...and another one new to HT with kweschunz

[Erik Mandaville]

Hey!

I would really appreciate some thoughts on some questions I have regarding an increasingly more home theater-like system. I have posted many times in two channel about my increasing interest in surround sound, all of which started with a weekend experiment when I built the famous PWK 'minibox' to use as a third channel. With the addition of a very helpful hint from another forum member, sfogg, who suggested an inline filter to roll-off the center at approx 120-150 cycles, we had very good sound; and I knew I was hooked and not returning to stereo listening (except in the case of headphones).

I've been using the Klipschorns (R/L) on our shorter wall (about 15'), a La Scala center channel, a pair of Heresies for the rears, and Lowther horns for the sides. A Lexicon DC-1 DP has been very happily used since it replaced the minibox some months ago.

I have many questions still unanswered, but one I am thinking about right now involves side channel loudspeaker placement: Do the speakers need to be directly on axis with the listening/viewing position? Since our room is not very deep, I was wondering if it might work alright to have the sides a few feet in front, while leaving a small amount of space still to work with to the rear for the Heresies. The Klipschorns would thus be on the long wall, about 21 feet apart. This also implies that the rear channel speakers would only be slightly behind our ears. I've tried listening without the rear channel speakers, but something just doesn't sound right that way. The do seem to add to the overall 'experience' in a way that's at once subtle when present and missed when not.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated! I have just been so involved with 2-channel for such a long time, that I am surprised by the fact that I am getting involved with this so strongly. I always thought multi-channel surround involved an army of speakers all bellowing at one's head with the same energy, all at the same time. What we have couldn't be further from that, and it is just making more an more sense to integrate HT with our music system. Klipsch speakers should be wonderful for both, without compromising the performance of either -- on the contrary!

Thanks,

Erik

[Darren]

One issue we all fight is limitations in our rooms. I think your speaker placement will be fine, but there are others with much more experience than I. For those of us without a self-designed separate HT rooms, we do the best with what we have.

And welcome to the HT world

[tkot]

hey erik,

welcome to the dark side

as long as you set your distances up in the set up menu

and db meter w/ pink noise you can put the speakers almost anywhere you want.

one thing you may try would be to put the lothers, sp?,

up higher on the wall than the heresys. this still lets the lexi

space the speakers out with out having a big distance between them

jay

[Erik Mandaville]

Darren/Jay:

Thanks both for your thoughts and suggestions. Room 'issues' really are important, and seem to become all the more so as system complexity increases. At this point we (my wife and I) still haven't used the big system for movie watching, but it's something I think is in the near future. There are just some logistical things that need to be worked out.

Thanks again,

Erik

[CECAA850]

Erik, you have to do what the room dictates. In a perfect world however, THX recomends putting the side surrounds a couple feet behind the listener and 2 feet over the listeners head level in the seated position. Carl

[Erik Mandaville]

Carl:

"THX recomends putting the side surrounds a couple feet behind the listener and 2 feet over the listeners head level in the seated position." Carl

Is that right?! I didn't know that! Man, this is getting more difficult to do, not easier!

Thanks for your help,

Erik

[CECAA850]

Here's some reading for you.

http://www.audioholics.com/FAQs/THXp2.html