surround Speaker Setup: Ideal Ear Height vs. The Couch

Buy wall mounting bipolar speakers and mount them on the wall behind you about 2-3 ft above your head on either side of the couch so the sound is even.. JMO

+1. Will give you more room too.

+2 Move the couch forward too.

Your not going to notice a sound diff with surrounds. They play sporadically.. You could go with Mirage OMD 5's which are omnipolar,or any bipolar surround.. Don't go dipole..

Your present surround speakers are too close to the listener and the above recommendations will give you a much better sound quality.

If you can move it to 38% of the room, that would be ideal:
http://www.realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm

Craig

Well, anything you can do to get the surrounds further from the LP will be beneficial. The ideal placement for the surrounds is above ear level at 90 to 110 degrees to the LP. If you can move the sofa forward even 2 feet and get the surrounds up on the wall, you would be much better off.



Then add a thick panel on the rear wall at ear level.

Craig

Okay, if the authority doesn't want the sofa moved forward, see if you can get agreement to raise and mount them two to three feet above your seated listening ears, pretty much in the same area the photo shows, but mounted higher. IMO, the surround sound I hear on movies and concerts are sounds that the producer does not want localized.(aimed at listeners ears). They want you to hear reflected sound off of near by walls, so that one cannot detect exactly where the surround sound is coming from...like being fooled as to where the sounds are coming from...making the experience more convincible.
In some settings aiming the surrounds away from the listener is the best way to accomplish this. The front three speakers are different and often need to have the sound localized (know precisely where the sound is coming from and ending up.)

Surround sound speakers pointed at the listener do not produce a convincable effect IMO. You want every seat to get the best surround effect if possible. As stated, sometimes the best effect is reflected surround sound.

Put your favorite scene in that has lots of surround action, and experiment with different angles. I think you'll be most impressed when the surround spkrs are pointed away from the general listening area. You'll be hearing more reflected surround sound, which is a good thing, IMO. Try it and post what you think, after moving around from seat to seat.

Can you repeat what the make and model of your surrounds are...monopole,dipole or bi-pole? At first glance, the spkrs in the photo don't look like the typical surround spkr. (I may be wrong).
Once the surrounds are placed 2 to 3 feet above ear level, they won't be pointing directly at any particular seat...kind of spraying the sound around the room to different places making it difficult to determine where those sounds are coming from-a good thing for surrounds. Then you can tweak the positioning of them to your liking. You want to try to follow Dolby and THX placement suggestions, but most of our living rooms- including mine are not the ideal listening environment, so getting good sound in these rooms is a challenge, and sometimes you have to deviate from the norm and make the best of it by self experimenting. Again this effect is different for the front sound stage, where sound staging and localization is desired.
Experiment and let us know what you like.

+2 because think about one of you seated will be listening to compromise rather than having it equally spread around with uniformity.

Mount them on the wall with brackets and tilt them down for equal angle. That is how it is in the cinema.

I have 260s and the 325. I used BA HS40s before I got the VS 240. Wall mounting 6-8 foot high on the side walls is fine. That's how I have mine and the 5.1 sound is great and 6.1 sounds like I have a rear channel they image so well. Look through the Boston Acoustics owners thread and you can see some picks.

I took some quick shots with my iPad to show you what I was talking about.

I have a setup similar to yours, except with two end tables rather than speaker stands. I had the speakers pointed at the primary listening position for a while, but I recently aligned them so they're facing toward the center of the room. This arrangement provides a much better surround effect, especially since I can't mount on the wall.

The 260s are on stands. The ones mounted are the 240s. They are slightly larger than the HS40s

My fronts was near almost ready for five screen matrix built into to baffle wall that was almost finished I had the extra Dolby matrix decoders for it and I only needed the a two more amps and another Behringer DCX2496 to finalize it.








The surrounds are arranged at equal height simple easy to fit up in less than 10mins for each one. The panorama picture was a little hard to see on dinky sized screen when editing the image plus I should have used a tripod. The left side is missing one surround they are all in-line with one another on each sidewall. Between the rear back is the LCD projector with a towel covering it to keep it dust of it when not in use.

Then I come across some of what I been after for 20 years some cool JBL Control 12SR going at low price. So I've had to start over again with fronts



And yes I use the CRT for regular viewing there is a bed sheet placed above out of view cameras framing that I only drop down for guests never for myself now for wasting lamp life on the projector its used when guest or friends pop over.

So if I can fit 12 surrounds around the room in tight small room so can the next person and the person beside him 1 the surrounds are out of the way, 2 your not climbing over them when walking around the room 3 it looks cool 4 it surrounds me like I'm listening to the same film in the cinema again only in far smaller room.