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Building a new basement with 7.2.4 speaker setup - need advice

498 Views 11 Replies 6 Participants Last post by RayGuy, Sep 11, 2019

Rashid Sohail

Discussion Starter · Aug 17, 2019

Hey all,

Just wanted to get your opinion and feedback on a new HT I'm building in the basement. No walls have gone up but I preffer to have details plans right down to the wires and plugs I will use before putting up any structures.

In this thread, I'm interested in getting feedback on speaker placement for the size of my room and also the # of speakers. I may start other threads for other advise I'm looking for.

Thanks

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m0j0

· #2 · Aug 17, 2019 (Edited)

You might want to consider turning your setup 90 degrees to the right. I think your fronts and rear surrounds might be too wide and I see that the entrance is preventing you from pulling in the fronts, so by turn the room you have more flexibility in speaker placement.

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RayGuy

· #3 · Aug 17, 2019

Or reorient at 180 degrees, to give you more wall to position the speakers. Give yourself some leeway in sub positioning, as the position shown may not be the best for sound quality. Review these options, and see which works best for you in the room:

https://www.aperionaudio.com/blogs/aperion-audio-blog/dual-subwoofer-placement-for-your-home

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Rashid Sohail

Discussion Starter · #4 · Aug 18, 2019

Thanks for the feedback, I also did some more research and found this great site by RBHSound which showed a top down view of how to setup a 7.2.4 speaker setup. I essentially made the following adjustments:
- shifted the double door to the left
- moved the front speakers closed together, away from the wall and toed them in a few degrees
- re-positioned the top ceiling mounted speakers
- moved the back surround speakers closer together
- moved the side surround speakers to align with the sofas since I shifted that up a bit

Let me know if that looks better?

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RayGuy

· #5 · Aug 18, 2019

Looks better, but you want your side surrounds to have a direct line of sight to all seated heads. To that end, move them to 80 degrees (slightly in front of the seated listener), or keep at 90 degrees, but raise them a foot, or drop them back behind the couch at 100 degrees. You want to avoid the speaker in the ear effect, where one side speaker dominates a persons hearing sitting on that side. You might experiment with the positions described before permanently mounting them.

Otherwise, your layout seems pretty good, pending actual listening and tuning of final positions.

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m0j0

· #6 · Aug 18, 2019

This looks better. I want to say that the rear surrounds need to come in though, but maybe that's just me. I like mine about 4 feet apart centered on the MLP.

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gajCA

· #7 · Aug 18, 2019

Rashid Sohail said:
Hey all,

Just wanted to get your opinion and feedback on a new HT I'm building in the basement. No walls have gone up but I preffer to have details plans right down to the wires and plugs I will use before putting up any structures.

In this thread, I'm interested in getting feedback on speaker placement for the size of my room and also the # of speakers. I may start other threads for other advise I'm looking for.

Thanks

That's a tiny room so if budget is a concern, 5.2.4 would allow for better quality speakers or subs as the cost difference between a receiver capable of 7.2.4 is substantial...plus the cost of 2 more speakers of course.

If budget is not a concern then by all means proceed with your plan.

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Rashid Sohail

Discussion Starter · #8 · Sep 10, 2019

Hey all,

I just started building my basement out and noticed the amount of ventilation I have and these pipes run everywhere I wanted to place my Atmos speakers. I'm now left with very limited # of options and wanted to bounce them off you all.

These soffits drop down about 12" from the ceiling and the height of my basement is about 88" on average.

Here is a drawing I put together with the soffits in place and my room LxW is now 17' 4" x 14'.

7.2.4 vs. 5.2.4 is a very good consideration given the diff. between the receiver is about $1000. At this point I am budgeting for 7.2.4 unless its not recommended for a room this size, I will reconsider.

The Atmos speakers are 2 feet from back wall and 4 feet from side walls meaning they are now 6' apart and are less then the recommended dolby spec. of 0.5 to 0.7.

Let me know your thoughts.

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RayGuy

· #9 · Sep 10, 2019 (Edited)

If that is your placement restriction, then you have to go with it. Does not look to be a very big compromise, from my viewpoint.

As to the receiver, you may save a few bucks by going with a receiver that has 11 channels of processing and only 9 amp channels. You can always add on an inexpensive external 2 channel amp to power the remaining two channels if you think it necessary. Two channel amps are readily available, you could even use an old receiver, or one of the new mini digital amps that go for $80, give or take $20.

Looks like the planning stage is over ... we'll expect pics and analysis after it's done!

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sdurani

· #10 · Sep 10, 2019

If you haven't started building yet, are you willing to rotate the set-up 90 degrees so that the TV is below the soffit?

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PhilH930

· #11 · Sep 11, 2019

RayGuy said:
Looks better, but you want your side surrounds to have a direct line of sight to all seated heads. To that end, move them to 80 degrees (slightly in front of the seated listener), or keep at 90 degrees, but raise them a foot, or drop them back behind the couch at 100 degrees. You want to avoid the speaker in the ear effect, where one side speaker dominates a persons hearing sitting on that side. You might experiment with the positions described before permanently mounting them.

Otherwise, your layout seems pretty good, pending actual listening and tuning of final positions.

This post grabbed my attention! New 5.1 setup (moving to 5.2.4 in coming weeks). My sofa is against the back wall, and SL and SR are toed in towards the seating position. I sit on the left side of the sofa and feel the SL is so dominant. This was exacerbated by a bad mix over the wkd on ESPN whereby vocals were pushed from all channels while watching college football (not present on any other broadcast since), but still my left ear was aching!

So, any suggestions. I may pull the couch out another 8-10 inches and change the speaker direction so its not quite in ear as much.

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RayGuy

· #12 · Sep 11, 2019 (Edited)

You gain better sound distribution with distance. So, move the speakers forward of their current position (if using both side and rear surrounds), rearward of their current position (if no rear surrounds), and/or higher than their current position. Play with positioning and toe-in/out until you get a satisfactory mix of both channels in each seating location. One option to try, is to aim the speaker to the opposite side of the couch. If one still sounds louder, then try raising it another 6" or toe it out a bit more.

If none of this works, then look into bipole speakers.

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Building a new basement with 7.2.4 speaker setup - need advice

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