[jayrader]

I currently have Polk Monitor 60s in the front of my room sitting on my floor. Things sound pretty good in the room, but I've got a second row right now, and I'm moving to a third row here pretty soon. If the tweeter is supposed to be at ear level, the second and third row users are really going to get the shaft. Plus the fact there will be 2 couches and a bunch of meatheads in the way of the front sound stage. Is this an issue? I have considered doing one of the following.


1. Build some kind of riser for the front towers to get them about 9 inches to a foot off of the ground.


2. Add bookshelf speakers in addition to the towers on the walls up by the screen.


3. Replace the towers with bookshelf speakers and mount them on the sides of the walls up higher.


Thoughts?

 

[MandM]

As long as your not getting the shaft (sitting in sweet spot) I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[jayrader]

HAhaha ok. Is that why the lack of response? Are we all that selfish?


Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with it. Just trying to think ahead mostly.

 

[malovich]

put those with less sensitive ears in the back aka kids and females

 

[sivadselim]

1.) If it really bothers you, raise the speakers so that the tweeters are at the "average" ear level of listeners in all 3 tiers. The distance to raise the speakers will of course depend upon the height of each tier. There no way to get the tweeter at ear level for all three tiers, so you have to compromise. You could tilt the speakers back 10 to 15 degrees or so, too. Unless the tweeters have some sort of accommodation to increase the horizontal dispersion (i.e. waveguide, directional baffle, etc.) most speakers' tweeters have reasonably decent vertical dispersion (although not as good as their horizontal dispersion). I think your Polk's tweeters are radially symmetrical; there is nothing that makes them "horizontally directional". If you ARE willing to purchase other speakers, you would look for the speaker that has the better vertical dispersion. Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I would be more worried about the center channel's performance in your situation.


2.) Adding bookshelves in addition to the towers is not a good idea.


3.) New bookshelf speakers are definitely an option, although I don't really think it's at all necessary in your case unless you are just itching for some other speakers. As you point out, you can simply add risers (and some tilt) to your existing floorstanders if it's that big of a deal to you. But if you bought bookshelves, why would you mount them on your side walls?


If you were to buy new bookshelves, you would still want to look for speakers with good vertical dispersion if this is your concern.

 

[monomer]

I have a second row of seating (actually its one really long couch) elevated about 2 feet above the front row, and I also use tower speakers (Infinity Reference Sixes). I 'solved' my problem by building a couple of stands which raise the speakers about 9" off the floor and have them angled (I believe) about 4-5 degrees. Also I had to angle my center channel speaker (which is about 8" from the ceiling) downward for the sound to disperse properly to both rows of seating. My real challenge has been the side and back surrounds... mainly because of my room's dimensions in relation to the seating arrangement. I have like a seven foot spread between each row of seating... each row being approximately at a 1/3 of the room's length... great for FR but lousy for balancing surround effects. My room's a bit too narrow otherwise it wouldn't be such a big deal. So depending upon your room's dimensions, with 3 tiers of seating you may just find out that your biggest problem will be maintaining a descent balance of surround effects at all seating positions. Good Luck...

 

[jmiyake]

monomer has the right approach, the easiest thing to do is just angle the speakers. I have also found that this can change the image and the apparent location of the sound. It can sometimes make the sound from below the screen seem to come from slightly higher. So this is an easy tweak and well worth trying.