I am looking to upgrade my stereo soon to include a new receiver with 7.1 capability. I have two questions regarding my room setup. Firstly my living room and kitchen are both one room, measuring around 12 feet across and nearly 35 feet long. Since I have sliding doors on either end of the 35 foot stretch, I cannot set up my theater long ways, which means I will have to use the shorter side around three fourths down the long side.
I have not yet chosen receiver or speakers and my first question is:
As my viewing distance will be around 10 feet and I will have my couch against the rear wall, the two rear center speakers would essentially be directly over my head and not behind which seems to be the correct position. Is it therefore a waste to have 7.1 if I cannot place the speakers properly? If so, is there any way around this, or just use 5.1 until I have a different room?
IMO, yes 7.1 would be a waste. That was to answer the question. Now, for some things to iterate on your behalf, just so you understand some compromises when you do make them.
lengthwise is better. couch against wall is probably public acoustical enemy #1.
If you want to play around with some surround speaker designs/techs, there are speakers that can be used switched from dipole, bipole, dual monopoles, or monopole, such as with the expensive and not very pretty PSB S2. Many other types are switchable between just dipole or bipole. I myself use only monopoles in the HT. I just think of this because there's a current thread elsewhere about this stuff, and I suppose it could behoove you to try out several techs. However, bipole/dipole are usually a lot more expensive. After all, there are double the drivers.
Dipoles are designed so that you sit in the null. These as well as bipolars depend more on boundary interaction than monopoles, but, they will get you greater coverage with bipole.
My second question is:
Since my theater will be set up along this 35 foot wall facing the other 35 foot wall, will it be at all possible to properly position/tune the speakers given all that extra distance to my left and right?
Thanks for your input.
Robi
Not really, but, there are always compromises. YMMV, and that is always dependent on the very specifics of the setup, the room itself, what you care about. Even if you set the stuff up as you say, a difference of a couple of feet in placement of the speaker closest to the corner might* make a large difference. If you do in fact find that the nearby side boundary makes the soundstage too heavy on that side, you will have to pull further away from it and load that boundary with broadband absorption. And even that won't necessarily solve it, but at least it should help significantly, at the minimum.
If you have sliding glass doors on either side, I'm sure there might be space above them to wall mount some monitors? I'd get heavy drapes/curtains for them no matter how you arrange the setup.
With such a large room like that, I would mull it over some more. Some photos might help others help you as well. That is almost always the case. Cheers.
