[ioweiowe]

I have a large family room 19X22 with 18 foot ceilings with an open layout on the first and 2nd floors to a 4500sqft house. This is the room we spend most of our time in, and we'd like to add an audio system for the 58" plasma TV I have mounted above a fireplace mantle. The problem is that, like many family/great rooms they build these days, it's not laid out well for speaker placement. We'll be movie watching, but I am also interested playing music throughout the entire house in this rather open floor plan. No one can seem to make a decision at home, so hopefully, you folks can give me some advice.


Basically, I can mount bookshelf or in-wall speakers right next to the TV, or I can put tower speakers in the corners. If I go with the smaller speakers, they will look better, but I think it might be defeating a big part of the purpose. Even if I add a center speaker, they'll all be so close to the TV that at 18ft away, I can't imagine much surround effects. Not to mention that I can't imagine that three speakers immediately surrounding the TV will look real good. I'm concerned that even with a sub-woofer, the sound quality and volume, won't be what I'm looking for. Seems to me with this option, I might as well just install the two bookshelf speakers to improve my TV sound quality and forget about rear surrounds, center, and sub-woofer. I can install a stereo in my formal living room for music, and maybe someday re-model upstairs with a home theater.


If I put in tower speakers in the corners, I'll have to lift them 24-30" to get them over the couches that come in close to the corners. In the right corner, the speaker will be in front of the bookcase/cabinet. Then there would be a large sub-woofer that would have to go in one of the corners or just left of the TV there's a spot for one. Perhaps even up on the ledge above the TV? I can also mount a sub-woofer in one of the rear corners. I doubt any of that is going to look real good in the front of the room.


So my question is really how much will I be losing using bookshelf speakers right next to the TV as compared to tower speakers in the corners? Can I get good sound quality and volume, assuming I also have a sub-woofer, and will I be defeating the point of a surround sound system with the speakers all right next to the TV? I want to improve the TV sound, even if it's only stereo. However, I don't want to spend a lot of money on a surround sound system, and then not really have the speakers to get the full benefit of it.


Here's, a picture with a couple of old tower speakers I'm looking at as just a crude estimate. So how will this look assuming nice new speakers and either some sort of nice table or stands to get the speakers up above the couches? Keep in mind there will also have to be a sub in either corner or just left of the TV. What other options do I have for any part of this?

 

[tvrgeek]

Tower, or true full range, are most useful for 2-chanel music sans sub. If you put in a sub and cross over at 60 Hz or so, the woofers in the towers will be doing nothing.

Spend your money on better quality 6 1/2 2-way or MTM configuration satellites and a pair of good subs. Check out the DIT thread if you are in to that. There are some very good established designs. Huge saving =s in the sub area.

 

[Peter White]

If you're going to have seating all around the perimeter of the room, which is how it seems from the photo, you might as well forget about surround sound. You could just leave the towers where they are, add a center channel and a subwoofer and be done with it, assuming you have a surround sound amp.


You might also work out a system whereby you are able to move seating into a better arrangement when you're watching a movie, and then move seating back to where it's better for socializing. Clearly, if you're sitting around talking, you'll want to be seated differently than when you're watching a movie. That's why folks who have the option will always prefer having a separate home theater room and another room as a living room.


If at all possible, for watching movies, set up a full surround sound system, either 5.1 or 7.1. But I wouldn't bother doing it unless you can get some or all of the seating out towards the center of the room while watching movies, otherwise the surround sound won't work all that well. It may be better than two channel stereo, but I doubt it would be worth the expense.


As to whether you should use the tower speakers or smaller wall mounted speakers, I think that depends on whether there would be times when you want to listen to music in two channel only. For me, when I'm listening to LP records, I generally don't want the subwoofer in the loop. And a lot of music sounds better in two channel rather than in the DSP surround modes. My turntable has trouble with low frequency feedback, but only with the subwoofer in the loop, and only at loud volume, but it is an issue, and I prefer to just play records in two channel to keep things simple. So having two full range speakers is, for me, a real advantage.


But if you don't have a need to eliminate the subwoofer, you can get just as good sound quality with small speakers and a subwoofer, provided the small speakers are reasonably flat to 80hz.

 

[ioweiowe]

I have seating all around the room, but primarily, our immediate family can watch movies on the couch straight back from the TV. I can mount surround speakers directly above and to the side of this couch. I can move the couch out into the room a bit for movies, if it will help, but the only place I can mount the surround speakers is on the side walls, above the couch, no more than 2 feet from the back wall and on the back wall itself.


Back on the bookshelf speakers, what about the placement right next to the TV? I'm thinking that watching from 18 feet back, having left, right, and center all right next to the TV isn't going to do a lot for me as far as surround sound. I had an installer tell me he wouldn't even install a center speaker. It seems to me I'm going to end up with not much more than one big center speaker. Which again goes back to whether a surround sound system would even be worth it.


It still seems to come down to the aesthetics of speakers raised thirty inches in the front corners, bookshelf or tower, with sub-woofer, or just going with improved stereo sound. Does anyone have an opinion to offer as to how that would look or any ideas for making it look better?

 

[Peter White]

It's hard to talk about what looks better than what, since it's subjective.


Having the two main speakers close to the TV isn't a problem. Having them wide apart isn't going to give you anything like surround sound, since that requires separate channels of sound, with different sound, and different timing, to give the effect of sound coming from different locations. Until you've heard a proper surround sound system with well recorded music or movie soundtrack, it's hard to understand what it's all about.


The ideal would be three speakers in front. The two mains would be positioned a few feet to either side of the TV monitor, and the third, the "center channel" would be positioned immediately above or below the TV. Actually, the "ideal" setup is an acoustically transparent TV screen (using a projector) and a center channel speaker directly behind the screen, just like at a good movie theater. But I think the difference is subtle. Since our ears are aligned horizontally, differences in height aren't quite as obvious to us as differences in horizontal location.


If you aren't going to have actual surround channel speakers, either 5.1 or 7.1, don't try to substitute by spreading your main speakers far apart, it won't work. All of the sound coming from the three front speakers in a movie soundtrack is intended to sound as though it's coming from the screen or thereabouts.


For a dual purpose living room / home theater room, I thing having wall mounted speakers would be ideal, mostly since it's two more things you don't need to take into account when moving furniture about. And as I wrote before, there's no loss of sound quality if you have a subwoofer and good main speakers. For example, the Martin Logan Fresco i is very flat to just below 80z, and sounds almost as good as an electrostatic.


Have you also considered using other locations for the TV screen besides over the fireplace? Perhaps another wall would give you more flexibility for speaker placement?

 

[ioweiowe]

I've only been talking about the front of the room, but I do intend on mounting surround speakers in the back of the room as well. I have to mount them on the side walls no more than about 1.5 ft from the back wall. I had an installer tell me that's not an ideal situation either with the speakers so close to the back wall. That's the best I can do though. There's no other option.


I'm still thinking that in the front, I need to mount the speakers in the corners of the room. At 18 ft, I can't imagine we'll be able to hear any spatial difference between left, right and center if the speakers are all right next to the TV. At the immediate sides of the TV, the speakers would only be like 3 ft off center, and almost directly under the center speaker.


There's no other place besides right next to the TV that I can really wall mount two speakers. On the left I can, but on the right, there's that book case. I'm thinking where the speakers are shown in the picture is the best option, and it's either smaller or bigger speakers and what kind of stands or tables I'll have to put them on to get them up over the couches.


We've thought about mounting the TV on another wall. We'd have to give up one of the couches we just bought though, and we really enjoy all the seating in the room. We'd still have all the same issues with a relatively short wall, a large TV, three speakers, and still limited options for mounting the surrounds. Plus the TV would then be directly facing a wall of east facing windows with a lot of sunlight. I've seen a lot of family rooms like this. They're not really laid out very well for much of anything.


I think I'm just going to buy the tower speakers, the other speakers for a 5.1 system, and a receiver. Then I can experiment with different placement of the speakers and decide how well the room is actually working for surround sound. I'll have a better idea of what I really need, and if this equipment doesn't work out, I can always use it elsewhere in the house or sell it.

 

[Peter White]



Quote:
Originally Posted by ioweiowe /forum/post/16901165


At 18 ft, I can't imagine we'll be able to hear any spatial difference between left, right and center if the speakers are all right next to the TV.

Sure you will. That's why you have two ears, so that you can easily calculate the direction sounds come from.


Don't forget, the discreet sounds coming from the two main speakers in a movie soundtrack are sounds that the director intends to be coming from around the edges of the screen. In a movie theater, the three front speakers are either behind the screen, or just to the right and left of the screen.


So if you're far from the screen, you have a smaller view of the movie, but you still want the sounds to come from the same direction, relative to the image on the screen.


In other words, if you have a small screen, you also want a small sound stage. Again, there's no program in the two mains that will give you "surround sound", so having wide separation between the mains only serves to place dialogue and sounds that should seem to come from the screen, out away from the screen.

 

[ioweiowe]

Alright, thanks for explaining that Peter. I think I've got to get something in the room so I can start to see what it's going to look like and hear what it's going to sound like. I ordered the tower speakers from Axiom and a Denon 3808 receiver. I'll bring this thread up again when I get things set up. I'm sure I'll have lots of more questions then.