Advice on speaker placement

[choppaholic]

Hello all,

I am fairly new at this and I need some help please, I have read a lot of post on the net but I am more confused than ever and have some questions please.

I just bought a Yamaha RX-V677 receiver, Wharfedale 121 for the fronts and Wharfedale DX-1 HCP to build a 7.1 system.

The issue I have is placing the rear surrounds and after reading up a few post I seem to have the following options please see pictures attached ( Option 1 );

As my couch is right against the wall and there is no chance of moving it forward.

For the rear left & right surrounds

Mount the speakers on the side wall and stair rails 6ft of the ground but which direction

• Option A red arrow
• Option B orange arrow
• Option C green arrow

for the 2 Back surrounds how high should they be? should 1 put them couch level, if higher do they need to face them down in my case?

Or should I choose layout 2 please see picture (option 2).

In either case I will have a massive sound leak to the right of the room as the dining is open.

What’s the best option please, also is it worth the 7.1 in my layout or should I return the Wharfedale 121 and make it 5.1?

Or keep it and go 7.1 with front presence setup, sorry way to many question…..

Please help! I am lost, thanks in advance

 

[markw]

Your rear surrounds (red speakers) should be several feet behind your listening position. If you can't do that, I'd stick to a 5.1 system and option 3 but have the side speakers angled slightly towards the front of the room.

 

[choppaholic]

Your rear surrounds (red speakers) should be several feet behind your listening position. If you can't do that, I'd stick to a 5.1 system and option 3 but have the side speakers angled slightly towards the front of the room.

Thank you, I am not sure I understand you correctly in option 3 (I presume you mean option c green arrow) you suggest to place the speaker angled slightly forward? But they are already facing the front of the room know or have I got something wrong. Much appreciate your view thanks again.

 

[markw]

I was proposing an option 3, which is option 1 with no red/rear speakers and using the orange arrow for the blue surrounds, or whatever angle sounds best to you.

You can only plan so much before relying on your own ears to tell you what works best.

 

[choppaholic]

Many thanks, one more question please, I have setup the 5.1 system and currently is in Option 1 with rear blue speakers in A position, I will move it to as you suggest and try..

What I don’t understand is to assess the best effect what should I play? when I play a movie I can barely notice them all sound appears to come from front and as rears should only background noise so are fairly faint all the time, what should I play to assess them?

When I play music for example the room is well immersed in sound and all speakers seem to play equally loud. When I played a helicopter seen from a movie and the heli appears from left the sounds tracker from left rear to middle very well.

But what’s the best way to do it.

 

[markw]

When you play music, which is only two channels, you go through some DSP processing to make sure "something" comes out of all speakers. If you play it in it's native two channel stereo mode, you'll only get sound from the front right and lefty speakers.

Movies, OTOH, don't really have all that much info in the surround channels and even less in those last two rears. Generally, They are only for ambiance and the occasional special effect.

The best way to asses that all your active channels is to use the test tones and a meter. Or, if all channels sound pretty well equal you're in good shape. If there's nothing to play in those channels you shouldn't hear anything.

 

[andyblackcat]

Seating needs to come forwards and the seat on the side one of the other placed on riser at the back so it has clear view or LCR have clear sight line otherwise HF sounds will be blocked.

LCR need to go above the TV. Make a platform that extends the width of the room so that you can experiment freely moving the (matched LCR) the left right may need toeing in a small portion and angled downwards so clear HF sounds reach the seating.

You'd need to make false wall across the right side and fit in a door so the sound from the room won't drift out to other room and give odd sound cos the wall on the right in the dinning room is further away. You'll have bass issues of sort so need to put a false wall up and make the room as even as possible. Timber and plasterboard screws and handsaw hammer doesn't cost a lot just a few days of patience.

Fit more speakers small size bookshelves of same make/model and fit them above the window or ditch the window brick it up otherwise noise from outside will lower the noise floor and forcing you to play louder.

The arrays of surrounds on the sides with mono poles will give a cinema like surround and plenty bargains on ebay that can bought for under $100.00 or lower for pair and just keep buying. Place a number of them on the back wall, will give even surround coverage.

Your present placement idea will have snags. Idea of surround is to be surround otherwise the side surround placed further along the wall will not give you any what so ever sense of a sound object passing behind you with Dolby 424 matrix to Dolby 5.1 and 7.1 so place around x3 each side and each seat will get a good surround, otherwise I might as take all mine down and set up like a common 7.1 configuration and then I'd be kicking the seat.

If bricking the window up is not the option then have no fear. Mounting the speakers to the ceiling and spaced apart for each row on each side will also work with uniform surround around the seating. But check with small bookshelf mini speakers with a satisfactory sensitivity 88 or 89db with reasonable frequency response 60Hz 70Hz on the low end and use extra subs only for the surrounds to augment the low end to give the impression the surrounds can go down lower.

So move that seating forwards otherwise too far back unless you can achieve a decent wide enough left-to-right stereo from sound effects to dialogue panning, but really the further back you are the stereo image will become narrow its not the same as when sat in front row at large cinema.

I can't bend your arm and I'm not Mr. Wolf, at solving problems that will turn up driving a Lotus with a construction crew and have all this done in day.

 

[herbu]

I was proposing an option 3, which is option 1 with no red/rear speakers and using the orange arrow for the blue surrounds, or whatever angle sounds best to you.

You can only plan so much before relying on your own ears to tell you what works best.

Agree. Listen, this is just a "home theater", not a professional studio... right? I'm guessing you're not up for a remodel. With the layout you have, I would just do 5.1. By far, MOST movies and TV are only 5.1 anyway. The rear surrounds are artificially created. And the fairly rare movie that is 7.1 still doesn't have anything critical in the rears.

In your room, I think you will get MUCH more return and satisfaction by giving the bulk of your attention and $ to the front speakers and sub(s), moderate attention and $ to the sides, and forget about the rears.