Great Room Speaker Setup Question...Help

[watt1984]

Hello everyone, I am new to this forum. My family is in the middle of building a home and I have run all the low voltage and speaker wiring. My intention is to have the TV placed on the wall to the right of the fireplace with a entertainment stand to hold the equipment under it. I have in wall speaker wires behind the drywall. My plan was to place the wall mount for the TV to the right of the fireplace and then the "Right Channel" speaker and "Sub #1" directly to the right of where the entertainment stand will be against the far right wall, "Center Channel" under the wall mounted TV, and then the "Left Channel" speaker and "Sub #2" on the opposite side of the fireplace. Will having the "Left Channel" speaker and "Sub #2" on the opposite side of the fireplace create issues? The furniture will be placed centered on the fireplace so you will have to look a tad right to focus on the TV.

We wanted the fireplace to be the main focal point for our room, however obviously trying to achieve the best of both worlds. We will have a theater room completed in the basement in the near future so that will be the prime moving watching spot down the road, but just wanted to see if this configuration for our great room work decently well or should I have wired it differently?

I would still have an option to just not use the jacks to the left of the fireplace and place all speakers and TV to the right of the fireplace, however the left channel and sub #2 would just be direct wired and not through the walls. The rear channel speakers are in ceiling 8" speakers that sit over and 2 feet behind where the prime seating location will be.

Attached is a picture of the room...


Any thoughts or help with this would be wonderful! Thank you very much for your time and suggestions.

Tim

 

[DD66000]

There is really no way to make it work, satisfactory. The only way to be sitting symmetrical to the system is to place the screen above the fireplace and a speaker to each side.
And that's a poor option, at best, screen way too high.
For a temp solution, maybe place the screen across the corner and use a quality sound bar. That way the screen will be facing more towards the centralized seating.

 

[watt1984]

Thanks for your reply. The idea is to have a full motion swivel mount for the tv and to be able to angle it towards the primary seating position when in use. I guess my question is to move the left front speaker to the right side of the fireplace with the TV or to keep it offset to the left side of the FP when looking at the picture. Attached is the idea I have for position of the TV, Speakers and furniture in the room. The furniture in the room can be angled slightly if needed.

 

[fuzz092888]

I think by definition, having all that stuff to the right of the fireplace is going to draw attention away from it, meaning it will not longer be quit as much as a focal point as you envision.

Yea, having your left speaker that far away could creat some real problems with imaging problems between your left and right speakers and might make things sound weird.

No matter what you’re in a bit of pickle because of everything being to crunched together. I mean you could get an above the fireplace tv mount, but I’m guessing that would be pretty unacceptable, especially with what looks like a stone face.

 

[fuzz092888]

Thanks for your reply. The idea is to have a full motion swivel mount for the tv and to be able to angle it towards the primary seating position when in use. I guess my question is to move the left front speaker to the right side of the fireplace with the TV or to keep it offset to the left side of the FP when looking at the picture. Attached is the idea I have for position of the TV, Speakers and furniture in the room. The furniture in the room can be angled slightly if needed.

The issue isn’t with the TV position so much as it’s with the L/R speakers and how they’re supposed to image. The center speaker and right speaker are going to be right next to the tv and the left is going to be like 12ft away which will probably create issues with sound placement during viewing .

 

[watt1984]

Alright so would you suggest then placing the left channel front to the right side of the fireplace with the TV and the other speaker? This is fine as the speakers are not overly large, would just have to get a stand that is a tad smaller... Would this be better for sound quality than my original layout?

 

[watt1984]

And yeah the fireplace is stone and the wife would really prefer not mounting the TV above it. So trying to get the best I can with the space that is there. As i said this room would likely be for entertaining and gatherings, not as much for movie viewing as that will happen in the theater room, when its complete a few years down the road, which has the space for optimal sound layout.

 

[fuzz092888]

Alright so would you suggest then placing the left channel front to the right side of the fireplace with the TV and the other speaker? This is fine as the speakers are not overly large, would just have to get a stand that is a tad smaller... Would this be better for sound quality than my original layout?

Yup

 

[watt1984]

Thank you for your input! I was aware that it might create some issue, but thought that a receiver may be able to correct this during setup by increasing and decreasing dBs for distances. If they will sound a lot better in a more uniform configuration vs the way I would have hoped it could have been, I can place them together. I really appreciate the advice from some more experienced audiophiles than myself.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Welcome to AH.

We see this kind of questions unfortunately after the fact too often and not in the design phase.
At least then you would have been informed how the setup should be.
Now, after the fact, not much choice.

While the receiver can help with distance, arrival time of the sound, the sound will still be coming from way left and noticeable.

 

[watt1984]

Totally understand that there could easily be better options and more ideal layouts could have taken place had I came here earlier. And I am okay with this not being optimal as the idea is to have the Fireplace be the focal of the room. I am okay with living with the way it is as you said, "not much choice"...just looking for the best way to handle it as is. Think of this as a house already laid out and I am just trying to find the best way to position things with the area and space that I have. I totally get there are more optimal ways to have things but we all have to make sacrifices on whats important to different family members and cost etc.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Totally understand that there could easily be better options and more ideal layouts could have taken place had I came here earlier. And I am okay with this not being optimal as the idea is to have the Fireplace be the focal of the room. I am okay with living with the way it is as you said, "not much choice"...just looking for the best way to handle it as is. Think of this as a house already laid out and I am just trying to find the best way to position things with the area and space that I have. I totally get there are more optimal ways to have things but we all have to make sacrifices on whats important to different family members and cost etc.

In that case move the left speaker next to the TV, period.

 

[watt1984]

yeah I think that is a good approach to help the situation and make it more doable. Just hoping it is suitable, I know nothing about it is ideal.

 

[DD66000]

And yeah the fireplace is stone and the wife would really prefer not mounting the TV above it. So trying to get the best I can with the space that is there. As i said this room would likely be for entertaining and gatherings, not as much for movie viewing as that will happen in the theater room, when its complete a few years down the road, which has the space for optimal sound layout.

Yeah, as I mentioned, screen over FP is really a big NO, NO. lol
As mentioned, if the speakers are too far from the screen, the sound will be disjointed from the image.
If you do use L/R speakers and they're right next to the screen, you'll not really need a center. Or if you use a quality sound bar, mounted to the bottom of the screen it's all good.