Brand Spanking new to HT set up...

[Steve07]

Hey guys what’s up?

The title speaks for its self lol. I'm very new to this whole HT set up

thing and would love some help on my HT set up. First off I'll list what I have

going into my HT.

Speakers:

Fronts: 2 RF 82's

Center: RC52

Surrounds: 2 RF62's

Might be getting 2 R42's for side surround speakers soon.

Sub: 1 RW10D also might get a second one of these as an extra sub.

Receiver:

I have a Yamaha 6180

Wire:

16 gauge Monster wire.

OK with that outta the way I have set up all my speakers so far and have a

few questions.

1. I have connected my fronts and rears on the bottom row of inputs on the

speakers the Lf row. Should I be doing that or should the fronts be on the Hf

row and the rears on the Lf row? Or all on Hf? Or leave it as is now lol.

2. What impedance should on my receiver or does it do that

automatically? My buddy keeps telling me about making sure the frequency for

the speakers is set properly(don't have a clue what he is talking about) Also

should I use the auto calibration mic that comes with the receiver or should I

go manually and set the speakers up through the advanced setting option on my receiver?

3. My sub right now is in the front of my room off to the side near a corner

should I have the phase at 0 or 180?

Sorry if some of these questions are stupid I'm just really new at this lol.

I can get the stuff hooked up but this other stuff is allot to take in.

Anything else I might need to look for feel free to add on. Thanks in advance

guys.

[DU73]

Hi Steve

Welcome to the forum, you have chosen a great set up.

I am no expert by any means and this is like the blind leading the blind but I will try to help. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will come on board and assist. You are definitely on the right site tho to get the best advice.

OK – I will try my best.

1. The speakers, I am unsure what you mean about HF & LF but your Front speakers should be where it says Front A on the receiver (and by memory this is on the bottom) as for the surrounds your speakers should be the surrounds section of your amp and not the presence section.

1. I am unsure of the impedance, but use the auto calibration that came with the receiver. This will help with the set up.

1. I have my sub set at 180 but have set the crossover on the receiver at 90

I hope this helps, good luck and let us know how you go.

[Youthman]

Welcome to the forums. You are in good company. I too am not an audiophile but will offer what I can...

Should I be doing that or should the fronts be on the Hf
row and the rears on the Lf row?

If you leave the metal bracket that connects the top binding posts to the bottom, it does not matter which you have your speaker wire connected to. The HF and LF is more for bi-amping where you have a separate amp going to the highs and another amp going to the lows.

What impedance should on my receiver or does it do that
automatically? My buddy keeps telling me about making sure the frequency for
the speakers is set properly(don't have a clue what he is talking about)

I'm guessing he is referring to your crossover settings when he says frequency. This can definitely effect the sound of your speakers and how well they blend in with each other. Try using the auto calibration. You can always tweek it if you need to but it gives you a good starting point.

My sub right now is in the front of my room off to the side near a corner
should I have the phase at 0 or 180?

It is my understanding that phase isn't so much determined by whether or not your sub is in a corner or not...it is more to do with the actual room acoustics. Best thing to do is try both, see which sounds best. Sometimes you can have a sub placed in the room and not get much bass out of it. By switching the phase of the woofer, it can sometimes correct the lack of bass problem. theEAR could probably explain how this actually works.

[bigdaddy]

The phase can really impact your sub. Hear is how I understand it. IF you are flexible on placement, place the sub in the seat you will be sitting in. Play some test tones or some music you like and go to the different areas where it is acceptable to place the sub. The place that you can hear the sub best should be the ideal place to set the sub. It's like this imagine a wave with crests and valleys you want the wave to hit your seating when it at a crest if it does you will get the most impact. If it hits you when it is halfway between a peak and a valley it will have no impact. As for the setting on the crossover, I'd start with a setting of 80hz on the receiver. The crossover on the sub should be turned up to it's highest point. You can then listen and change the receiver upward or downward as you see fit. All of the speakers should be set to small on the receiver. I don't use auto calibration. I calibrate manually using a speaker level meter. This is simple to do. Find the test tones on your receiver and one by one set all speakers to te same level using the individual controls in the receiver settings. I usually go with 80 or 85 db. If your receiver has numbers that go lower the higher the volume set the volume on the receiver on 0 and calibrate to 85. It takes a few times doing this to get it right but when done the system will rock your world. When using a speaker level meter the meter should be set on slow c weighting. Also I set the meter up as close to where my ears would be in normal listening position. You can use a tripod if you have one. I've seen people say to point it at the front(like your ears do) and I've seen people say point it up. I don't know if it makes any difference or not, you can try it both ways. Hope this helps and enjoy the new system.

[billybob]

You might want to qualify the Klipsch sub, as that model I understand, is a model that is a keeper for real. A real thriller

[Steve07]

Thanks guys for your answer/suggestions so far. You
have helped clear up some of the problems I was having. I will try that with my
sub when I get some time after work today bigdaddy. I'm going to try and calibrate
the speakers after work today manually as well. One thing bigdaddy when you say
to put all the speakers as small on the receiver even the front ones? I will
pick up a Speaker level meter after work and will try and calibrate with it. I
hope it’s not too complex for me lol. Billybob sorry if this sounds stupid but
what do you mean I might want to qualify my sub? I have to go through and read
my manual on my receiver a bit more before doing some of these things so I
don't screw anything up but you guys have been allot of help so far thanks
again. I can't wait till I start learning more about this stuff and tweak my
speakers so I can really enjoy them(not that I don’t love my set up already)

[bigdaddy]

Yes even do the fronts. There is still plenty of stuff for those fronts to work on. After all the sub will only get what is below 80hz. The speaker level meter is not to bad. I would suggest the digital over the analog meter.

I didn't understand the qualify your sub comment either.

[Youthman]

You might want to qualify the Klipsch sub, as that model I understand, is a model that is a keeper for real. A real thriller

Are you referring to the RW10d or the RT-10d? The RT-10d is a pretty bad mamajama.

[Certified THX Technician]

Steve...welcome to the Forums ...

I will try to help out here as much as I can without making your brain hurt. Properly calibrating your receiver and room has many complex calculations to do it right. I just have a few comments and will answer your questions as well the best I can.

You mention that you have RF-62's for surrounds ...which surrounds are you using them for? the rear? Reason I ask is due to proper placement of the speakers. Only your front speakers (LCR) should be Floors or similar as you want the speakers firing at approx. ear height in the seated position, or if they are higher up, aimed down to the seated position. The Surrounds (side) and Rear Surrounds should NOT be at ear level, firing directly into your head. These are meant to provide ambient sound and effects and should be mounted approx. 2m from the floor if seated position is on the floor. If the surrounds were placed in a room where most listeners are standing, then the surrounds would be mounted slightly higher (by a few feet) to make up the difference in ear height from seated to standing position.

Ideally, you would use 2 RS-42 bi-pole (di-pole is better) for the Surrounds (side), with the null (point between the speakers) pointing at the seated position and mounted at 2m height. This will provide the best surround ambient soundfield and works with one or multiple rows of seating.

For the Rear Surrounds, you would use 1 or 2 regular bookshelf RB-10 or RB-51 front firing speakers. Spacing if using 2 depends on the type of content and receiver modes you have available.

Also, where is your center mounted in relation to the top of your RF-82s? You want to make sure that the center channel is within approx. 2 ft vertically of the L and R speakers. All 3 would ideally have their drivers at the same height. This allows for more accurate reproduction of localization and pans across the front sound field.

Now, to your questions.

1. The HF and LF rows of speaker connectors are for Bi-wiring your speakers so that the lower frequencies and higher frequencies can be connected from seperate sources/amps etc or disconnected altogether (if you wanted to remove the lower frequencies from your speakers and only use the tweeters etc....There is a metal clip that should be mounted under these 2 terminals to connect them together and transfer the signal from your amp so that both High and Low frequencies are sent to the proper drivers in your speaker. So unless you are bi-wiring, it should make no difference whatsoever which set of terminals you connect your speaker wire to.

2. Most speakers and recievers are 8 Ohm ...you want to make sure that your reciever and speakers work on the same voltage etc ...if you send too much current to the speakers, you can fry internal components, corrode cheap and thin speaker wire etc ...The impedance is to make sure that the speaker is getting proper current to operate. There are testers and ways to check this, however unless you specifically need to adjust it due to a problem, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Key is to make sure you don't have 4 Ohm speakers running off an 8 Ohm amp or vice versa and this can cause overload to circuits in the amp and provide inefficient power to drive the speakers.

3. You should always use the autocalibration of your receiver as a starting point to manually tweaking your gear. The autocalibration will do a great job (some companies do it better than others - Denon, Pioneer, Yamaha etc) of setting up your channel levels, latency, and EQ based on your room settings. 9 times out of 10 this will save you hours of manual calibration and provide a good starting point to further adjust each speaker / channel for your room. But even if you just run the autocalibration, your sound will be greatly improved compared to out of the box settings. Key Notes on Autocalibration - Make sure the mic is placed at the central seating position as that is where it will take it's readings from and create the best sound field. Other seating areas of the room will not sound as good, especially off axis, but some recievers (Denon) have multiple mic readings and will adjust the sound for multiple seating positions, which is ideal. In a proper manual calibration, I would do readings with a multiplexer from each seated position and calibrate the EQ etc to have the best sound across all listening positions. This requires a lot of work and time and is not ideal or cost effective for most people. Also,make sure you run the AutoCal at Full 0db volume or Reference level of your reciever/amp. If this is too loud for your environment (it usually will be) or you will not be listening close to those levels, then running the Autocal at the loudest level in which you would set your reciever will give you a more accurate calibration for that volume level and will not require re-adjustment due to lowering the volume.

In Short - run the Auto Calibration.

4. Ah ..the sub ...

This is the biggest misconception in Home Theatre. The old rule of thumb was "just stick it in a corner"....this is however, the WORST spot to put a subwoofer. Now I will try and keep this short and sweet, but proper sub placement is based on something called Room Modes. Basically, the dimensions of any room, based on length, width, and height, produce waves of frequencies that depending on the distance (there is a calculation to determine all this) will cause boosted frequencies. Similar to what the other posted mentioned about being in the "dip or peak" of a wave, this is what creates bad bass response. Many time your seats are positioned in the peak, creating a boosted , worbly, make something rattle bass signal. Or they are in the dip, where the frequency is lowest, and you don't feel any bass at all. However, moving just a few feet can put you in the proper area of the wave, and provide the best bass response. The Room Mode, or frequencies for your room that will tend to be boosted by the room, can be toned down by proper placement of the subwoofer to eliminate the octave of the wave that will cause this boosted frequency to occur. I will get to phase in a moment.

Rule of Thumb - if you are only using 1 Subwoofer, keep it in the front sound field (LCR wall) and put it in the center of the wall. Corners allow base frequencies to build up and un-naturally boost the base (Boundary Gain). Similar to how if you talk with the back of your head on a wall...as you move out from the wall, you will notice your voice loses a bit of base response. As you backup towards the wall again, the bass increases. This is Boundary Gain, and you do not want it because it is boosting the bass frequencies from what the reference level should be. The only time this is a good thing, is if you are using a passive, underpowered sub ...by putting it in a corner will help it get more "oomph". But louder is not better. Moving it to 2/3rds the length of the wall or 1/4 will also help. But never in the corner.

Also, the crossover frequency of your reciever should be 80Hz, and the crossover settings on the sub won't matter if you disable it on the sub. Crossover settings on the sub are usually for passive connections that take the lower frequencies from the front L and R speaker feeds (speaker terminals on the back of the sub) and output them through the sub at the set frequency. If you are using a LFE connection to your sub then the internal cross over should be disabled anyways, and it's getting what the reciever is sending according to it's settings. When the sub is in passive mode and the setting is set to say 120Hz, you will hear things you should not coming out of the sub...even dialog at times. These higher settings are usually to make up for speakers that cannot reproduce lower frequencies properly or have proper mid-range and low-range woofers, so by setting the sub higher, these lower frequencies are allowed to be reproduced by the sub. Keep in mind sub's produce 2 types of sounds - low frequency effects and all frequencies below the frequency setting. This is where speaker type in the Reciever setup is so important. If you select Small (which you always should) the Reciever sends all frequencies lower than 80Hz to the subwoofer, along with specific LFE signals. If you select Large speakers, it assumes that the speakers subwoofers built in to produce those low frequencies, and only sends the LFE signals to your sub, allowing your speakers to produce the low bass frequencies them selves. Test this setting out and you will notice a big change in the sound. Now if you have killer floor towers and want to use their built in sub (if they go down to 25-35Hz) then go ahead, but in most cases, regardless of the size and type of your speakers, you will always select Small for the speaker type, allowing the low frequencies to be sent to the subwoofer.

Putting the sub in the center of the wall reduces the boosted gain of the first octave modal frequency that your room is producing, allowing for smoother base response. Moving the sub to 1/4 or 1/6 etc along the wall will affect the 2nd and 3rd octave frequencies. So depending on which frequency of all walls is going to cause the largest boost, that is where you put the sub. In multi-sub (THX recommends at least 2) installs, the sub along each wall is placed in the correct spot to reduce the modal frequency that will cause the biggest boost.

Phase - now this IS short and sweet. Basically, the Phase on a sub is used when the frequency is colliding with another frequency so that they can cancel each other out. So in the description above, where frequencies in the room are colliding and boosting the level of the signal, if you were to use 2 subs, fired at each other, in opposite phase from each other, then the frequency would cancel each other out and you would get smooth response. So in a perfect world, subs along each wall, firing at a sub on the opposite wall, in opposite phase would provide perfectly smooth bass response. The modal frequencies would cancel each other out no matter which wall or octave was causing the issue.

In short - Subs that have Phase adjustments are better as they are configured for multi sub placement to eliminate these boosted frequencies. Same as dipole speakers do, so the they fire in opposite phase to the closest speaker, providing more accurate and smooth frequency response. If only 1 sub is present, it doesn't matter if you have it at 0 or 180. It only matters if you have 2 (unless your towers have built in subs ...then you may want to flip the phase.

Please feel free to ask any more questions. I hope I didn't confuse you or ramble on too much. I could go on for days about this stuff. As you can see, there are many calculations involved to figuring out the best placement of a sub, and for location and height of all the speakers etc ..as well as screen size, distance etc ...

I hope I was able to provide the answers you require and feel free to ask anything else. The more educated people are the better.

[samson]

Certified THX Technician that was a very helpful post, thanks!

[oldbuckster]

Yamaha has a speaker impedence selector 6 ohms, or 8 ohms for main speakers ....... atleast mine does !!!!!!!

[Certified THX Technician]

Some speakers operate more efficiently on a lower setting ...so if you switch to 6, you need to make sure your speakers can also operate at that setting as well. But leaving things at 8 works for most people. Usually only higher end speakers will operate at 6 or 4 so then you can use that setting.

For most people 8 is the default and works well with most equipment.

[DTLongo]

"Sorry if some of these questions are stupid I'm just really new at this lol."

Ain't no such thing as stupid questions here, we all have to start somewhere .

To the advice others have provided I would add, " trust your own ears." Autocalibtration, subwoofer placement and all that esoterica are well and good, but at the end YOU have to be happy with what you're hearing from your sweet seat. So, don't be afraid to, say, crank up those side and rear speakers relative to the fronts so you have the sense of really being "surrounded" by the audio. Don't overdo it but don't be hesitant to try, either.

Also (important) be very careful about speaker phase. You must be sure that all your speakers are hooked up "in phase," that is to say, red (or positive) from the amp terminal to the red terminal on each speaker and black (negative) to black terminals. Otherwise one speaker cone will be moving in while the other is moving out and you will get a thin, jumbled unfocused sound. Phasing is critically important.

[Steve07]

Wow you guys have been amazing in terms of helping me out
thank you all for that. Yesterday I started off auto calibrating my system with
the Yamaha mic and it sounded better than before. I then started to do minor
tweaks to the system myself like change all the speakers to small and the
crossover frequency to 80Hz I turned LFE mode on my sub off. I haven't had time
to really move my sub to my seat and go around the room to see which is the
best spot for it yet but will do that soon. The only other thing I want to do
now is go in and manually adjust some of the speaker levels. One thing, should
I start with all the speakers at the same level and then start to adjust from
there? Should the center be like 20% louder than the fronts? Since all the dialogue
comes from their and I don't want my fronts to drown out my center. Also with
the sub should I keep it to normal phase or reverse? I have it on normal as of
now.

Also to answer your question THX I am using my RF62's as my rear speakers not the side surrounds.

[USNRET]

When you calibrate the speaker levels starting the procedure will normally first direct the tone to the LF speaker. Select the range on your SPL meter that allows you to reach the dB setting recommended by your receiver manual (I've seen 75-85 dB). Let's use 85 dB for example. When the tone is output from the LF speaker, adjust the volume of your receiver so that the SPL meter is registering 85 (if meter scaling requires you to have 90 then simply set volume now so that -5 is shown on meter and your receiver's On Screen Display adjustment for the LF speaker is null (0). Now without making any further adjustments or moving SPL meter, advance tone to next speaker and then adjust that speaker's level plus or minus as required to make it match the LF. Continue around the room and make all speakers match. My Denon allows me to combine the rears as 1 setting if desired, pay attention to what your receiver does with the speakers. Once set you can feel free to sweep around the room a couple of times to see a good match. Enjoy.

[Certified THX Technician]

Wow you guys have been amazing in terms of helping me out thank you all for that. Yesterday I started off auto calibrating my system with the Yamaha mic and it sounded better than before. I then started to do minor tweaks to the system myself like change all the speakers to small and the crossover frequency to 80Hz I turned LFE mode on my sub off. I haven't had time to really move my sub to my seat and go around the room to see which is the best spot for it yet but will do that soon. The only other thing I want to do now is go in and manually adjust some of the speaker levels. One thing, should I start with all the speakers at the same level and then start to adjust from there? Should the center be like 20% louder than the fronts? Since all the dialogue comes from their and I don't want my fronts to drown out my center. Also with the sub should I keep it to normal phase or reverse? I have it on normal as of now.

Also to answer your question THX I am using my RF62's as my rear speakers not the side surrounds.

Couple things here ...If you only have 1 sub, it should be place in the center of the wall at the front where your LCR speakers are. Or you could move it 1/4 or 1/6 along the front wall...my other post Ask a THX Technician explains this in full ...no need to put the sub at your seat.

Speaker Levels...thing of crucial importance here is that all speakers (LCR, Surrounds, Rear Surrounds, Sub) all provide the same SPL at the main listening position. So from your seat (sweet spot), pink noise or sound level tests should give the same SPL reading (75db min..85db for THX Reference) from all speakers. If you don't want to crank your system up that high, use the loudest you would ever have it at and make sure each speaker is the same level as the sound goes around the room.

Best quick way to test this, and phase, is to run the THX Optimizer from any Pixar or Lucasfilm DVD ....this will quickly tell you where your problems are. Most people don't have the proper test disks to run the necessary tests, so this is a good substitute. But first, verify the settings with your receiver's internal pink noise channel level calibration as well. The auto Cal should have taken care of this nicely though, but this is where you can manually adjust it with a SPL meter to make sure it's exact from each speaker.

Now personal preference plays into this as well ...if you like your dialog louder, then turn up the level on the center ...if you like the surround field louder, do the same to those ...proper reproduction of the source recorded material though requires that all speakers be at the same level. But tweak it as you like. Just keep in mind you are then altering what the director intended.

Sub phase should be normal. Reverse is for multiple subs to help cancel out the standing waves (room modes) etc ...

In regards to your RF-62, the Surrounds (L, R, Rear) should be at approx. 2m (6') or 2' above the listeners ear level. Surround speakers are not meant to be blasing into your ears or head directly and should not be easily localized (you can tell where it came from). Normally, you would have 2 monopole front firing bookshelf speakers (like RB-51's) as the rear speakers, in a 6.1 or 7.1 configuration. If you can, put these towers on boxes to raise them up. The ambient sound will then blend much better with your reg surrounds and create the proper ambient sound field. Turning up the channel level on these will provide more sound if that is what you prefer, but keep in mind, you are only meant to hear what is on that rear surround track....usually reciever's will create this from a reg 5.1 soundtrack just to have something there, as most films do not have rear surround tracks.

Often, you don't hear anything in the surrounds, because nothing is there. Many people don't like this so they try to crank it up, spread it around etc to have constant sound around them all the time. But this is not what was intended with the source material. Proper speaker placement and levels will reproduce what you should be hearing. Again, you can tweak as you like, but again are going against the source material's intentions.

[bigdaddy]

If you only have 1 sub, it should be place in the center of the wall at the front where your LCR speakers are. Or you could move it 2/3 or 1/4 along the front wall.

I respectfully disagree with this. As your seating may or may not always be just the right distance from sub to make this an optimal placement.

[Certified THX Technician]

I respectfully disagree with this. As your seating may or may not always be just the right distance from sub to make this an optimal placement.

It is Optimal placement and it has nothing to do with the seating or how far you are from the sub. It has to do with the sub, the room, and standing waves. Here is a brief explanation of why.

Standing waves are caused by the room dimensions. Unless you are using resonators and bass traps to reduce these unwanted frequencies in the room, sub placement is key to providing smoother bass response. The seating should ideally be placed in the middle of the waveform of the modal frequencies (and there are exact calculations to find where that is). Usually you have a little play with the seating. Even moving them a foot or two in the proper direction can make a big difference in the bass response at those seats. You can't always move the seats though, as you mentioned, but you place the sub at the proper spot to help reduce the affect of the buildup of frequencies where the seats are. Keep in mind most of these frequencies are below 200Hz.

The room generates these unwanted standing waves regardless of sub placement. Each dimension (Length, Width, and Height) has a particular harmonic frequency at different octaves that will have an affect on the room as the sound waves reflect off the walls, ceiling, floor etc. The idea is to reduce the affect of these standing waves by proper sub placement, and moving the seats to a better spot if possible so you don't feel this affect. Without doing tons of calculations, by placing the sub halfway along the wall, it reduces the first octave standing wave frequency's pressure level, whatever that frequency may be based on the room dimensions. 1/4 distance reduces the second octave, 1/6 the third etc ...The first octave is the strongest one over the others, although the 2nd or 3rd octave may be the one that is producing the same standing wave as another wall, creating a large build up of that frequency which would then require putting the sub at 1/4 distance along the wall etc to reduce the peak affects of that frequency. So unless you do the calcs to know the exact frequencies and where to place the sub, rule of thumb is to put it in the middle as it will reduce the first modal frequency (the strongest one) and help smooth out the bass response no matter what.

Then you do a bass test (hammer the crap out of the sub with specific trouble frequency) and walk around the room to see where the buildup of frequencies are. You will feel a high pressure zone, making your head worble etc ..then as you move a foot or so away, it will disappear etc....you want to find that spot in between the high and low pressure to put your seating ...ensuring you will get smooth bass response. Now to do this you need a tone generator and need to do the calcs to get the frequencies that will cause havoc in the room.

The sub is non-directional and isn't easily localized so it doesn't matter where you put it to get bass. But it does matter where you SHOULD put it to get smooth and accurate bass. Perfect scenario is 4 subs, one in the middle of each wall. 8 is even better - 2 on each wall in opposite phase to each other - eliminating almost all standing waves. Even 2, 1 in the middle of the front wall, and 1 in the middle of a side wall, will help reduce 2 major frequency build ups and provide smoother bass response. Some installs have subs mounted halfway up a wall or in the ceiling etc ... but there are hard engineering principles behind why it SHOULD go in certain spots, whether you agree with them or not. The proof is in the pudding ...when they are properly placed, you can run tests and sit in the sweet spot and have perfect, smooth bass response at extreme volume levels ..not loud, rumbly, shake your head bass (which is NOT good bass response).

Subwoofer placement and calibration is one of the biggest misconceptions in Home Theater. To properly place a sub, it requires a good understanding of the science behind it and why it works. I should really open another Post on this topic, as it is quite indepth and requires knowledge of standing waves, modal frequencies and how the room affects bass response. You will actually get better bass response with more smaller subwoofers, than with fewer larger ones.

I am just trying to educate people in order to help them out. I know some people that don't care, and just throw the sub in the corner and crank it up. And that is their right to do so. But in a $100,000 custom theater, you don't just guess and throw the sub somewhere because it's aesthetically pleasing or convenient. You place it where it should go to provide the best bass response for that room. And to do this requires proper calculations and testing.

I hope this wasn't too technical, and helps you to understand the theory behind proper sub placement.

[bigdaddy]

All that is great but were not talking about commercial theaters or $100,000 custom theaters here. most of us have to make something that is aesthetically pleasing to significant others and couches are in very limited spots and the aren't always in the optimum place for the right waves to be hitting you.

A lot of people just don't have the room up front to put a sub. So while THX may dictate that is the way it should be it is not always ideal for the normal guy to do with his wifes normal house.

Yes if I were building a dedicated custom HT then by all means I would make it work that way but most of us aren't given completely free reign on any room of the house(except the garage)

And no it's not too technical. I just live in the real world where very few people have $100,000 custom theater installations. Hell for that matter very few have tone generators.

So I'll revise my statement. While the middle of the front wall may be ideal it is not always practical and you'll have to make do.

THX also says I should be sitting about 6 feet from my 57" dlp but I find that having 22 ft of unused space behing me seems rediculous.

[Certified THX Technician]

So I'll revise my statement. While the middle of the front wall may be ideal it is not always practical and you'll have to make do.

THX also says I should be sitting about 6 feet from my 57" dlp but I find that having 22 ft of unused space behing me seems rediculous.

bigdaddy...I hear exactly what you are saying and that is true. when people ask me "where should I put my sub" ...well, I tell them, but that may be where their tv sits etc and all their gear ...you still have to work within the environment you are given. So that is why the 2nd and 3rd positions (1/4 of the way or 1/6 of the way along the front wall) work well as a second choice....it puts the sub usually beside the gear, away from the corner, and still helps with the 2nd or 3rd octave frequencies. Like I said before, you CAN stick it anywhere....it's just that anywhere is not the best spot for it. There is always somewhere better that it could go which will hopefully help out with the sound AND the aesthetics.

The reason THX states to put the screen so close is because to truly have the home theater experience, similar to an actual Theater screen, the screen horizontally should take up 40 degrees or less of your forward view (20 degree from center to each side). So from where you are sitting , if your corners in front of you are at roughly 40-45 degree angles, the screen should be almost half the width of the wall. "This provides the greatest combination of visual impact with sharp detail". Watching a 52" HD LCD from 20 ft back, although clear, hardly puts you into the action or gives you that theater experience. Again, there are calculations based on SD and HD specs and visual acuity (what the eye can actually make out at a certain distance) to figure out seating distance and screen size. Also, screen height is also calculated, so that the viewer should not have to look up more than 15 degrees to see the top of the screen. This makes your neck and eyes more relaxed for extended viewing etc.

Most TV's will never meet this spec though. You would have to sit 2-3ft infront of a 32" TV to get the desired affect or 6ft infront of a 65" TV. So again you have to make due. The main idea though is to have the image take up a large percentage of your vision to wrap you up in the picture and what is happening. The bigger the better. With Projectors , it works out perfectly. And also with computer monitors, as the larger 22 and 24 models are now out, you can achieve this as well sitting at a desk.

THX home theater specs are just guidelines and best practices all based on sound engineering and design principles to help maximize the theater experience at home. But you have to do what you can in your space as well. That is why whether there are 10 changes or 1 change you can make to your setup, there is always something you can do to make it technically better, performing and sounding better, and more enjoyable.

You wouldn't beleive the installs I've seen, that are tens of thousands of dollars, and the speakers or screen is totally in the wrong spot. Now, to somebody going for looks, it looks great and they don't care about the sound at all as long as they can hear it. But to an audiophile, it won't sound great or the best it can and the gear should have never been put there in the first place. So you have to cater to the client and design it best for their needs and wants since after all, it is their system and they have to be happy with it.