best way to arrange my speakers

[DuallyDave]

I have Klipsch speakers all around, the KG3.2s were my first, and have always been my fronts, later I added the KV1 center, the RB5s became the rears, finally the KSW12 sub. I mostly use these as a 5.1 home theater setup, I don't use them for music a lot. I have always tried to seperate the fronts and rears as much as possible for a wide sound field, and tried to be as symmetric as possible in relation to my ears.

Now that I am upgrading my RPTV to a plasma, and wall mounting the plasma, I'm thinking of doing things a little differently. I'm thinking of using a wall between some windows and a corner, which would be somewhat asymmetric. If I was to spread the speakers out, one would be next to the TV, one a ways away. I notice a lot of people put the fronts right next to the TV, is it better to do this, or better to get a wider sound field? If I do this, I'm limited on space, I'm thinking of using the RB5s as fronts and the KG3.2s as rears. Since you may not be familiar with these older models. the KG3.2 speakers are three way, with a 10" woofer, the RB5s are two way with 8" woofers. The RB5s are from the reference speakers, they are supposed to be more precise, more efficient, and can handle more power (I don't turn them up that loud). The KG 3.2s would me mounted up high on the wall behind me, there is a door in the way if I mount them lower. THe sub would probably be near the TV as that is the best corner for it. I'm also considering using the TV speakers (Panasonic TH50PX50U) for the center speaker, would there be a significant difference? The KV1s are not top of the line...

What would you recommend for the best sounding layout? If I was to buy a couple of new speakers to accomodate this, which would you replace, and with what?

[Colin]

What is your receiver? How features does it have for balancing the channels?

In your profile, please specify your system: amps, subs, room size, most tastes, preferred volume level, etc. This will give thoughtful posters more of the right information they need to make insightful suggestions. Thanks.

[Petrol]

Kind of way off-topic but Colin's post reminded me that I have No Idea how to setup my system profile . . .

[STL]

FYI, although the KG-3.2 might look like a 3-way speaker they are NOT. The 10" you call a woofer is actually a passive radiator and is not hooked up electrically at all! It's like a woofer without the magnet. If you want confirmation on that take out the 4 screws that hold it in and take a look for yourself -- or go look at "discontinued" speakers at Klipsch website and read the specs. The 8" is a woofer, and the speaker it just a 2-way design. Placing speaker wider (to an extent) is better than placing them right at the sides of the TV. Also be aware if yo decide to use the RB5s for you front then you need to replace your KV-1 (with a RC center or BEST yet another RB-5 if you have the room).

Without see a drawing (with dimensions) of your layout it's hard to give you suggestions. And I doubt buying new speakers (beyond replacing the center like I said above) will do much to help and layout issues.

[DrWho]

A top down drawing of your room would be a great place to start...even using windows paint would be enough (just remember to save as a .gif, the forum doesn't allow .bmp uploads).

[DuallyDave]

Thanks for your quick responses! I have updated my profile to show my equipment. As I say there, I am considering going to a newer receiver with 6.1 or 7.1 and the additional speakers needed (not sure what speakers). I don't want to spend a lot of money doing this, I'm not a hard core audiophile.

I have a funny shaped room - kind of an L, and I am actually considering several arrangements, the next-to-the-window was my first choice as it is the best fit for my furniture. I could make a drawing of the room and post it, I'm not sure that I have any good software to do this - any suggestions? If I try to draw it here in text, will it show like it looks when I draw it? - I'll try it:

____________

dr/ B /door

dr/ /door A - between windows and corner

--- / sit forward of doors by E - 12' view distance

/ E / kitchen B - left spkr blocked by door unless high or close to TV

/ / sit by F - 15' view distance

/ \ C - a little close for 50" TV - about 10' view distance

/ \ <-45 degree wall biggest wall - sit by D, staggered seating

/ D \ D - mount on 45 degree wall and sit by A

/ C ______________ corners not great for furniture arrang. about 12' distance

/ door /

/ / <-----

/ / computer

/ / desk

/ A F / <------

------------------------------------------------

<----- windows (4) -->

A was my primary choice, B would possibly get window reflections on TV, C gives me weird placement choices for rears, D gives me weird placement choices for fronts. I hope this displays ok........

[DuallyDave]

I did a paint version, looks a little better

[DuallyDave]

I forgot to mention, the wall between the livingroom and kitchen does not go all the way to the ceiling, which is somewhat vaulted - vertical to drawing, centered on four windowed-wall. This is a double-wide mobile home, so the four windowed (front) wall is about 23'. From front to door wall (A to is about 18'. B wall is 10' door to door. C wall is about 13' from door to A wall.

[STL]

I think placing your TV at C would be you best bet. I have a 55" HDTV and I'm only about 10' from it. If you're watching HD or DVD then that viewing distance is actually about "right"; SD programming will look a little rough but that to be expected -- and hey evetually everything will be HD!

[DuallyDave]

If I was to go with C, would my KV1 match well with my 3.2s? I've been doing this for a while with my RPTV, but I never really considered how they match. I thought I had a 10" woofer, maybe I should upgrade the 3.2s and the KV1, then keep the RB5s for the rear. With the TV at C, I don't have a lot of choices for rears, they would probably have to go high on the A and B walls, above the door and windows. This would probably make 6.1 or 7.1 rear placement nearly impossible, although that is not a big consideration.

[STL]

You don't need 6.1 or 7.1 for such a small area. In fact many people don't realize that unless you have a really large room having 6.1 or 7.1 doesn't buy you much over a properly configured 5.1 system.

Yes the KV1 and KG-3.2 do match up well. It seems silly that you now feel the need to replace the KG-3.2s because they don't have a 10" woofer. Obviously you were happy with them before so why worry now?

[DuallyDave]

Yes, 6.1 or 7.1 would be little bang for big bucks, just a thought from reading some things about speaker placement. And if I put my sub nearby, the woofer issue would probably be minor. Thanks for the input!

[STL]

You don't have to put your subwoofer nearby at all! Frequencies below 80hz are "non-directional" meaning the human ear cannot determine where sounds that low come from. The KG-3.2 should have no problem at all playing down to 80hz.

[IndyKlipschFan]

STL

I have always been opposed to this rule... when using video especially. If you have a screen in front of you and the sub is behind you to the left say....and it has a BOOM explosion center on the screen.... there is NO WAY you can tell me that you "can't" tell it is NOT coming from the front.

Either I have incredible ears... or... superhearing to locations wise for the lower frequency. I know this is stated in theory...as a true thing.. I also know I could demonstrate it to a lot of you this is not true in my own system!

[DuallyDave]

Wow, you have the heritage Klipschorns! I've never actually heard any, but when I first read about them, that is what led me to buy Klipsch speakers. I plan to put my sub in one of the front corners, so the corner will become part of the sub, or that is my understanding at least. So far it has sounded good in the corner. I plan to replace my upright component rack with a more coffee table style rack that will go below the TV. I wonder if I could, or should try to integrate the sub into the bottom of the rack, maybe with a hole in the bottom of the rack. I'm still looking around at what is available for a reasonable price.

Some interesting stuff at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=416358

[STL]

Leave it in the corner...placing in rack would be a bad idea (in many ways).

[STL]

IndyKlipschFan,

Maybe your subwoofer is playing too high or others things in your room are resonating. I have my sub placed about 1' in front and about 4-5' to the right of where I sit, and I have never felt the explosions are localized from where the sub is located -- then again my subwoofer response is very flat and low. It also probably helps that I run all my other speakers on Large so they're playing the full spectrum. It doesn't help that my old Sony ES rec'r has a fixed crossover setting of 100Hz, but like I said my subwoofer (a 12" Acoustic Concepts DV12 in a custom 4 cubic foot sealed enclosure) is very flat and is truly tuned for the .1 (as in 5.1) frequencies. I don't have any experience with placing a HT subwoofer behind me, but I had plenty of cars with sub in the rear (but yes that's just music not HT). Maybe one just needs to make sure the subwoofer is in front of the listeners...

[IndyKlipschFan]

If you cut and paste then blow up my picture... The RSW 15 is where the plant is on the right side... but on the left between the cabinet and the left K horn. No, Not a perfect spot. It can be overwheliming on some material true, but that's sometimes fun too. It is not used as a turned up boom box like muffled rumble.. But come and watch say The Matrix.. It will almost freak you out how real everything is. And yes I know how to properly set it up.. Were all control/tweek freaks..LOL..

Now music I have been "kinda" tricked sometimes.. 2 channel in a big room "up loud" which you lose stereo separation sorta upfront in the room on a side wall. Think the Bose demonstration with the sub off to the side in the corner... HT IMO is a different animal. (again just my opinion, but also shared by many on here too.)

[Spkrdctr]

From your room drawings, it appears that the Bose Lifestyle System would be the best bet.

Sometimes I'm just a smart aleck!

[DrWho]

After reading all the posts, there's some things I wanted to comment on, but first I'll give my recommendation

I vote for placement A, but with a twist (45 degrees to be exact). Put your TV in corner A and rotate it so that it's pointing towards wall D. Your right main would go near wall C and your left main would go in front of the windows. Your mains are rather small so you can even get away with mounting them above the windows near the cieling if you have to. Your center channel would go on your TV and then your subwoofer could go behind in the corner. Just make sure there is about 1 foot of space between the TV and wall to give the sub enough space to breathe (I would actually point the active driver towards the corner). Ideally, you'll want to pull your TV out far enough so that the center channel sitting on top is the same distance away from your mains (picture yourself making a big pie shaped circle from your listening position sweeping across the fronts of all your speakers).

Your surrounds would then need to be mounted from the cieling, which will be easy to do with your RB-5's - just get yourself some mounts from www.omnimount.com. Or you can even build your own.

One of the main reasons I suggest this method is that you maintain perfect symmetry which will vastly improve your imaging. Also, the lack of side walls (or apparent lack when comparing against a typical rectangle environment) will vastly reduce the amount/magnitude of destructive interference (aka room modes/standing waves). Having the wall behind your head is going to make things sound fuller and more surrounding...and will especially help out with the imaging of your rear surrounds (you'll almost want to intentionally have some sound bouncing off the back wall).

The only real issue I foresee is with the L main being in front of your window...I'm not sure how high your windows are off the floor, but some people might find that it doesn't look too good. You may want to mount your RB-5's up on the cieling above the window and then get yourself an RC7 center channel (maybe even mount it from the cieling). You can then move your KG3's and KV1 into surround duty (even do a 6.1 setup with that KV1 on the rear wall, mounted near the cieling pointing down.) I'll leave it up to you to be creative with your layout as you know far better than I what you will find acceptable. I personally would put the main right smack dab in front of the window and not worry about it at all.

Now as far as the LF directivity and sub location discussion goes...

First of all, clean LF material IS localizable. I say clean because a lot of people cop out and claim that you're hearing high frequency harmonics or whatever. The distortion on my JBL sub is -40dB at 45Hz, which is an insanely good number and yet I can always tell that it's behind me. Anyways, that's just one example...I could give lots more A lot of people will actually counteract the directivity by turning their sub down too low so that it's masked by the front mains! the boost in the low frequencies due to the room gain will help to counteract what should otherwise be percieved as lacking bass. Anyways, this is all a totally seperate issue (and can get emotional at times due to people having different experiences and what not), from the issue of LF acoustics...

Sub location is a huge concern for achieving a flat response because the walls in our room almost act like secondary sources of information because the LF sounds reflect and then cancel each other out at the listening position. One of the easiest ways to witness this is to take a subwoofer out of its cabinet and put it on the floor (magnet side down). As you put test tones into the speaker, it should sound very quiet and in fact you probably won't get much sound at all...even though you can see the woofer vibrating all crazy style. The reason is that the backwave of the driver is reflecting off the floor and then cancelling out the sounds eminating from the front of the driver. In fact, any sound you do hear is actually non-liner distortion (sounds that aren't cancelling each other out). Put that sub into a cabinet and now the back wave doesn't cancel with the front and you'll suddenly have a ton of sound. The same thing happens in our rooms where the sound bounces around and because LF sounds have such long wavelengths, they effectively cancel each other out at the listening position. Two things to note: the sound reflecting off the wall is slightly delayed and slightly lower in magnitude...so placing a subwoofer closer to the listening position does two things: the sounds reflecting off the wall are delayed even longer (which means you'll hear more of the direct sound before it gets cancelled out) and then the magnitude of these reflections are much smaller (because the sound is travelling a farther distance). Since most of us can't aeshetically place a subwoofer directly in front of us, we are left with trying to find another location in the room that both looks good and mimizes the negative effects of the room. And another thing to note: moving the subwoofer around simply shifts the frequencies at which we are having problems so basically we end up choosing a position that fits our source material the best (ie, having a huge drop in response centered at 80Hz will always be a bad thing because that's where the bass guitar and kick drum really thrive). A problem at 30Hz however would be much less problematic with music, though for movies might suck if you want insane explosions.

And now I have officially written too much and only scratched the surface of the topic.