Well nothing is official yet, but we are finally buying our fist house! The offer is in, and we are waiting on the bank to accept it which could take a long time (short sale). So since I have time, I figured I would get started on sorting out the new system
For right now I am just looking at the speakers as I just recently bought a new receiver. I want all of the speakers to be from the same manufacturer, and I defiantly want front towers. Where I have a hard time is with the surrounds, how many and what type. The place we are looking to buy isn't ideal for home theater, but I think we can make it work well. The room is L shaped, and has vaulted ceiling to the roof (~20' high). Just a rough guess on dimensions for now (I will measure it next time I am there) it is probably 40 feet long on the longest side, then in the larger part of the L it is 20' x 20', and in the shorter part of the L it is 11' wide (I measured that one
) by about 20' long. Where the room closes down is where the kitchen is, and that is open to the room. In the larger area the one wall is the stairs (open) and the front entry way (of course open)other where it comes in to make the L is the kitchen which is open on this side as well. At the corner of the kitchen is a post which I assume is load bearing and of course goes all the way up. Above the kitchen is an open loft area as well. I will get accurate measurements, and maybe pictures soon.
Here is a really bad MS Paint drawing of the basic idea looking down on the room.
As you can tell though, it is a very large, very open area. Along the longest wall is windows, and a door to the back yard so the TV cant go anywhere along there. So looking at the drawing, the TV can go on the right side or the left. Technically it is set up to be split into two rooms (living room and dining room) but we have no desire to do that, so it can be a very long space for me. What I cant decide on is if I use the length of it all how will it effect my sound being that its wider on one end than the other? What seems best to me is to put the TV on the left side toward the bottom, put the couch even with the column (in essence split the rooms), and surrounds on the side walls up high (at least 9' since the kitchen has 9' ceilings). That would put the left front speaker in a corner, and the right out in the open. Also I would think I can only really do 5.1 in that configuration. Ill just leave that as my only configuration for now, and let the experts chime in.
So first question is 5.1, 7.1, or 9.1 set up. Second question is what lay out to achieve the best sound. Third is what type of surround speaker would work best with the answers from the first two questions. Then we can finally get down to which brand and model, but I don't see making it that far for a little while. I will say I am open to just about anything for speakers. I would be willing to do in wall/in ceiling, but with the really high ceilings I don't think it would work so well? I may be WAY off on that though, its never something I have looked into.
Sorry for the long post, but I am excited and looking forward to finally having a complete surround sound set up!
Thanks,
Sean
