[ELMitz]

Please visit this link to see pics of the room I am working on.


I am leaning toward the purchase of a Rocket system (750 L/R, 200, 300, 250). The room is 22' deep by 13' wide with 8' ceilings. The flat portion of the ceiling is 55" wide centered in the room. The side walls have approximately 4 feet before they begin to slope.


My problem is that I need help with side and rear speaker placement.

Problem #1:I have a Pioneer VSX-49tx (may be upgrading soon to txi but that is irrelevant to this discussion...) which can drive a 7.1 system. I would like to take advantage of this but I see no really nice way of doing it. I am leaning towards putting one rear speaker up and going 6.1. Any advice? I am concerned that if I put up 2 rears that the right rear would reflect badly off of the right side wall's slope. Also, I see no way to mount 2 speakers on the right side of the doorway on the rear wall. Help?

Problem #2: The side walls, as you can see in the pics, are sloped. Thus I am probably going to have to use some sort of
OmniMount to place the side speakers up. Any advice on this scenario?


I will be eventually moving to a FP system (working on Dwin TV3 - Stewart 1.3 Microperf with AVS as we speak). But for now I will be using my 61" Sony HDTV RPTV.

 

[richardkaufmann]

OK,


Here goes...


I bet there are lots of folks who have converted these over-garage bonus rooms into home theaters. I'm not one of them. So, this is just my guess:


I would put absorptive panels along the entire sloped section of the room, the "end cap" by the closet door and the top half of the wall around the closet door. This essentially deadens the top half of the front and side walls. Try to somewhat deaden the front wall as well.


I would place diffusive panels at the reflection points on the bottom halves of the side walls as well as the ceiling.


I'd definitely go with a 7.1 system. And I'd use all direct-radiating speakers. LCR in the obvious spots. The R surround should be a floor-standing tower (like the 35" tall 550?) a foot or so behind the end cap, and as far away from the wall as furniture and walkways permit. L Surround at the same spot on the opposite wall. I can't tell if this is even with the best spot for the couch; if it isn't then the 550 will fit under the sloped walls. I don't think they'll be in the way, in either case.


I would then use in-wall directs for the rears. One on each side of the door. Make sure you can point the tweeters. Consider bass traps for the rear corners (you'll have to fit the R rear in the middle of the trap). Lastly, I'd put a diffusive panel between the two rears.


Carpet the floors.


Here's the theory: It's a room with lots of terrible angles. I'm trying to deaden everything that isn't "normal," while trying to get some diffuse reflections for the little that is normal (the ceiling, the lower halves of the side walls and the back wall). 7.1 will do the best job of livening up this otherwise somewhat-dead room.


Did I get a passing grade folks?

 

[ELMitz]

Thanks for your input Richard! I appreciate your feedback...


Why did you sugggest using floorstanders for the side surrounds instead of hanging some speakers from the sloped walls?

 

[richardkaufmann]

Why floorstanders?


Because mounting speakers on the sloped walls will cause them to stick out at head-height. I'd worry about bonking my head on them as I walked into the room.


The floorstanders would stick out just enough to have about 2 feet of clearance above them -- total 5 feet. Nobody would be walking there anyway!

 

[ELMitz]

Cummmon people... help a brother out....

 

[sdurani]

Eric,
Quote:

I am leaning towards putting one rear speaker up and going 6.1. Any advice?

Your receiver has THX Ultra2 processing which generates stereo rears; might as well take advantage of it. I'd opt for a 7.1 set-up over 6.1, with the 2 rear speakers spread out at least a few feet away from the centre line of the room. Here's an interesting post explaining the advantages of using two rear speakers.
Quote:

I am probably going to have to use some sort of OmniMount to place the side speakers up. Any advice on this scenario?

Aside from wall mounting, you could also use tall speaker stands for all your surround speakers. This would allow you some flexibility if you weren't completely happy with the speaker locations.


Speaking of which: I'd place the side speakers directly to your sides and raised slightly above ear level (so that everyone is within line-of-sight of the speakers). The rears can be at ear level or slightly above; sounds intended to come from behind you should indeed appear to come from that direction, not some side-rear or overhead-rear direction. This will really help you get excellent rear vs side imaging (something that doesn't happen if all four surround speakers are rearward of the listening position).


Good Luck,

Sanjay