[johnuustal]

How far do monopole side surrounds have to be from the closest seating location in order to avoid drawing attention to the speakers themselves? My room is fairly narrow and my side surorunds will be lined up with the seating, but I will only have about 2 feet from the speaker to the person at the closest seating position. WIll that be too close to the end seat, so that the side surround speaker is too loud, too distracting, etc? Anyone have any advice on this? thx

 

[Webb]

I have used speakers in a near field setup before with no issues, just EQ them properly

 

[Mr. Audio]



Quote:
Originally Posted by johnuustal /forum/post/12951367


How far do monopole side surrounds have to be from the closest seating location in order to avoid drawing attention to the speakers themselves? My room is fairly narrow and my side surorunds will be lined up with the seating, but I will only have about 2 feet from the speaker to the person at the closest seating position. WIll that be too close to the end seat, so that the side surround speaker is too loud, too distracting, etc? Anyone have any advice on this? thx

I don't recommend near field direct firing speakers for one main reason. When the speaker is too close to the seating position there is not enough wall for the sound to bounce off of to create any room ambient effects. All your other speakers are placed to where they will create these effects but the surrounds won't be and this will help your ears to locate them and make the rear speakers sound fake. Setting your speaker's distance properly can make things sound better but you'll still lack the ambient sound of your room. However using a DSP mode like Yamaha's Cinema DSP can almost eliminate this issue since it adds ambient effects to sound just like a movie theater. Don't knock it, it's quite impressive and really does sound like a theater. I read that Onkyo's 805 jumped on that band wagon as well just for this purpose.


In short if you have the room, spread your surrounds out almost as far as you can. I have been in the situation where my surrounds had to be just about next to my head....very small room. In that case there isn't much you can do but to get bipolar or dipole speakers to create ambient sound to distract your ears from the direct sound.

 

[porsche951]

If you are resting drinks on top of your surround speakers, they are too close...

 

[Mr. Audio]

SHUT UP I used to do that!

 

[ralfwolf]

If someone walks into the room and says, "are those new headphones?".. probably too close.

I agree dipoles would be easier to tune in a close position. Monopoles pointed to the rear L/R corners (think bank shot in pool) might produce more diffuse sound and help with your problem.

 

[porsche951]



Quote:
Originally Posted by ralfwolf /forum/post/12962298


If someone walks into the room and says, "are those new headphones?".. probably too close.

I agree dipoles would be easier to tune in a close position. Monopoles pointed to the rear L/R corners (think bank shot in pool) might produce more diffuse sound and help with your problem.

LOL, good one.

 

[Dennis Erskine]



Quote:
How far do monopole side surrounds have to be from the closest seating

about 15'. Dipoles are a different story.