back against the wall - what to use for surrounds.

[scott911]

Hi gang!

my couch is backed up against a wall, so rear surrounds can NOT go a couple feet behind me as recommended - looking for opinions please.

details: Sit back about 14 feet from a 42" lcd flanked by Axiom Audio in-wall W22's. Have a Axiom w350 V3 woofer. Plan to use a phantom center.

I was planning on bi-pole rears as I'd heard this was a good technology when speakers were near head. Behind me is an 8 foot span of glass, so I'm thinking rears will be a little above ear height, eight feet apart, just behind plane of seating position.

Am I on the right track, or is there some other solution I'm not thinking of? Thanks!

receiver - r-972 sherwood newcastle; it's cabable of 7.1 if that helps solution... room is 17 feet wide though, so the side surrounds would be so much farther from listening position than the rear surrounds, so I was thinking of always keeping to 5.1

 

[AVRat]

If it were me, I'd probably do mono-poles 9'-10' apart if possible. Now if you're thinking of using the Axiom QS4/8s, they may work well with their downfiring midrange drivers. Tough call!

 

[Halon451]

That's a tough dilemna alright and one that I know all too well. I've wished many times I had the living room space to properly place my surrounds and incorporate surround back speakers for 7.1, but until then I'm rather limited.

If it helps at all you can click the link to my HT system, and on page 3 are the new pics of what I did - it places the surrounds a bit close for comfort if you sitting on either the right or left side of the couch, but works well enough to sound great.

Good luck!

 

[James NM]

For the rears in a 5.1, I think that if you can't go deep, go high.

 

[walter duque]

This might not be the ideal set-up but it works for me, and it works well.
View attachment 8034

 

[scott911]

hmm.. good suggestions guys.

I spent some extra time searching diagrams - it looks like 7.1 is out, unless I put the rears a few feet into by backyard. For some reason, I'd been thinking the "sides" could be mid-point between the screen and the seating, with "rears" farther back.... just wanted to use all the "7" out of my amp...

so - for 5.1, following avrat's and all's suggestion using mono-poles. Direct Radiating surrounds usually perform best when placed behind and slightly higher than the listening position, spread apart the same distance as the mains and slightly toed in. ~ from this website.

If my fronts are 7' apart, I take it that 22' (width of room) is much too far...? I can't envision stands working in my room because I also have chairs in courners...

Maybe the di-pole mounted to the rear wall - on either side of an eight foot window are the way to go...

 

[HDPCsound]

You can try placing them on the corners (the walls), in order to enjoy the 7.1 experience.

 

[scott911]

You can try placing them on the corners (the walls), in order to enjoy the 7.1 experience.

where, in relation any other surrounds, would that be?

 

[Halon451]

Scott - do you have a pic of the area that you can post? Might generate a few ideas that way if we can actually visualize the space we're talking about. Just a suggestion.

 

[ljaggers]

The Axiom QS4/8s are interesting speakers. At first it would seem that they would be perfect considering that you would be sitting directly below them. However, the driver that is pointed down is the more "non-directional" bass driver of the speaker. The tweeters are the drivers that have a tendency to "beam" sound and in my opinion are the most important to have pointed toward the listener. The Axioms, unfortunately, would not be pointed toward you. My set up is almost identical to yours in terms of the seating position. I bought plain-old traditional surround speakers and mounted them with these adjustable speaker mounts that enabled me to point them almost directly down toward the couch.

http://www.sanus.com/us/en/products/visionmount/speaker-mount/WMS5

This works pretty well and doesn't look too bad.

 

[shadyJ]

Quite honestly, if I were you I would skip the surrounds altogether. It will be very difficult for the surround channels to sound good when you have them placed right against a wall, you will be hearing a lot of reflection. I have seen many setups like this, the surrounds reflect badly and draw attention to themselves every time they have to make a significant sound. They are typically being placed too close to the listener in these setups anyway. Also, these setups tend to look goofy. It might not be that bad if you have some kind of acoustic absorbent behind your head, and you have a good amount of distance between you and the surrounds.

You really won't be missing a lot by just doing 3.1. The surrounds are rarely used with any importance in most soundtracks anyway. No surrounds will always sound better than poorly setup surrounds. I have seen so many badly setup surround speakers that I'm starting to think bringing 5.1 to mainstream consumer audio has done more damage than good. And don't even get me started on 7.1!

 

[Halon451]

Quite honestly, if I were you I would skip the surrounds altogether. It will be very difficult for the surround channels to sound good when you have them placed right against a wall, you will be hearing a lot of reflection. I have seen many setups like this, the surrounds reflect badly and draw attention to themselves every time they have to make a significant sound. They are typically being placed too close to the listener in these setups anyway. Also, these setups tend to look goofy. It might not be that bad if you have some kind of acoustic absorbent behind your head, and you have a good amount of distance between you and the surrounds.

You really won't be missing a lot by just doing 3.1. The surrounds are rarely used with any importance in most soundtracks anyway. No surrounds will always sound better than poorly setup surrounds. I have seen so many badly setup surround speakers that I'm starting to think bringing 5.1 to mainstream consumer audio has done more damage than good. And don't even get me started on 7.1!

It's more challenging sure, but not impossible to get great surround sound in this situation. Fact of the matter is, a great many folks have their systems setup in living rooms that unfortunately are just not made with surround sound in mind, and are working with room dimensions that force them to have seating up against a wall (as in my case as well). While he may not be missing much with 3.1, the whole point of "surround sound" becomes lost if you remove the rear speakers altogether. So, in these cases it's best to split the difference and do some experimenting with placements to figure out what works and what doesn't. I have my surrounds in a rather non-ideal location, but it's the best I can do, and guess what? They sound terrific.

I disagree with your logic - I think that great sound can be achieved in non-ideal situations such as his it just takes a little more creativity and thought. The OP has come to us for advice, best we can do is try and help him get the most out of his system rather than telling him he doesn't need to use half of it.

 

[GlocksRock]

Def Tech BP2X for sure. I use the BP1.2x on the back wall in my bedroom system where I sit up a against the back wall and they are about 3 feet above me, and they sound amazing in there, they create a very convincing sound field.

 

[scott911]

thanks guys for the feedback...

regarding the last post, three feet above ear level, check ---but how far apart? I've gotten some feedback elsewhere that agrees with the heights, but suggests going to withing a foot or two of the edges of the back wall - i.e. about twenty feet apart for an 22 foot long wall.

 

[GlocksRock]

It just depends on your seaing position(s). With a bi-polar speaker in a setup like that, it would help to have them somewhat near the side walls, but if that isn't possible, I would put them a little to the outside edge of the seating position(s).

 

[westcott]

Quite honestly, if I were you I would skip the surrounds altogether. It will be very difficult for the surround channels to sound good when you have them placed right against a wall, you will be hearing a lot of reflection. I have seen many setups like this, the surrounds reflect badly and draw attention to themselves every time they have to make a significant sound. They are typically being placed too close to the listener in these setups anyway. Also, these setups tend to look goofy. It might not be that bad if you have some kind of acoustic absorbent behind your head, and you have a good amount of distance between you and the surrounds.

You really won't be missing a lot by just doing 3.1. The surrounds are rarely used with any importance in most soundtracks anyway. No surrounds will always sound better than poorly setup surrounds. I have seen so many badly setup surround speakers that I'm starting to think bringing 5.1 to mainstream consumer audio has done more damage than good. And don't even get me started on 7.1!

I agree with skipping them.

I think you would be much better served by reconsidering the inclusion of a center channel. I think you would gain FAR more with this latter investment, especially sitting against a back wall.

 

[GlocksRock]

Have you considered in wall surrounds, or maybe in ceiling?

 

[JoeD]

7.1 Audio

Quite honestly, if I were you I would skip the surrounds altogether. It will be very difficult for the surround channels to sound good when you have them placed right against a wall, you will be hearing a lot of reflection. I have seen many setups like this, the surrounds reflect badly and draw attention to themselves every time they have to make a significant sound. They are typically being placed too close to the listener in these setups anyway. Also, these setups tend to look goofy. It might not be that bad if you have some kind of acoustic absorbent behind your head, and you have a good amount of distance between you and the surrounds.

You really won't be missing a lot by just doing 3.1. The surrounds are rarely used with any importance in most soundtracks anyway. No surrounds will always sound better than poorly setup surrounds. I have seen so many badly setup surround speakers that I'm starting to think bringing 5.1 to mainstream consumer audio has done more damage than good. And don't even get me started on 7.1!

I would like to get that 7.1 rampaged started

Sound System:
Yamaha 863 / Klipsch Reference Series, 7.1 / Yamaha Blu-Ray / Samsung 46” 700 series HDTV;

Typical Rectangular Family Room. Fios HD TV and Blu-ray are my main sources of entertainment. I have a decent 7.1 set-up for everyday use (What the wife allows). However, it is not a big effort to pull the couch 3’ from the wall and position the SL, SR, SBL and SBR strategically for optimum sound. The everyday 7.1 configuration sound like a good 5.1 system. The side speakers are ear level and the rear speakers are wide and high. The system is configured to play the side and back signals together. The “Movie Night” 7.1 configuration ROCKS!!!

This all being said, what I have found is very, very, very little content that has good 7.1 encoding. Most blu-rays are encoded with DTS HD Master 5.1 or Dolby True HD 5.1 or PCM 5.1. The best HDTV stations are Dolby 5.1. (at least from Verizon Fios).

blu-raystats.com list about 160 Blu-ray titles that are 7.1 or 6.1 encoded. Most are older remakes. As far as Google research revealed, there does not look to be much 7.1 content being made now or in the near future…... that Sucks!!!

Unless you have a good source of 7.1 content, I would concentrate on a 5.1 design.

 

[GlocksRock]

Using Prologic IIx you can create a 7.1 surround field from a 5.1 source, so you can still take advantage of 7.1.

 

[JoeD]

Nice Tip. Thanks.

I got into audio stuff about 2-years ago. Started with DD5.1 and DTS; never investigated the older technologies. PLIIx does a nice job of converting HD and Sirius Radio to a 7.1 format…. Cool.

I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to decode DTS MA 5.1 or Dolby True HD 5.1 with PLIIx. It seems when my Yamaha 863 detects the lossless formats it assumes it is the only format I could possibly want. It may not even make sense to decode it as such; however, checking-things-out is how I like to roll.