Design my Den Theater - see drawing

[gcmarshall]

See PDF attachment of my Den. I would like advice on speaker selection and placement. Not so much "which brand speaker to buy", but more along the lines of how to, or should I, go with 7.1 and do in-ceiling for example, or forgo the 7.1 for a timbre matched 5.1 setup? And, any other general ideas regarding speaker layout, placement, etc. There is not enough room above the side windows/sliding door to wall-mount speakers, so that option is out.

It is not to scale, but I have the 17x23 measurements on the diagram. The ceiling are 8' tall, so about 3,100 cu ft. Unfortunately, this is a 42 year old ranch house and the only room available is as drawn in the attachment. The walls are wood-paneled oak and the floors are solid (real) hardwood (not manufactured wood). We intend to have heavy/thick window treatments and a large area carpet atop the solid wood floors.

If you have any questions, I am happy to clarify.

 

[jbracing24]

See PDF attachment of my Den. If you have any questions, I am happy to clarify.

It would be helpful if you could show the configuration of your seating as you don't have much of a choice of placement.

 

[Johnd]

Firstly, with that size room I would opt for the 7.1 setup, even though there are only a couple hundred movies w/ 5.1+. I have a 7.1 setup and love it (for those two dozen or so 6.1/7.1 movies that I own). Secondly, it is only necessary to timbre-match the fronts (center, front left and front right), unless your will be listening to sacd, in which case it would be good to also timbre-match the sides. Thirdly, it would be better for you to draw your seating arrangement and proposed/preferred speaker placement on your plan, and we could then offer guidance based on that information. Finally, I would not so readily rule out surround speaker placement in front of the windows (altough not too proximate to them). A good friend of mine has some B&W 602's on stands, and they sound good...you need not worry about noise or bad reflection (off the glass) as long as the surrounds are not rear-ported. Proper speaker placement is rather academic and straight-forward. There is some latitude for tweaking, but if you deviate far from the guide lines (like having in-ceiling speakers), you will lose much of the effect that surround offers. The human ear can be "tricked", but only within certain parameters/zones.

 

[Johnd]

Another point: it would be acoustically better to position the display in front of the window, so that you get the longitudinal benefit of the room acoustics, at the risk of committing a major architectural faux-pax. Lots of glass, windows, doors and an oversized brick or stone fireplace are not what we call "acoustical treatments."

 

[AVRat]

You've got the room for 7.1. I'd use in-ceiling w/aimability for surrounds. Fronts - 8' apart
Sides - 12'-13' apart at sides of listening position, (LP=max 8' from display) (bi-poles preferred)
Rears - 2' from fireplace 3'-4' apart.

 

[gcmarshall]

thanks everyone. i have attached an updated sketch of the den to include guesstimates of where furniture will go. i typically lounge on the floor in front of the TV to watch it. but when we have a group of kids, etc., to watch a movie the seats will get used.

in place of a flat-panel TV, should i consider a motorized dropped-down screen (say 80" screen and a front projector mounted from the ceiling) or would that be overkill. the room will have light at most times during the day. for regular TV watching, i would not probably close the drapes, etc. fo rmovies, i could make it pretty dark.