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Room Arrangement Opinions / input / advice. Details and picture inside....

post #1 of 22
1/14/13 at 2:59pm
Thread Starter 
I have this posted in my thread about subs, but want to see if I can get more input about it having it in a thread of its own.

So here is my current room layout and details, please tell me what you think I could do better in my room if anything or what might be good to change....I tried to include a few notes about speaker height and all too..The satellites are the Energy Take Classic speakers...and the subs are two 10" velodyne VX-11's. For the whole setup I spent about $353, toss in the receiver, a Yamaha HTR-5760 that I picked up a few months ago for $20 from a church garage sale and that totals up to $373 smile.gif

I do have an old pair of floor standing Sony SS-mf515's that I have been thinking about buying a center for on e-bay (I think the CN490) and using for the front of the room and using the takes for the rear surrounds...right now SBL and SBR are two cheapo sony's from an old HTIB system I have had for about 10 years, but they seem to get the job done. But if I put the Sony's up front, I could use the two front take speakers for SBL and SBR also...please let me know any thoughts on this too.
Thanks!

My room is 18' long 13' Wide and 9' Ceilings:

BTW, anyone interested, Here is the site where I made the room diagram, pretty slick and easy and I thought I would share: (http://www.planyourroom.com/)
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post #2 of 22
1/14/13 at 3:23pm
Sub B may need some delay. I'd maybe push it into the corner under the rear right. But that doesn't mean it'll be better. Measurements would help. I just went through that this weekend with my new setup. Measured each sub in various locations. Had a floor plan like yours and saved all the measurements naming them based on their position in the room. Found some good locations and then measured them all summed up. I had 4 subs to do though. 2 you may be able to get buy with some test tones. I only had one peak at 50hz, but you'll likely have a few more ups and downs with only 2. Good luck.
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post #3 of 22
1/14/13 at 3:36pm
Move the big couch away from the back wall a little bit. It should add some more depth to the surrounds. Of course, then realign the fronts and rears to get the correct angle.
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post #4 of 22
1/14/13 at 3:38pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by tuxedocivic View Post

Sub B may need some delay. I'd maybe push it into the corner under the rear right. But that doesn't mean it'll be better. Measurements would help. I just went through that this weekend with my new setup. Measured each sub in various locations. Had a floor plan like yours and saved all the measurements naming them based on their position in the room. Found some good locations and then measured them all summed up. I had 4 subs to do though. 2 you may be able to get buy with some test tones. I only had one peak at 50hz, but you'll likely have a few more ups and downs with only 2. Good luck.

Thanks, that is one thing I was wondering about, right now I have the distance setup on my receiver as the average distance of both speakers from the main listening position...which adjusts the delay some, but I will still be closer to Sub B than Sub A no matter what...I'll try pushing it back in the corner some more and run a frequency sweep tonight and see what I get...Getting ready to watch Inceptions or Master and Commander tonight.... smile.gif
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post #5 of 22
1/14/13 at 3:41pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by neuspeed94 View Post

Move the big couch away from the back wall a little bit. It should add some more depth to the surrounds. Of course, then realign the fronts and rears to get the correct angle.
I notice when I am sitting on the front edge of the couch I get a little better surround effect, but I don't know if the wife would approve of moving the couch forward...maybe I'll try a foot or so for and see what I can get away with for now...haha
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post #6 of 22
1/15/13 at 11:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rnconync View Post

I notice when I am sitting on the front edge of the couch I get a little better surround effect

Exactly, and adding absorption (or diffusion) on the wall behind you will improve on that by a considerable amount. More here:

How to set up a room
Early Reflections
Acoustic Basics

--Ethan
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post #7 of 22
1/15/13 at 2:11pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the info Ethan.

Does anyone suggest I move the RL and RR speaker forward a little? or is it OK to leave them in the corners pointing down and toward the listener? I have seen it both ways and not sure which is really supposed to be better. I have the option to move them forward or down in height, the same with all the other speakers in my setup also...I don't know if I have the height placement on all of them at the best they could be.
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post #8 of 22
1/15/13 at 3:02pm
Speakers should be placed so the tweeters are at ear height. That, and your other questions, are addressed in the Room Setup article I linked above. It's not a lot to read! biggrin.gif

--Ethan
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post #9 of 22
1/15/13 at 3:28pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ethan Winer View Post

Speakers should be placed so the tweeters are at ear height. That, and your other questions, are addressed in the Room Setup article I linked above. It's not a lot to read! biggrin.gif

--Ethan
Thanks again Ethan...
I have read through that on your site and the note about tweeters at ear level from several other sources, but my concern was with the center speaker mounted above the TV and I have also read to not have too much vertical separation between the center and FL and FR channels as you want to try and have them the same height. As for the surrounds, I have read both ways, up above your listening position, (usually 6ft or so from various places I read) with the tweeters at ear level mostly referring to the front speakers more so than the surrounds. I know your article states at ear level, but I was wondering if most people do this or place them higher.

For 5.1 setup, I have seen the speakers suggested more to the rear than the side (pretty much where I have them now), but with 7.1 RL and RR to the side and slightly behind, and the SBL and SBR behind....but being that most stuff is 5.1 I don't know which setup would be better. I do always use PL IIx to activate the SBL and SBR channels for movies, so maybe the traditional 7.1 setup would be best?

Thanks for the help so far and I will be taking the information home tonight to play some more!
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post #10 of 22
1/16/13 at 10:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rnconync View Post

my concern was with the center speaker mounted above the TV and I have also read to not have too much vertical separation between the center and FL and FR channels as you want to try and have them the same height.

I'd have to see an actual photo to be able to suggest the best compromise. I'd probably have all three speakers the same height, just below the bottom of the TV. If the TV is low to the floor, then put the speakers higher.
Quote:
As for the surrounds ... I know your article states at ear level, but I was wondering if most people do this or place them higher.

If you did what "most people" do you'd have an untreated room with one speaker on the floor and another on a bookshelf. biggrin.gif

Seriously, the standard for surround speaker placement, as defined by the NARAS division of the Grammys, is as I describe in my article. When speakers are higher you don't receive a flat response at your ears.

--Ethan
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post #11 of 22
1/16/13 at 10:35am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ethan Winer View Post

I'd have to see an actual photo to be able to suggest the best compromise. I'd probably have all three speakers the same height, just below the bottom of the TV. If the TV is low to the floor, then put the speakers higher.
If you did what "most people" do you'd have an untreated room with one speaker on the floor and another on a bookshelf. biggrin.gif

Seriously, the standard for surround speaker placement, as defined by the NARAS division of the Grammys, is as I describe in my article. When speakers are higher you don't receive a flat response at your ears.

--Ethan

Thanks again, I messed around last night and moved my front speakers down a foot or two to around 40" in height and took my center speaker from above the TV and set it on the top of the tv stand in front of the TV and I think I liked the sound much better that I have been, It sounded a little more cohesive across the front of my system and the surrounds, even at the height they are now sounded great too...I still might bring the surrounds down a foot or so also, but keeping them high enough to clear the back of the couch and be angled down. Master and Commander was fun to watch though last night smile.gif

haha...nice comment about most people...luckily with my new house and this room I have the ability to do a pretty decent job of setting things up as properly as they can in a pre-built non custom room for a theater..some rooms are very unfriendly, but I haven't had too many issues with this one so far. And luckily the wife has been pretty good about not complaining about speakers hanging off the walls everywhere now...Behind the listening position I have a set of three windows that covers about 75% of the back wall..right now they have blinds on them...from what you mentioned earlier, curtains might eventually be a good choice. I don't know how much my current setup helps with absorption / dispersion...
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post #12 of 22
1/16/13 at 3:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ethan Winer View Post

Speakers should be placed so the tweeters are at ear height. That, and your other questions, are addressed in the Room Setup article I linked above. It's not a lot to read! biggrin.gif

--Ethan

Not to derail the OPs thread, but I have a question specifically for Ethan; My Polk LS f/x surrounds are kinda "special". I'm using two pairs of these for surrounds and rears and unfortunately I have to mount my rears hanging from the ceiling (about 6" down) due to room layout. Since I have the rears so high, I mounted the surrounds at a matching height. The drivers are angled down with the nulls facing the MLP. These speakers are switchable between dipole and bipole - I have the surrounds set to dipole and the rears set to bipole. This setup sounds pretty darn good to me with a nice diffuse sound field, and I get pretty good directional effects as well.

How would you mount these types of speakers? At ear level with the nulls facing the listener? Drivers angled up or down?

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post #13 of 22
1/17/13 at 10:32am
Without seeing a photo it's tough to comment. But I'd put all speakers at ear level if possible, even if you have to hang them from the ceiling with chains or rope.

--Ethan
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post #14 of 22
1/17/13 at 11:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ethan Winer View Post

Speakers should be placed so the tweeters are at ear height. That, and your other questions, are addressed in the Room Setup article I linked above. It's not a lot to read! biggrin.gif

--Ethan

That's a starting point but note if you have multiple seats then placement of surrounds at ear height can cause listeners in the middle of a couch or row of seats to have an impeded sound path to the speaker, since other listener's heads are in the way. That's why you will see in most theaters that surrounds are installed 2ft+ above ear height so that all listeners have an unimpeded sound path to the surround speakers.
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post #15 of 22
1/18/13 at 10:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyal Mellor View Post

if you have multiple seats then placement of surrounds at ear height can cause listeners in the middle of a couch or row of seats to have an impeded sound path to the speaker, since other listener's heads are in the way.

Interesting, I never considered that. Though if the speakers are at the correct 110-120 degree angle, won't that avoid this problem?

--Ethan
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post #16 of 22
1/18/13 at 12:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rnconync View Post

I have this posted in my thread about subs, but want to see if I can get more input about it having it in a thread of its own.

Please get serious, something like this:

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post #17 of 22
1/18/13 at 1:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ethan Winer View Post

Interesting, I never considered that. Though if the speakers are at the correct 110-120 degree angle, won't that avoid this problem?

--Ethan

Generally yes, but you also have to watch for high seat backs and in some cases multiple rows of seats which can also shade the sound path.

The only other thing I might mention is if you do elevate your speakers 2+ft above the listener's ears then you should check with your speaker manufacturer that you are still in the 'operating window' for the speaker. This is normally defined as being the vertical angular window you can be within and still hear basically the same spectrum as you would directly on axis vertically. Some speakers can have some nasty lobing in the vertical direction, typically caused by interference around the crossover point between the midrange and tweeter that you want to stay clear of. Good home theater speakers like the Procella's are ok placed up to 30 degrees vertically above the listener.
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post #18 of 22
1/18/13 at 1:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyal Mellor View Post

This is normally defined as being the vertical angular window you can be within and still hear basically the same spectrum as you would directly on axis vertically.
Couldn't you tilt the speakers down so that listeners are on-axis to the surround speakers?
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post #19 of 22
1/18/13 at 2:44pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk View Post

Please get serious, something like this:


Haha...believe it or not, I had it setup that way a few weeks ago with the exclusion of the couch being there...we had one couch on either wall (top and bottom in your pic) and my wife wanted to change things around....and I already know approval of the couch where it is in your pic wouldn't happen, although I would like it there :-p it was a big enough "fight" getting the cheap equipment I have now... :-p

Thanks for taking the time to Photoshop that around for me to get a good idea, I really appreciate it...my goal is to eventually finish a similar space in our basement and move the theater stuff down there and I can then put it how I want it down there...but who knows how many years away that is, I need a project though, so maybe sooner than later...
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post #20 of 22
1/19/13 at 11:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyal Mellor View Post

you also have to watch for high seat backs

This is a good point. I always recommend against high seat backs because that gives strong reflections directly behind your ears.

--Ethan
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post #21 of 22
1/19/13 at 11:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sdurani View Post

Couldn't you tilt the speakers down so that listeners are on-axis to the surround speakers?
Yes, of course. A downside is potential loss of envelopment as more of the speakers energy is directed towards the floor rather than in the horizontal plane.
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post #22 of 22
1/20/13 at 11:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyal Mellor View Post

A downside is potential loss of envelopment as more of the speakers energy is directed towards the floor rather than in the horizontal plane.
True, though I haven't felt the loss of envelopment on my system, but maybe that's because I use 4 surrounds (the surround field literally wraps around me). Also, I don't point my surrounds at the floor but instead the person sitting on the opposite side of the couch (a bit of energy trading to keep the nearby speakers from dominating).
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AVS › AVS Forum › Audio › Audio theory, Setup and Chat › Room Arrangement Opinions / input / advice. Details and picture inside....