I am making quite a bit of progress on my theater. I'm doing the walls with linacoustic, etc right now and should be done this weekend. I have a few audio related questions.

I plan on having a speaker in my left/right columns. These colums are spaced right between the two rows (I read that here. :)) At what height should the speakers be placed? My back row is on a 1ft riser if that matters.

If a go with a 2nd subwoofer does it need to be similiar to the other one? Right now I have a Polk psw300 (i think) and was wanting to add a HSU VTF-2 sub to the mix. Would this mean I have a 7.2 setup? I've seen pics of setups with what appears to be 4 or more subs. What's up with all that?

That's all for now.

normally you want your surrounds to be tweeters about 2 feet above seated ear level, with the riser you have to fudge just a bit, mine are between 20 and 24" above second row ear level and it works find. you don't menation your rears, they should be about the same height, how far apart will depend on if ou are trying to do THX placement of Dolby placement.
yes if you have two subs and seven speakers then you have a 7.2 system. though currently no movies with 7.1 or more track. some AVR's can create the extra tracks that you hear on a 7.1 system.
I have a 7.2 system One sub behind faux screen wall and one on my riser which provides additional tactile response, I have Bass shakers mounted in my riser as well.

My rears are actually in the ceiling due to space constraints. Would it even make sense to add speakers to the side columns?

In my opinion yes it would. I know mine make a huge difference.

Just having more than one subwoofer, does not technically qualify as ".2". They must be discreet channels, not just a split off of a single subwoofer output which is what most poeple have done.

That nitpicking aside, having more than one sub can be very beneficial in that you'll have more flexibility in smoothing your response. Although, to get the real benefit, setup and calibration then becomes more tricky and would either take a qualified professional or at least some backround knowledge about how the two interact with each other and the room, in regards to your listening positions.

No, they (the two or more subs) don't need to be the same.

Dan

Thanks!

You can have a sub for every channel and it's still 7.1

7.2 would mean the LFE somehow had 120-240hz material (read why they call it .1 if you don't understand why). Even having shakers is still .1 since it's the same signal just being played with something else.