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Mounting speakers upsidedown?

post #1 of 14
11/3/07 at 3:11pm
Thread Starter 
I recently upgraded my front speakers, and now will move the old fronts, which are infinity tss-sat4000's, to the surround position. The speaker wire for the surrounds is very short, and I can't pull it out of the wall any further. The connections on the infinity's are near the bottom of the speaker such that I can only mount them upside down, or I'd have to splice some extra wire onto the existing short wire to mount rightside up. Aside from having the writing on the front of the speaker upside down, is there anything bad about mounting them upside down? I'd rather avoid having to splice more wire length to the existing wire. I'm a beginner here, I don't know if there's any liquid/oil or anything in the speakers that would contra indicate upside down mounting.
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post #2 of 14
11/3/07 at 3:17pm
Speakers generally do fine upside down.

The bigger question is which way they will be directed once they are installed. Having them aimed the wrong way is way worse than having a splice in the wire.

What height are they mounted? Which way are you going to aim them?
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post #3 of 14
11/3/07 at 3:35pm
Thread Starter 
My room is 24' long with 2 rows of seating, the 2nd row is 2 feet in front of the back wall so I just mount the speakers on the back wall. The bracket allows the speaker to swivel in the horizontal position. I mount them as high as I can on the back wall, about 7 feet high, as the 2nd row of seating is raised 16". I was just going to mount them facing straight to the front, but perhaps I should slightly angle them downward toward the listening position?
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post #4 of 14
11/3/07 at 4:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kevinee View Post

My room is 24' long with 2 rows of seating, the 2nd row is 2 feet in front of the back wall so I just mount the speakers on the back wall. The bracket allows the speaker to swivel in the horizontal position. I mount them as high as I can on the back wall, about 7 feet high, as the 2nd row of seating is raised 16". I was just going to mount them facing straight to the front, but perhaps I should slightly angle them downward toward the listening position?

If possible, add the wire splice and mount them on the side walls at 90 degrees to and facing towards the listening position.
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/home_e...omlayout2.html

Craig
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post #5 of 14
11/3/07 at 6:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by buzzy_ View Post

Speakers generally do fine upside down.

Well if theyre horns they wont.
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post #6 of 14
11/3/07 at 6:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raymond Leggs View Post

Well if theyre horns they wont.

Why?

Craig
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post #7 of 14
11/4/07 at 11:19am
Because the woofer will be above the horn!
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post #8 of 14
11/4/07 at 11:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raymond Leggs View Post

Because the woofer will be above the horn!

So what?

My horn-using center is mounted upside-down. The woofer is closer to the ceiling, which acts somewhat like the floor would if they were sitting on the floor.
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post #9 of 14
11/4/07 at 3:17pm
The vertical lobing of the interference pattern between the woofer and the tweeter varies from one speaker to another -- driver spacing, crossover frequency, and crossover design all affect this.

In order to see how big of a deal this is with your speakers, simply listen while slowly moving your head up and down -- if the sound changes a good bit you can try to provide the appropriate vertical tilt to aim the 'best' sound at the center of your seating area.

Usually the main difference in mounting speakers upside down near the ceiling comes from the change in which driver is benefiting most from ceiling reflections -- upside down will increase the bass and decrease the treble.
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post #10 of 14
11/4/07 at 5:12pm
I use "stacked" pairs of speakers across the front of my main theatre - tweeter to tweeter. Turns out that the stack equals the height of the room - within a few mm.

So the woofer on the bottom speaker is coupled to the floor - as it should be. And the woofer in the speaker on top uses the ceiling as its floor.

This also places the acoustic centre of the speaker stacks at centre height in the room - and locates the front centre speaker's acoustic centre directly in the centre of the acoustically-transparent screen that it sits behind.

So to answer the original question, I have found nothing but good with mounting at least the top half of each of my speaker stacks upside down. The only thing I needed to do was to make sure that the inverted speakers' internal sound absording material was well-achored in place so that it would not "fall" from the bottom and block the dual ports when inverted. Otherwise the drivers / crossovers have no idea which way is up!
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post #11 of 14
11/4/07 at 9:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Mackwood View Post

I use "stacked" pairs of speakers across the front of my main theatre - tweeter to tweeter. Turns out that the stack equals the height of the room - within a few mm.

So the woofer on the bottom speaker is coupled to the floor - as it should be. And the woofer in the speaker on top uses the ceiling as its floor.

This also places the acoustic centre of the speaker stacks at centre height in the room - and locates the front centre speaker's acoustic centre directly in the centre of the acoustically-transparent screen that it sits behind.

So to answer the original question, I have found nothing but good with mounting at least the top half of each of my speaker stacks upside down. The only thing I needed to do was to make sure that the inverted speakers' internal sound absording material was well-achored in place so that it would not "fall" from the bottom and block the dual ports when inverted. Otherwise the drivers / crossovers have no idea which way is up!

i see that you have only one post, so welcome!

stacking speakers like that should not be done. once the distance between tweeters is a multiple of the wavelength, almost total cancellation can occur. there will be 12db+ nulls in this setup. danny ritchie has shown this experimentally.
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post #12 of 14
11/4/07 at 11:30pm
However, that does not occur on axis. If Jeff's tweeters are close to ear level, he should be in the center lobe of the vertical diffraction pattern.

It's certainly a valid concern for close mounted drivers, but in many cases the benefits of increased power radiation outweigh the interference pattern effects.

I would not advise anyone to go out and buy a second pair of speakers to do this until they have tried stacking the pair they have and listening/measuring critically.
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post #13 of 14
11/5/07 at 9:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by psgcdn View Post

My horn-using center is mounted upside-down. The woofer is closer to the ceiling, which acts somewhat like the floor would if they were sitting on the floor.

This is a best way to utilize most (but not all) speakers which are mounted closer to the ceiling than the floor:

Flip the speakers over so that the woofer is closer to the ceiling and the tweeter is further from the ceiling. In other words, locate the drivers relative to the ceiling in the same way that they would be located relative to the floor if they were being used closer to the floor.
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post #14 of 14
11/5/07 at 10:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Mackwood View Post

I use "stacked" pairs of speakers across the front of my main theatre - tweeter to tweeter.

Just curious; what speakers? Klipsch, right? Got any pics?
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