Offcenter Prewired Speaker Location HELP

[burlybo]

I just moved into a new house that has a large living room with vaulted ceilings. The Television nook is not in the center of the wall but is rather about 2/3 on the right side of the wall. On the left side of a wall is the fireplace. The surround sound prewired speaker locations are setup for the room and not for the tv nook. In other words, their location is for a tv that is right inbetween the fireplace and the television. I have my leather chair right in the center of the surround area but it is angular to the tv now. I am about to install my stereo stuff from my other house but..

MY QUESTION: Should I reposition the speakers so they are symmetrical to the television or should it be for the seating? I'd like to use the spots if I can but if it's going to sound crappy and weird, then I'll change it.

Also, the rear speakers are about 14 feet up on the ceiling behind the living room. Is that too far away?

Any info is appreciated.

 

[Unregistered]

Ideally they should be symmetrical with respect to the tv. This is so that sounds are accurately placed relative to the image; ie sounds on the left side of the image actually sound like they are left of you.

This can be hard to achieve with so many houses built with a fireplace in the center of the big wall. That is no doubt done for aesthetic purpose s to make the fireplace the focal point of the room - sucks for people who actually want to live in their living room and watch tv, rather than sip tea and stare at the fireplace.

 

[dreadstar]

wall off the fireplace and put your tv in the center. just an idea

you can also spend hours adjusting the delays and levels of each of your surround modes to compensate for the offset speaker locations.
But there are very few homes with perfect listening characteristics. Reason why most high enders build a room for that purpose. the rest of us just have to set it up as best we can and deal with off axis acoustic issues.

 

[RLA]

Delay time and spl level adjustment will not cure poor speaker placement
my advice relocate the spekaers to the correct location's in reference to the listening position you are better off doing it right the first time

 

[Bryce_H]

We had a similar issue when they were building our home, but we caught it before we closed and made them correct the mistake. I would move the location.