[rhino6465]

So I have been reading over the post for some time new in the hopes of finding the right speakers for my new living room based home theater. It looks like I am out of my league as now I feel like I understand less than when I started. To that end I was hoping you all could offer some suggestions on speakers. Also I would love it if I could understand why you make the suggestion you do (teach a man to fish sort of thing).


Objective:

-Find speakers and sub for a 5.1 system used for 45% movies, 45% gaming and 10% music.

Constraints:
-Budget

- 3,000 to 4000 dollar ideally if in the higher range the speakers would be much more bang for the buck.

-Cubic footage (See floor plan below)

- ~6000 cubic feet ( The living room has 12 foot ceiling and the dining area has 9 foot.

-Furniture (See sketchup image below)

- The furniture was purchased already and cant really change. I'm sure you all can guess why. This setup consumes all but inches of the wall space meaning that the speakers must live in the same space this furniture does. This means front speakers have to be no higher than 4' and no deeper than 1'. Wall mounted or something that sits on top of the bottom cabinets would be acceptable.

-Room Layout( See floor plan image below)

- The arch on the north end of the Family room consumes all of would be that "wall" which seems to limit my options for surrounds. As far as I am able to discern the only real option here is in wall/ceiling, but if there are other options I am willing to listen.

Other Useful Info:
Current Audio Equipment

- Denon AVR 4311CI on the way.

Other room info

- The flooring in the kitchen area and dining area are tile

- The flooring in the living area is carpet.

 

[Jay1]

I see a few potential problems. You're sitting pretty far back (about 5 meters), which means you will need some pretty capable speakers for theater like volume levels. Your speakers will literally sound less then half as loud where you're sitting compared to what they're producing at 1 meter. It doesnt look like you have much room for a center channel speaker, which means if you get a small speaker to go under the tv it will sound anemic. You might be better off skipping the center unless you're okay putting a stand on the floor in front of the tv/shelf, or wall mounting above the recessed part of your cabinet with the speakers angled down. You can however still get very good sound without a center, especially with your distance being so far back. Speakers with good off axis response will do a good job as a phantom center. You also need speakers specifically designed to be mounted up against a wall, as placing a speaker designed to be out in the room in this location can lead to an over emphasized lower midrange. Your AVR's auto eq will definitely help with that issue though.

 

[rhino6465]

Jay1,

Thanks for the input/advice. I don't know what TV I am going to pair with this all yet the tv is not to scale. That said I thought about the same issues you did. My intent is to move the tv up enough to provide enough space for a center channel if thats a possiblity. If not then the next (less than ideal) idea would be to hack up the cabinet below to make a center channel fit. That said, what would be your estimated range for the height of a center channel that wouldn't sound anemic?