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New living room/home theater build house under construction!

post #1 of 3
5/7/12 at 4:01pm
Thread Starter 
Hello everyone,

I am having a new home built in which my home theater area will be in the living room and I need to decide the locations for in wall wiring and speaker placement for 7 channels. I will also pre-wire for 4 sub connections and may pre-wire for heights/wides. Also anyone's insight on pre-wiring for ethernet and perhaps projector.



This is a picture of the same room showing what will be front right of the MLP. I have to keep all speakers on the front wall. I'm still undecided if I will use bipolar tower speakers front L&R or direct radiating bookshelf matching the height of the center channel speaker. I plan of having the front L&R's around 4' left and right of center line of the room due to the arched opening to the hallway.



Any and all suggestions from lighting to acoustics to whatever you would do with a new build if it was you making the choices is greatly appreciated!

Have a great day!
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post #2 of 3
5/7/12 at 6:54pm
Looks like you have a great room if you utilize placement correctly. I'm far from being any kind of expert and I don't even have much installation experience, but after doing lots of research I'd say your plan is far from ideal as you have it.

1. The rear surrounds are too close to the MLP. Go with just dipole side surrounds or move up the MLP if possible. There should be >3 feet behind the seating for good rear surround placement.

2. As aesthetically pleasing as it may be to have the LCR up higher, the tweeters should be at ear level. If you don't want to move L and R down, then perhaps just put the center underneath the TV.

3. I'm familiar and partial toward Audyssey's DSX (as opposed to Dolby's) guide for heights and wides placement. The wides should be on the side wall, and at ear level, so I suppose you could try it but I trust the guys that do the research. The best place would be for the heights where you have the wides, and move the L and R out to improve separation.

Overall, I think this room was meant to have a 5.x system. A very difficult layout. There is a point when more speakers actually hurts the room. Looks like you could add front heights with great results.
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post #3 of 3
5/7/12 at 9:13pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by dctrombly View Post

Looks like you have a great room if you utilize placement correctly. I'm far from being any kind of expert and I don't even have much installation experience, but after doing lots of research I'd say your plan is far from ideal as you have it.

1. The rear surrounds are too close to the MLP. Go with just dipole side surrounds or move up the MLP if possible. There should be >3 feet behind the seating for good rear surround placement.

2. As aesthetically pleasing as it may be to have the LCR up higher, the tweeters should be at ear level. If you don't want to move L and R down, then perhaps just put the center underneath the TV.

3. I'm familiar and partial toward Audyssey's DSX (as opposed to Dolby's) guide for heights and wides placement. The wides should be on the side wall, and at ear level, so I suppose you could try it but I trust the guys that do the research. The best place would be for the heights where you have the wides, and move the L and R out to improve separation.

Overall, I think this room was meant to have a 5.x system. A very difficult layout. There is a point when more speakers actually hurts the room. Looks like you could add front heights with great results.

Hi dctrombly,

Thanks for your input! I totally agree surround back speakers make little improvement if my MLP is against the back wall. I thought I will have it done because it's easier to do the wiring and not use it then want it later, it made sense to have it wired. I never know if I will have furniture that will look right further away from the wall in the future. I also have a nice recliner off to the side of the couch that I often use and thought more surround speakers may improve what one hears far left and right of the MLP.

I think I will just stick with my tower speakers FL & FR rather than bookshelf's higher up on the wall. I have a 60" tv and generally have preferred my center to be above it and angled down as opposed to the center being too low below the TV or the TV being too high up on the wall. Perhaps I will wire the center to have the connection behind the TV so I can try it above and below the TV to see what sounds best prior to mounting it.

I think pre-wiring for heights in the wide location make sense, I wish I could separate the FL & FR more, but I have the opening to the hallway to contend with.

I agree it is a challenging room to deal with considering the lack of symmetry one has in a dedicated HT space. I appreciate your input.
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