Is this too high for a screen?

[GregBe]

I just bought a home with a pre-existing dedicated theater in the basement. I really want to make a front projector work, but I have a bit of a dilemna. The area where the screen/speakers will go is relatively narrow. It is about 9' to 10' wide. If I put the screen between the mains, the screen will have to be pretty small...around 80" or so. If I go above the speakers, I could get a pretty big screen, but 2 questions...

1)Is putting the screen above the speakers (45" for the bottom edge above the floor) too high?
2) Would it sound strange with the main speakers under the outer edges of the screen vs the traditional outside of the outer edges of the screen?

Thanks
Greg

 

[BMXTRIX]

I would consider that to high, and instead would be looking for narrower speakers, or perhaps at putting speakers in the wall and getting an AT (acoustically transparent) screen for the room.

There are some other options which I would consider less ideal, but the screen on top is one that I consider not to be at all ideal. Also keep in mind that a 100" diagonal screen is about 7.6' wide, yet it is over four feet tall. So, at that size it would likely fit between some decent wall mounted speakers, yet if placed above floor standing speakers, it would basically be touching the ceiling if the ceilings are 8' tall. If your celings are a lot taller, then you might have that option, but going bigger definitely would not be helpful because the image would just get higher and higher.

I think audio would likely sound fine, but nobody would want to be in there due to the neck strain they would be getting.

 

[BrawlingBigJim]

I have a similar size theater room. 9.5 ft wide and I have my 106" screen mounted above my floor standers. I don't find it to be hard on the neck nor have any of my guests. Ideally I would have liked to have mounted it a little lower but you have to work with what you have, plus the fact that I wanted a minimum 100" screen. One bonus that my room has is 10 ft ceilings, so the screen is not right up against the ceiling. Audio sounds great with the speakers positioned where they are in the pics. Click on the link in my signature for some pics.

 

[jostenmeat]

GregBe, what's your budget? Things that can help this work out:

- anamorphic setup
- AT screen (ideal)
- build a riser! (and then angle speakers upward. You can put something below the front feet of mains, or only have spikes installed for front feet. Vertical speakers are best for horizontal dispersion, but at the cost of vertical dispersion).

Question for you: what kind of speakers make up your front soundstage?

The differences in audio b/w having the mains outside of the screen or below it, IMO, will be very insignificant compared to the huge improvement you would get with a tower center speaker.

Depending on your budget, this is not a problem at all in any case. But that's a big ? mark.

 

[FirstReflection]

We don't know all the details of your planned theater setup.

Will you have just one row of seating, or will you have a second row behind the first row?

Regardless, a good rule of thumb when it comes to screen height position is this:

Position your seat exactly where you would like it to be. Now sit in it exactly as though you were going to watch a movie. If it is a straight backed chair, you will likely be looking almost perfectly straight ahead. But if it is a recliner, your eyes will be looking up at an angle.

Basically, what you want to do is imagine a perfectly straight line shooting out of your eyes when they are in a perfectly neutral position. You can actually use a laser pointer and line it up with your line of sight to see exactly where that imaginary line would fall on the all in front of you.

With that point now located, the ideal tip top of the screen should be no more than 17 degrees above that point. THX recommends that the top of the screen be no more than 15 degrees above this point.

Check out the THX diagram here for an illustration of what I am talking about.

The THX diagram shows a line of sight perfectly parallel to the floor, but if you are in a recliner, the line won't be parallel to the floor like that. It'll be angled upwards, so just keep that in mind

So basically, if your seat is a recliner and you always (or almost always) watch in a reclined position, having the screen up higher on the wall won't be a problem and may actually be preferable. But it really depends, so it's very much worth your time to figure it out, measure it out and make sure in the planning stage before you go buying anything.

Some other potential solutions:

- an acoustically transparent screen is certainly a great choice! An added benefit is that you can get ideal center channel speaker placement this way and you can also use 3 completely identical speakers across the front

- another solution would be to use horizontally oriented speakers for all 3 front speakers. Some speakers are well designed to sound virtually identical whether positioned vertically or horizontally. Some examples are Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1 speakers (ie. you would simply use 3 of the Sierra-1 Center speakers across the front) or the Emotiva speakers are all designed to sound virtually identical whether placed horizontally or vertically.

Regardless of how you solve your issue, avoid placing the front L/R speakers in the corners or very close to the side walls. IMO, it just isn't worth destroying your sound quality in order to accommodate the screen. That's robbing Peter to pay Paul as they say

Best of luck!