Surround Placement

[Southern]

Southern, I wish I could say that I own the system. I am currently still saving for it. We will begin construction on our home in January of 2008 which will have a dedicated theater room. Too bad you are too far for me to visit (I live in Florida). I would LOVE to come and hear your setup. It's exactly what I am looking at buying.

I was leaning towards the SVS PB-12/2 from what I have read on the Klipsch and other forums. Seems like one bad sub. I think now I am leaning towards using two 12" subs in separate boxes instead of the two subs being in the same box. This brings up a question. People have recommended having two subs to help with standing waves. Would the SVS PB-12/2 be the same as two separate subs (ex. two PB-12PLUS subs)?

I absolutely cannot wait until I have my Klipsch Theater room setup. I spend many of nights dreaming and drooling on the Klipsch forums and searching Craigs List.

Just to clarify, you are saying that the RC-7's are good for rear speakers? Do you have yours behind or on the side of your listening area? Do you have any photos of your setup that you can share? You have me drooling and dreaming again. LOL.

Youthman,

You are better off e-mailing SVS about the two vs. one sub question. The SVS PB12+2 does have a phase control that I believe is to help with the standing waves. Since both woofers face downward it is both kid and pet friendly but the size does not make it wife friendly.

My experience is that the RS-7's are a great match for the surround speakers, I have mine mounted on the side of the listening area. My family room opens up to the kitchen so my rear wall is very far away. Since my sub is so large I have it located in the living room which opens up to the family room.

Attached are some pics, note that you see speaker wire to the RS-7's that is because the wife won't let me leave them up yet.

[Youthman]

Very nice setup man! Thanks for the pics. They look great.

We moved 1 year ago back to Florida and I have not put up my rear speakers because I did not want to have to run the wires under the carpet. I miss my rears when watching movies.

Patience....just gotta stay patient and my time will come when I will be the proud owner of my RF-7 system. Anyone have a time machine? LOL.

[TheSoundBroker]

Okay...had to pipe up here. Folks seem to be recommending you go with monopole rears, which is a great idea but makes one crucial assumption...that you have enough seat to wall distance to give you proper coverage. The issue as I see things is that assuming your picture is correct for rear seat to wall placement then you can't use Klipsch monopole rears or risk a very large coverage hole.

The THX spec assumes ideal seat placement with enough seat to rear wall distance to be within the coverage arc of the rear monopoles. But you don't have ideal seat placement. So instead of following the specific spec, you need to follow the IDEA of the spec, which is to get even surround coverage across each seat. In your room, you'll want to use WDST surrounds in the rear and not monopoles. This is because the coverage area on the WDST surrounds does not behave like a dipole. It is closer to a wide throw monopole. To whit...

"Klipsch Wide Dispersion Surround
Technology (WDST) provides crystal-clear sonic detail even in
listening areas with less than ideal configurations. The Tractrix Horns
deliver a 90-degree wide by 60-degree high dispersion pattern. By
aligning two horns at 90-degrees with respect to each other, WDST
smoothly covers a 180-degree horizontal arc. In other words, the
surround sound is pointed at you no matter where you are seated."

If you think about your coverage you need, it will quickly become apparent that a close rear seating area will have severe issues with a monopole speaker that throws a 90 degree arc. No matter how you place them, you'll either have a big hole in the coverage area, or you'll have to put them nearly on the side walls and end up with pretty serious cancellation issues. Your better bet would be WDST surrounds in a slightly modified THX ASA setup with the rears wider apart than a typical ASA alignment. To compensate for the wide rear throw, you'll need more acoustic absorption on the rear side walls at listening level and up with this type of array. Draw an arc to the edge of the front seat outside edges from the outside edge of each rear surround, then treat the side walls to that point to avoid wall bounce into the first row and thus achieve a monopole effect from the rears at the front seats while getting coverage to the rear outboard seats.

You'll also need to think about height requirements for a close rear seat placement. The Klipsch Ref horns have a 60 degree vertical throw. This essentially means you have a 30 degree angle you can hear proper response from the speaker. Do the math and it will become very apparent that the closer your rear seats are to the rear wall, the lower your rear surrounds will need to be in order for you to be within the coverage zone.

I've done a lot of theaters with close rear seat placement (not my choice...believe me) and the WDST rears always give us better seat coverage than monopoles (I've tried both). If you can get 4-5' worth of distance between the rear wall and the seats...then you can start to talk monopoles (assuming of course that the seating area isn't too wide...if it is then we fill in with a rear mounted center with a derived signal from the left/right rears).