Changed the Room- New layout now

[saurabh]

hi,

After discussing my previous room(if you have seen my previous thread) layout (which was really bad) in this forum, I was able to convince the "decor police" to vacate one of the rooms for the HTS(layout is attchd) and we will shift the TV/HTS there. Now I want to mount all Spks on the walls, even the front and center(thats the agreement ). So the concerns now are :

a) No its not my drawing skills that you see an uneven room,this room has uneven shape(which i guess is good for the HTS, correct me !).

b) The height of the room is too much, a wooping 11.25 ft, although I intend to place the surrounds 2-3 ft above the listening position, Is this good or bad? .

c) What should be the ideal horizontal distance between Sofa and the surrounds, behind it. Since now I have enough space on the back of the sofa.

d) What should be the preferred position for the Direct radiating surround spks, towards each other or towards the listening position for that ambient surround sound field.

e) After reducing the depth of TV from the Spks, the TV screen will still be protuding 1.6 ft ahead of the front/Center spks, is that a reason for concern and if yes, what will I loose.

 

[plhart]

hi,

After discussing my previous room(if you have seen my previous thread) layout (which was really bad) in this forum, I was able to convince the "decor police" to vacate one of the rooms for the HTS(layout is attchd) and we will shift the TV/HTS there. Now I want to mount all Spks on the walls, even the front and center(thats the agreement ). So the concerns now are :

a) No its not my drawing skills that you see an uneven room,this room has uneven shape(which i guess is good for the HTS, correct me !).

b) The height of the room is too much, a wooping 11.25 ft, although I intend to place the surrounds 2-3 ft above the listening position, Is this good or bad?

With your corner-mounted subwoofer (which now has the potential of 18dB gain from its corner position) you will likely have the single bass peak shifted downward in frequency. Thus the height of your room is can be considered a plus. If the frequency of the peak does not go down to 35HZ or so you may want to think about using a device like the S.O.S. (subwoofer optimizer system) to smooth our the bass. Or another approach> you now have a heck of a lot more cubic room volume so a second subwoofer would definately be recommended, not only to achieve greater bass SPL capability (+6dB) but also to potentially smooth out the overall bass response at your listening position.

c) What should be the ideal horizontal distance between Sofa and the surrounds, behind it. Since now I have enough space on the back of the sofa.

1) Remember that the recommended layout for surround sound is that all speakers, left, center, right and surrounds (5.1 or 7.1) should be placed at equal distance around the circumference of a circle. That's your goal. Look first at the distance from your CRT TV to your listening position. Your sense of sight is 80% of your brain's perception (as far as size-of-image versus believability of movie content for blockbusters [realism}) of the home theater experience so you want your viewing position to be only four screen heights or so away at your listening/viewing position. Your situation now becomes similar to my own which has been documented in the numerous CEDIA seminar articles which are on this website. If you look you'll see that I use a corner position to a) hide the bulk of the CRT TV but more importantly b) to get the speakers pointed toward and down at the listening position so I avoid having to use obtrusive sound deadening techniques to knock out the first reflections of left, center and right front speakers. This helps in enhancing speech intelligibility. It is the great acoustic "freebie" that a corner position (with aiming) automatically affords versus the standard rectangular configuration.

d) What should be the preferred position for the Direct radiating surround spks, towards each other or towards the listening position for that ambient surround sound field.

If you put your TV in the corner position by the subwoofer you now have a much greater potential for blending or "splicing" the sounds of the left, center, right action with the subwoofer more seemlessly. For the surrounds I now recommend putting the left in the far left corner at around six feet height. For the right surround you now fortunately have that cool little 1.1 foot niche which should effectively give you the same type of corner reinforement as the left surround. Place it also at six foot height.

If all sets up as I envision from your top view I would guess that your sofa would now be facing the corner where the subwoofer is, about 8 feet or so back. This should effectively place your surrounds at 90 degree angles to the sofa (and center channel). Now move the sofa a few inches up or back and listen to see if you detect a bass bump at the listening position. Move your sofa away from a position where you detect single-note bass. From what I see on your drawing this strong room mode exactly at the listening position may not be a concern.

e) After reducing the depth of TV from the Spks, the TV screen will still be protuding 1.6 ft ahead of the front/Center spks, is that a reason for concern and if yes, what will I loose.

See above. I recommend a corner location as best. Good luck.

 

[saurabh]

Thanks for the suggestions but I wanted to add few more clarifications which I think I should have added before but missed it, sorry , and a few more doubts have come up now :

Layout: There is a concrete shelf above the TV/SUB, rear wall around 7.5 ft above the floor, 2.5 ft wide depicted by dotted line(see attchd).

If this does not change the setup :

a) Which direction should the Surrounds be facing (A, B, C) ????( Ah!, after reading the post again, I found it should be 90 deg to sofa, i was missing this earlier, so this is answered)

b) The SUB can be placed facing up towards the ceiling or towards the listeners, what is the preferred direction ??.

Also if I am not able to do a corner setup, then how will the front/Center speakers being behind the TV effect me(as per initial layout) and any other suggestions on my initial layout(as the second best layout option).

 

[bpape]

Also be careful in general about wall mounting speakers that are not designed for that. This can cause pretty large shifts in frequency response due to boundary issues.

If at all possible, also get that couch away from the rear wall at least a few feet to allow a better surround field to develop.