Rear Speaker Dilemas

[oohsam]

Hi All,
I am having massive issues with the whereabouts of my rear speakers.
I have dipole/bipole speakers and have no idea where to put them . Here is a simple layout of my room attached.
I am wanting to put the rears on the sides of teh room, however, the red window is restricting me from doing that, as the dorway and the red window line up, and will not be able to have the rears inline.

My other idea was to put the speakers on the back wall, however, the blue window restricts me slightly, I can mount them up in the corners of the room on the same all as the blue window...however im not sure if that will acheive the desired sound with the Dipole/bipole speakers.

Can some please help, i have set everything up, but Im so confused as wat to do with the rear speakers.

Regards

 

[ScottMayo]

In HT, there are Surround speakers, which go on either side of the listener (or sightly back), and there are Rear speakers, which go behind the listener. I'm guessing we're talking about the surrounds here.

You're right, there's no good place to put them in this arrangement. I'd probably go for the back wall, as close to the corners as possible. If you can mount them at even a little bit of an angle, straddling the corner, it will help. The door probably prevents getting much of an angle, though. Try to mount them about a foot above the height of your ears.

You want to move the sofa off the back wall. I realise there isn't much room, but even a foot might make a difference. If you decide to add a rear speaker, you can put it on the floor behind the sofa, firing up at the ceiling - not ideal but much better than having it a foot behind the listener's head.

Try and get the main (front) speakers a little further apart. I'd leave the sub where it is - it's pumping energy into the sofas, which in this case is a good thing. It will cut down the bass problems you'd otherwise have in a room that size.

 

[oohsam]

Sorry for not being clear in the first post about the use of the speakers.
Yes you're right, they are surrounds, for a 5.1 setup. My amp is capabile of running 6.1/7.1 however I will not be doing this.


Also, with the mains, becuase my picture is not entirely in proportion, the mains are pretty far away from each other, at a good distance, the room is quite large and the speakers compensate for this.

In relation to the rears..
I can place them on the rear wall, you mention a foot above the ears, how abouts if put them up in the corners of the room but fire them downards towards the listener. Or, I can put them on the sides, ie...above teh subwoofer (hanging from the cieling) and above the doorway. What would you reccomend?

 

[ScottMayo]

In relation to the rears..
I can place them on the rear wall, you mention a foot above the ears, how abouts if put them up in the corners of the room but fire them downards towards the listener. Or, I can put them on the sides, ie...above teh subwoofer (hanging from the cieling) and above the doorway. What would you reccomend?

Ears are good at finding the direction of a source. If you put them up high, your ears will tell you the source is up high, no matter how you angle the speakers. It might work for some movies, but it won't be ideal for most. If you must put them high, DON'T aim tweeters straight at the listening position - that just makes it easier for your ears to find them. Try to aim things so that if the tweeters were laser pointers, the beams would cross about a foot over your head and maybe two feet in front of you - more or less depening on room size and speaker characteristics. Whatever you do, mount them so that you can re-aim them afterwards.

Hanging speakers can actually shiver, or rock back and forth, under sustained low frequency tones. You'd be surprised how distacting that small movement can become to the ears. Try to go for a rigid mount.

If it's a large room, get the sofa off the back wall.

More advice than that I can't give - in part because I don't have things like actual room dimensions, in part because I charge for this stuff. At any rate, the smallish difference between back wall and side wall mounting is less important that issues like acoustical treatment, if you care deeply about the sound.

 

[oohsam]

Thanks for your help.

I think I may mount them on the same wall as the blue window about 1 foot above ear level. I hope that works.....