http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1037740

Maybe someone can offer some insight of what other options I could try or do I have it setup where it should be. I really don't want stands in front of my tv, dont want to flip the room around because I already bought furniture. What are your suggestions guys? Please don't just say I'm f*****. I just spent a lot of money and now I found out that there is nothing I can do to have a good ht experience.

Have your architect shot.

I'll do that after I get my speakers placed

Flank the fire place with the speakers, Mount TV above fireplace, don't use fireplace. center speaker in front of fire place on a center channel speaker stand to raise it up. Forget about the fireplace.


Forget about the fireplace.

Thick curtains on the sliding door, are you going to use the glass door much? If not, two layers of thick curtains with 4" thick dense fiberglass or similar panel traps in between the curtains (so you dont see them from outside).

Open concept on left side means you need to put a lot of treatments on the right. There will be some compromise due to the glass door, especially if you have to use it. Rear wall will need tons of bass trapping, the floor will need a very thick rug.

Short of Kal's friendly suggestion ;), I have to agree that the room is really...really...really not HT-friendly. Besides the obvious placement problems, you have hard, reflective surfaces galore. Unfortunately, short of a different room, your best options may be one of those "soundbars", like from Yamaha or Polk or others, that psychoacoustically recreates surround sound (although I'm not a fan), or possibly something small like Orb Audio offers that can be wall mounted on either side of the TV and above for the front 3 channels, then wherever you can't see in the picture for surrounds. Dialing in the speakers for a flat response would be an "exciting" challenge; have fun with that.

And room treatments like suggested above. Lots and lots of treatments.

No carpet. Very bad. You've spent a lot of money. You should spend more and get some massive area rugs and very large acoustic panels (as many as you can fit). No matter where you place your speakers it will sound like you're listening to movies in a bathroom. If you're not willing to do that then I suggest a really nice pair of headphones with the use of Yamaha's silent cinema. It will sound tons better than even 5 to 7 $20,000 speakers in your untreated room. No, you won't be able to brag to your friends by showing them a really nice pair of headphones, but you won't be able to show off a system setup in an echo chamber either. I'd rather have the headphones with silent cinema.

OK... what do you guys think....32 sq ft of acoustic panels on the back wall, acoustic fiberglass inside a curtain for the sliding glass door, an 8x10 area rug in the middle of the room. Leaving the speakers where they are now, will I hear a difference, will it sound decent?

OK... what do you guys think....32 sq ft of acoustic panels on the back wall, acoustic fiberglass inside a curtain for the sliding glass door, an 8x10 area rug in the middle of the room. Leaving the speakers where they are now, will I hear a difference, will it sound decent?

Appropriate speaker placement and listening position is paramount. If these are not acoustically correct, there is very little else you can do to improve the sound. Your current speaker placement is extremely compromised, thus the sound quality will be extremely compromised at best. With all the reflective surfaces, your sound quality will be even more compromised. Room treatments (appropriate amounts) will bring your system up to extremely compromised. An improvement? Yes, but still plenty of improvements necessary.

Optimal seating positions are generally regarded to be between 0.33 and 0.38 of the length dimension (back wall to fireplace wall). Acoustic right/left symmetry (if open to one side, the other side needs thick treatments) will be needed for good imaging. Pulling the speakers out of the alcoves more than a couple feet will also improve the situation.