawkers (or midrange drivers, as some call them) would be soaked up by the sofa, but the sound from the woofers would be much less affected.  Therefore, the speakers do need to be raised.  As well, many surround sound recordings are mixed with the expectation that the rear speakers will be higher than the front ones, so it works out.

 

The room I'm in is 18 feet by 19 feet, so it's a bit big, but not huge.  The size and proportions of your room are likely better for great sound.  The La Scalas (formerly 510 JubScalas) were my front speakers, but when I lucked out and bought a pair of La Scala IIs from another forum member and converted them to 402 JubScala IIs, I wasn't sure what to do with the old speakers, because it sounded like it would be a pretty decadent setup, but I had them, so I might as well use them.  The previous surround speakers were Heresy IIs.  They sounded fine, but the La Scalas sound great!  More to the point, the ideal surround system has matching speakers all around.  That way, when a sound moves around the room, the timbre does not change, so the sound is more realistic.  One of the members has a 7-Scala room, and I believe there's at least one person with a 5-Jubilee system.

 

If you go for KLF-30s for fronts, it would be ideal to have KLF-30s for surround.  You could have 2, 3, or 4 of them, depending on whether you're going for 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1.  You'd want to make stands for the side and rear speakers, but they don't need to be 36 inches tall.  I8-24 inches might be plenty.  My system is 6.1, with a Heresy III for rear centre.  The front centre is a Belle Klipsch, which integrates well with the other speakers, plus it makes a great TV stand.

 

Looking at your room, is it possible to put the TV between the two windows at the top of the diagram?  Klipsch speakers often work best when they're set up on the long walls of the room, rather than the short walls.  The usual starting point for speaker positioning is to have the front left and right speakers as far apart as you are sitting from them.  This means you and the speakers form an equilateral triangle.  If they're 10 feet apart, you'd sit 10 feet from them.  That's not set in stone, of course, but an approximation of that arrangement usually gives the best sound stage effect.  My fronts are about 11.5 feet apart, and I sit about 11.5 feet from each one.

 

For strictly TV and movie listening, the speakers can be relatively close to the TV.  That way, the sound part of the action remains close to the screen, which is more involving for viewers.  When the speakers are further apart, it's better for music listening, giving a bigger sound stage, but when characters or vehicles move off the screen, they move distractingly far sometimes.  Either way is a compromise, unless you have a really wide projector setup, and both spacings coincide.

 

Systems do evolve.  Mine's been evolving for 13 years, and it was nearly 2 years before I found the La Scalas and dived down the Klipsch rabbit hole.  That was in 2006, then a year later came a pair of Heresy IIs, the next year another pair, and the next year the La Scalas became JubScalas, and so on and so on.  You can go from plateau to plateau, until you've found your ideal sound, or you've committed as much money as you're willing to.  The cheapest and most satisfying way to do it is in a few big jumps, instead of lots of small jumps.  Small steps wind up costing more and take you longer to reach your ideal system.  Instead of getting "good enough for now", keep saving until you're ready to get what you really want.  I have a savings account strictly for audio bargains, so I can jump when I see one.  Patience and ready cash are how you get an amazing system for an amazing price.

 

Okay, enough advice for one post.  Hope this is helpful.

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 My hometheater consists of klf20 front , kv3 center, kg.5 sides , .klf10 rears. I have the klf10's in the rear corners . They are tall enough to go over the couch so the tweeters are at ear level.

I have a very big room ,its 16x28.

Not to toot my on horn but to me and who ever hears it loves it.

With klf30 and klf20 yours will sound awesome

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When I had RF-3s as surrounds I had them parallel to the couch and used cheap foot stools to raise the horns slightly above ear level and the same height as the RF-7s fronts. I then used granite floor tiles to cover the legs of the stool and thought it looked quite classy. {Note: This is when I had an AVR that had both A and B surrounds. The speaker on top is the RS-7.

 

 

surleft2.jpg

 

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I dont raise my rears (cornwall) at all because the squawker and tweeter are already at ear level and the LF section is more omni-directional so the couch effects less than it would a horn. Rears are much less content critical than fronts and especially the center.

 

If I had heresy's I probably would raise them on a stand though.

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I'm using 14 inch planters from Home Depot for my RP-440WF front and side speakers. And 15 inch cube particle board boxes behind the couch for the rears that are unseen. The bottom of the woofer start at 15 inches above the floor so combined with the boxes the bottom of the woofer clears the 30 inch high couch back with the horns about 1.5 feet above my head. Here's a picture of the planter I'm using: laura-ashley-planters-vhx215-64_1000.jpg

 

Here's a picture of the planter I have on order: 

wood-mpg-planters-pc7819-64_1000.jpg

 

 

 

Edited by dethbysexy
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I'm using KLF-20s at the front, and a pair of KG 5.5 for side surrounds on either end of the couch.  I tried them on the floor, but the arms of the couch noticeably blocked the output from the twin woofers.  I did like many members have mentioned so far, and raised them up.  My stands are simple 2x4s screwed together solidly and made to be 12" high.  This improved the sound a good deal by getting rid of some of the blockage.

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2 hours ago, blue72 said:

This improved the sound a good deal by getting rid of some of the blockage.

The other things I noticed when I ran the RF-3 towers was that it given we sat pretty close to them as side surrounds it helped with bringing out the lower mid-range by taking the floor our of the equation. Of course when used as mains and sitting farther away you may not want that.

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