[seand]

Please don't flame!! My theater is an excercise in compromize. I know it's less than ideal.


My room will have a curtain on the entire right side to block light from a coral reef tank.


FYI: I'll be using the Parts Express - Vance Dickason HT speaker kit and add in 2 more Audax based bookshelf speakers as rear surrounds. Not an exact driver match, but at least the same manufacturer.


Room specs:

---------------

14.5' long x 15.5' wide x 7.5' tall


The entire right side is a curtain - without the curtain, the room is 14.5' x 19.5', but contains a large fish tank


Walls and ceiling will be "sandwash" textured dark blue paint with a carpeted floor.


84"-90" wide screen


Prime viewing area will be 10-13 feet back from the screen.


7.1 setup


Front speaker positioning is not a problem and I'll put the sub wherever it sounds best.


I need suggestions on placing the surrounds:

---------------------------------------------------------

L+R surrounds will hopefully be even with or slightly behind the listener


L+R rear surrounds will be mounted on the rear wall firing at the listener, or possibly on the ceiling, firing back at the rear wall.


I'm afraid of the side surrounds being too close to the back wall and giving odd reflections. I could easily use some acoustic tiles to counter that.


I'm also worried about the rear surrounds being too close to the listener.

Does anyone have any suggestions on placing my surround speakers or has anyone dealt with similar issues?

 

[PooperScooper]

I think the Dolby web site has what you may be looking for.


My 0.02: Ideally the L+R "side surrounds" should be dipole

type speakers firing towards the front and back. If so, they should

be place about even with seating position. Since you can't mount up

on wall, get tallest stand you can. If they are just front firing, you

could try placing them behind the listening position along the

wall(s) facing forward. The L+R "rear surrounds" are usually

monopole(?) "front firing" and they can be in rear corners angled

in towards listening position or they can be spaced, almost mirroring

your front speakers, and facing front - like rear stereo. These speakers

play an important part in DVD-A and SACD multichannel, which sounds

excellent, btw. Regardless how you set them up, getting the speaker

distance and delay calibrated is most important for the correct effects.


have fun!


larry


This is how I will be setting up my room once my new rear surrounds

stop being Front L+R while one of my "real" Front R comes back

from having some work done on it. I really want to mount my dipoles

up on the wall, but really dread finding a decent mount (30 lbs speakers

I think) and running cable up into wall. I'll use my current stands first.

 

[seand]

The side surrounds are dipole. The rears are direct radiating.


My big concern is that the side surrounds will be only about 2 ft from the rear wall.

 

[PooperScooper]

I think you should be ok. You may want to experiment some with

level and delay of the surrounds, but it should sound just fine.

For movies all 4 "rear" speakers will take part in "surround effects"

and for music just the rears will be used.

 

[seand]

I have a Sony DA4ES, so I can do a little tweaking. I haven't installed it yet, or checked into if it has a delay function.

 

[PooperScooper]

Delay should be taken care of by setting speaker distance. That's

how I should have referred to it. The $35 Radio Shack sound level

meter works great when setting/checking levels.


larry

 

[seand]

I finally set up the DA4ES in my temporary theater in the living room. I hooked up a 5.1 setup and dialed in my best guess at the distances, and WOW!! I can't wait to get my basement finished and have 7.1!!