Surround sound speaker placement

Side speakers should be placed between 90 and 110 degrees from the primary listening position; and two feet above ear level, or higher! So five feet up and directly to the side would be the best of the two options you listed.

Here's the THX take on it:
http://www.thx.com/consumer/home-ent...peaker-set-up/

Dolby's take:
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/setup/...ide/index.html

Do you plan to add Audessey DSX as well? (heights and/or wides)

What speakers are you using?

You are going to want them behind you and not directly above you. Someone correct me if I am wrong here, but I would think you would want the rears about the same distance back as the side surrounds are to the wall. Once in place you will want all of the soft dome in ball-and-socket swivel mount tweeters aiming directly at the seating position. I currently have a 7.1 in the dolby format, but may try a 6.1 THX with ASA for fun when I get a new center channel and move old one to the rear, as my current rears are not matching.

great post

just incase you were considering DSX...

http://www.audyssey.com/technology/dsx.html

I looked up your reciever and believe you are right and cannot do DSX with that reciever unless there was a firmware update or something. I would stick with the standard 7.1 for now. If you haven't drywalled yet can always run wire there for future proofing(fronts, wides...). Subwoofers extremely room dependent and subwoofer dependent, so no set in stone best place. Best to have measurement equipment, but crawl test and trying different places with low frequency sweeps with ear gets results. Audyssey multieq will flatten sub response once find good location. Looked at reviews for this on Amazon and you should make sure you don't have faulty early firmware as it had 9 db cut in subwoofer level, yikes! I highly recommend looking into acoustic treatment as it really puts the icing on the cake.