Surround Speaker Placement with Multi-Row Seating

[MatrixDweller]

I'm building a dedicated home theater room that will include 2 rows of seating. Where should I place the side surround speakers?

I also have a bit of dilema in that the back of the room will have a large double door to one side (I could make it a single door however). This sort of leaves me with either placing two rear surrounds very close together or just going with one speaker.

Here is a drawing of the room with some rough measurements:

[j-malotky]

Is this a 5.1 or 7.1? Avoid doing multiple sides at all costs. It will really suck as everyone will hear both sides at different times.

The 7.1 will be more difficult as the sides should be 90 to 110 degrees of the sweet spot from the front center. Rears should be 30 - 45 degrees off of the center back.

I would set it up for the sweet spot in the center of the first row. The second row will have a tad heavy in the rear surrounds but I assume that will be overflow seating most of the time.

Also if you are using bi-poles you can get away with a lot more too.

JM

[MatrixDweller]

I was thnking about dipoles and maybe placing them in between the first and second row. I probably won't get WAF on it so it will probably have to wait. For now I'll need to put the RB81's I have somewhere between the first and second row.

Should I put them right beside the second row pointing at the listening position in the front row? Or should I put them behind the second row and aim them at the primary listening point? I don't want the second row to suffer too much.

I think at first I will do 6.1.

[don2dusk]

Hello Matrix. Since you have helped me out so much, I thought I might see if I could think through your situation out loud.

Your RB81s are 19" high. How tall is your ceiling? Most ceilings I would guess are about 8 ft high, which means that unless you are a tall drink of water, your head would easily pass underneath the surrounds. So would you consider mounting them from the ceiling and angling them towards the sweet spot? Angling the speakers from the ceiling may subtract a couple of inches more clearance to the 19" speakers, making them more than 19" ceiling to low point on speaker. As you have your drawing, the rear double doors will open out of your theater room, which will not present a problem with the surrounds getting in the way of the doors. Would this solution be too obtrusive? Also, like JM said, your could have more control by mounting them such that the angle from center could fall within either the 30-45 or 90-110 degree. Don't know if this helps, but it may jog your mind for other creative ideas.

Best regards,

Don2dusk

[MatrixDweller]

If I mount the RB81 for the right rear surround above the door it would still hang a little below the top of the door. It would work but wouldn't be pretty. I was almost thinking of scrapping the double door idea and placing a single door where the double door is. My wife likes the french door idea though and might not want to sacrifice it for "one of my damn speakers".

My thinking is that it would give a little room for a small acoustic treatment in the corner, give room for the right rear surround and one solid core door with acoustical seals is cheaper and better from an audio standpoint than french doors.

See the attached revised plan of rear wall. Is this much better?

[sfogg]

"I was thnking about dipoles and maybe placing them in between the first and second row."

I think dipoles would be a poor choice there. For a dipole to work (sound ambient, difuse and not easily localizable) you need to be sitting in the null of the dipole. The null would be between your first and second row of seating.... nobody would be in it.

For two rows of seating I put my sides just slightly behind the front row and used the RS-3II surrounds. That has the Klipsch Wide Dispersion Surround Technology which is basically using two horns in phase to give a coverage angle closer to what the direct radiator is giving you. They give good coverage over both rows of seating. With something like an RB series speaker you will have much less coverage up on the higher end and may not have all your seats in the coverage of the top end of the speaker.

"I think at first I will do 6.1."

Be aware that a single rear center speaker is psychoacoustically a bad idea. We can mishear something from directly behind us as coming from front center.... the exact opposite of the intended result. If you can fit a pair of speakers in the rear that is a better way to go and it will sound better too.

Shawn

[MatrixDweller]

Great advice on the RS3's. I think I'm going to go basic 5.1 at first now and run conduits for the rears.

When I go for 7.1 I'll probably get a pair of RF82's for fronts and move the 81's to the rear. My other option would be to get a pair of RS3 II's or RS35's for the side surrounds and maybe get another RW12d sub when the funds become available.

[don2dusk]

Hey Matrix. How much acoustic difference is there between the RW-12D sub and the RW-10D sub? I was at the local store Ultimate Electronics a few days ago, they had the RF-83s, the RC-64, but only had the 10D sub on display. I think the price difference between the two is about 3-$400. Is the extra cash worth the upgrade investment?

Best regards,

Don2dusk

[MatrixDweller]

I have only heard the 12d in action so I can't really comment. I would assume by the specs that 12d has more output than the 10d and goes a bit deeper. I can't beleive they would have just a RW10d on display with RF83's. Are you sure it wasn't the RSW10d? That ones a step up from the RW12d.

You'd best post a thread in the powered sub section. "The Ear" knows everything.