Hi all! I hope you can help me out.
First, please see the attached image that shows the floorplan and various other information.
At the top in blue is the existing equipment. The main speakers are NHT 2.5i. Center is NHT Audio Center 1. Receiver is Yamaha RX-A780. The floor is wood. Walls are typical drywall.
I'm not currently using a sub. The NHT 2.5i have pretty powerful bass on their own. I'm in a town house. I've never heard any of my neighbors through the walls, and I've never heard any complaints about me (though, I've never actually asked). But I'm worried a sub would be too much. A sub would probably go in that top left corner, and that left wall is the shared wall.
At the bottom in orange is approximately where I want to add surround speakers. As you can see, there is a wall on the left, but not on the right, so side surrounds aren't an option, so in the back they go!
- Should I use bipole or monopole speakers. It seems like bipole are common for side surrounds. So it seems like being forced to put my side channel speakers in the back means it's an even better idea to use bipole to help cover the placement issues. Do you agree?
- What speakers would you recommend? I was considering Polk Audio FXi A4 (bipole) and NHT SuperOne 2.1 (monopole).
(Please note that I don't really care if all my speakers are the same brand. I'm more concerned about how it sounds. NHT doesn't have bipole speakers, so if bipole is what I need, then they won't be NHT.)
- How far should they be from the 8 foot ceiling?
- How far should the left-rear surround be from the left wall (please note the air vent in the floorplan)?
- Where along that little wall between the hall and the kitchen should the right-rear surround be?
- Since the surround speakers are going in the back, does that mean they should be plugged into my receiver's back channels instead of surround? I'm not sure my receiver will actually let me do that (the setup guide suggests not). Just curious what others have done?
And in case there are any installers out there, please note the orange spots on the bottom and near the top left of the floorplan. Those are where I'll need wires run for the speakers. The spot on the top left I chose just because it seemed easiest and was close enough to the equipment.
- Just curious what your estimate would be for a job like this?
- Do you usually take care of drywall patching yourself, or do you expect the client to hire someone else for that?
- Do you see any particular problems with a job like this?
- Any more information I should figure out before I try to hire somebody?
