[psumazda6]

Hello, I'm looking for some assistance regarding surround speakers. I've read through many of the "placement" threads but my situation seems unique. A little background...I recently set up a multi-room audio system with in-ceiling speakers in several rooms. At the time, I was planning to have a separate home theater system in another room.


Plans have now changed, and I've decided to build a 5.1 system in my living room. You can see from the (hopefully) attached sketch that I currently have (2) pairs of in-ceiling speakers in this room. Locations were chosen based on seating locations and stereo imaging, with no consideration (my mistake) for possible home theater use.


All that said, I will be getting new in-walls for the (3) fronts. I'm looking for advice on the possibility of using one of the in-ceiling pairs as my rears. I know the locations are not ideal, but would putting a new in-ceiling pair as shown really be any better (based on seating locations)? The home theater and the multi-room will each have their own receiver, so I would need some sort of speaker switch to have one speaker pair fed by (2) receivers.


I should also mention that the TV and seating locations cannot be changed, so I have to work with the setup as shown. Also, whether new or existing, the rear surrounds have to be in-ceiling. Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

LR SPEAKER LAYOUT.pdf 6.17578125k . file

 

[tvrgeek]

Some times "have to" is a perfectly valid engineering requirement. When confronted with constraints like that, just do it and don't worry.

 

[snpanago]



Quote:
Originally Posted by psumazda6 /forum/post/16857523


Hello, I'm looking for some assistance regarding surround speakers. I've read through many of the "placement" threads but my situation seems unique. A little background...I recently set up a multi-room audio system with in-ceiling speakers in several rooms. At the time, I was planning to have a separate home theater system in another room.


Plans have now changed, and I've decided to build a 5.1 system in my living room. You can see from the (hopefully) attached sketch that I currently have (2) pairs of in-ceiling speakers in this room. Locations were chosen based on seating locations and stereo imaging, with no consideration (my mistake) for possible home theater use.


All that said, I will be getting new in-walls for the (3) fronts. I'm looking for advice on the possibility of using one of the in-ceiling pairs as my rears. I know the locations are not ideal, but would putting a new in-ceiling pair as shown really be any better (based on seating locations)? The home theater and the multi-room will each have their own receiver, so I would need some sort of speaker switch to have one speaker pair fed by (2) receivers.


I should also mention that the TV and seating locations cannot be changed, so I have to work with the setup as shown. Also, whether new or existing, the rear surrounds have to be in-ceiling. Thanks in advance for any advice.

I have a similar in-ceiling rear surround layout in my family room HT as your proposed installation. I think you will be very happy; after all, most of the sound directed to those speakers (DVD movies and 5.1 televison broadcasts) are for ambient and environmental surround effects. I think only critical multichannel music listening (via SACD or DVD-A) might suffer a bit. Some in-ceiling speakers do have tweeters that can be adjusted for directionality.

2 concerns I would bring up....the seating arrangement based on your LCRs, surround back speakers and TV placement gives your TABLE the sweet spot for viewing and listening. Also, a subwoofer (or 2) is strongly suggested. Good luck.

 

[psumazda6]

Thank you for the responses. I guess what I'm wondering is, could I use the existing in-ceiling pair (that flank the table) as my surround speakers? I'm trying to determine if it's even worth it to install an additional pair of in-ceilings as my surrounds, taking into account my seating locations (which are not ideal). My current in-ceilings do have aimable tweeters if that helps.

 

[glaufman]

I think you're right to be concerned about the existing in-ceiling locations for surrounds... but if they're already there, hook the system up and see how it sounds... I suspect the proposed locations would be much better, but it's ultimately your system so if you want to get away without the extra cost/work, try what you have first... especially with the aimable tweeters... play around with aiming them at different spots, the rear walls, the side walls, etc... see if you can get a reasonably enveloping sound field...


I also would spread the LR a bit, based on seating locations... and +1 for the sub...