First Time Odd Location Build (DSX)

I saw your link from the Energy Owner's thread. That's an odd-shaped room alright . First, the Onkyo should be allright unless you listen at very high volumes. Anyway you say you'll have a sub so the demanding low freqs will be handled by the sub's amp.

As for the speakers, the RC-70s are awesome, but I bet 7 LCRs would definetely rock and provide a very uniform tone.

Placement is really tricky. If I were you, I'd consider placing the fronts closer to the couch, wider, under the roof slope, e.g. where the larger pieces of insulation lie on your pics. That would allow a much better dispersion for the fronts. Depending on your plans for the dormer window area, you could also try putting the center on a stand in the middle of the line formed by the fronts. You could also put the screen closer to the couch unless you want it to also block the window.

You could then back off a bit with the couch, letting some space between the surround backs (directly behind the couch on the wall) and the couch, and placing the surround sides either on stands beside the couch or closer to the walls.

Ah unless... you seem to be planning instead for only two surround speakers and go with front wides instead. Well you could put the front wides where you planned them, and the surrounds in the back corners (or actually a bit closer to the couch).

Would this speaker placement work in your room?

EDIT: check my mad ps skills

I'd definitely put the fronts as far back as possible under the slope of the roof, but not inside the dormer window.

That may pose a problem for the center if you don't want it in the middle of the floor there. However there is two other options for the center.

1. You could try suspending it above the screen. Altough since the screen is fairly large, you'll notice that sound is coming from up there. Then again if your screen comes down low, the sound from the center will come from the floor instead.

2. Many screens I think are partly acoustically transparent. So it's possible to put the center channel behind the screen, at the listening position's ear level. However if you put the center say on the wall just under the window, it will be much further away than the fronts. You'd probably be able to compensate with a good receiver though, but ideally the center should not be that recessed.


I never heard dipoles/bipoles but they're made to radiate indirect sound. That is, you won't be able to pinpoint the source of the sound emitted by them. (This is because the dipole design cancels sound waves on the acoustic axis; you'll only get reflected sound). This is supposed to be ideal, but surround speakers are generally much more expensive.

The 250$ Veritas VS at Vann's seems to be an excellent deal. Altough this is not for a *pair*, it's for each VS. Matching surround speakers tonally with the fronts is not as important as with the center, and the Veritas are still quite close to the RC line, so the VS should do a really good job with either RC-70s or RC-LCR. The matching RC-line dipole speaker is the RC-R, and it seems harder to find than the Veritas VS. For example, Amazon.com lists it for 393.40 each (in fact from Cnergy Ventures, which is not an authorized Energy dealer). I'm pretty sure the RC-R is not produced anymore.

My surround setup is presently in a phase of transition I had Connoisseur Energy speakers all around (CB-20s as fronts, CC-10 center and CB-10s for side surrounds). But I purchased RC-70s last Christmas, and now just ordered an RC-LCR and RC-10s. The RC-10s will replace the CB-10s for surrounds.

I'll use RC-10s as surrounds instead of dipoles because 1) a pair of RC-10s at Vann's are currently 300$, still 200$ below the V-S; 2) I don't want the hassle of hiding speaker wires in my walls; and 3) I'm actually running a 7.1 setup. The surround backs in my case are older/crappier bookshelf speakers on their back on the floor behind my couch (which is back to a bay window). Since there's no line of sight between the listener and the surround backs, that works really well as "diffuse surrounds", and they blend well with the surround sides. In 5.1 audio, the same sound goes to the surround sides and surround backs, so the localized sound from the sides is diluted with the diffuse sound from the backs. In 7.1 audio (pretty much only PS3 games), the sound is continually changing and the surround back content is generally close to the surround side content, giving pretty much the same experience.

I don't have front wides or front heights though.

For your room, you have another option for the rear speakers. The Mirage OMD5's. They got some love in the bipole/dipole thread. They have a different type of dispersion than either direct or bipole/dipole and do very well in odd shaped rooms or in locations where placement is less than ideal.

I am using a pair as surrounds with RC-10's up front and they sound great for both movies and multi-channel music. I had been using direct radiating speakers as the rear's but in my room they were not working well due to the fact that the sofa is against the back wall and the speakers were too close to either end of the sofa. (This setup is currently in a living room but will be going in a bedroom soon)

http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/it...d5-gloss-black

About 2/3's of the way down the page
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...874378&page=12