Rear surround speakers sound coming from front

[yepimonfire]

First reflection on the side walls would be 1.3’ from the back wall, back wall reflections 7.8’ from the side walls, and 4.4’ from the side walls on the front wall. Ceiling reflection would be 1.7’ from the back wall. I would first start with the side walls, hang a blanket or something and see if it fixes the issue. Considering the width (or lack of) of your room, I would guess you’re getting very strong lateral reflections skewing the imaging. What method did you use in determining where to place the panels?


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[TLS Guy]

I'm not sure about this. A claim that an iphone in the back of the room sounds as if it is coming from the front, is activating my BS alarms.

If someone speaks from the back of the room, does it sound as if they are speaking from the front? I highly doubt it.

 

[mtrycrafts]

From your drawing, it seems that you are too far from the TV.
I am 13 ft from my 115" screen; room width is 18 ft. The screen is essentially at the front wall.

OK, I see you are 11 ft from the TV. Try to move your TV and front speakers closer to the front wall, much closer and see if it gets better or worse.

It sounds it is your room that is the issue or not properly level matched channels?

 

[Leemix]

Do others experience the same issue sitting in the same spot?


Audio physic scorpio 25, Parasound a31, Marantz av7005, Oppo 105d, Bluesound Node 2

 

[nathan_h]

Wondering if the OP ever solved this situation? I too have something similar going on, so am running 5.2.4 instead of 7.2.4, in order to get better localization in a well treated room.

 

[zainframe]

Wondering if the OP ever solved this situation? I too have something similar going on, so am running 5.2.4 instead of 7.2.4, in order to get better localization in a well treated room.

Hi, reviving this thread since I am still living with this issue after all these years - did you find any solution for this?

 

[nathan_h]

Sort of in the sense that it was the rear speakers bouncing sound off the front wall In my case.

So my first solution was to turn off the rear speaker. Then I tried them with a different angle. And finally treating the front wall more thoroughly.

 

[Kingnoob]

Hi All,

I have been having this issues for years and still have not gotten an acceptable solution:

I am running a 7.2 (sometimes 5.2.2 for Atmos sources) and the audio from the rear speakers sounds like it is coming from the front. This has been going on for a few years with 3 receiver changes and 3 sets of rear surround speaker changes (I have also tried a set of bipoles without any positive result). I am almost sure it is a room acoustics/speaker placement issue and not something related to:
1) Phase
2) Receiver settings
3) Wiring

From my browsing and response from forums this looks like a psycho-acoustic effect related to speaker placements (front rear reversal/cone-of-confusion effect) but I have tried to position the rear speakers the best I could. As you can see from the pictures- there is a door on the right rear side of the room giving me no choice but to put the rear speaker close to the center.

The speakers have been moved up/down/left/right as much as I can (as mentioned the door is preventing me to put it nearer to the corners), also tried pointing them to all directions. So far the only positive results I got is by moving my sofa very close to the rear wall/speakers making it about 3.8feet away from the speakers. This helps a bit where the effect is less but it is not 100% workable and I cannot move it any nearer to the wall for various reasons. I noticed the farther the listening position is from the rear speakers the more prominent the effect.

As you can see from the pictures the room is decently acoustically treated and I have also tried putting temporary drapes on various places on the walls etc. The walls are concrete.


This has also been shared on AVS Forums (very helpful bunch but still nobody could provide a workable solution yet)

My gears are:
Onkyo RZ900 (will be Denon X6400H soon I hope)
Polk RTiA7 fronts
Polk C5 centers
Polk RTiA1 side surrounds
Polk RTiA3 rear surrounds
4x Polk Monitor 30 front and back Atmos height speakers (mounted on the ceiling corners, now only front height working as the RZ900 does not have enough channels to drive the rear height)
2x SVS PB-1000 subs

Thanks everyone!

View attachment 22637 View attachment 22638 View attachment 22639 View attachment 22640 View attachment 22641

Are you describing an echo ? Odds are too many channels or not properly placed . Surrounds effects come out of every speaker except the center … ofc
I’ve had this issue last time I tried 4 surrounds , .. any success fixing it op ? We’re did you place to back surrounds? Any new pics . I don’t bother with that many surrounds if any now . Big room lots of reflections possibly..

 

[zainframe]

Hi, guys OG poster here.

Problem still exists after all these years, honestly I've kinda gave up. Stopped pursuing the issue for a while - made a lot of equipment upgrades since I first posted but not much on the room acoustics side.

Issue not as prominent now - probably because I've been using audessy (and minidsp+rew for the dual sub calibration but the subs shouldn't be part of the equation).

receiver is now Denon X6400h
front and center speakers changed to klipsch (RF8000 & RP-600C)
side surround changed to polk in-wall V65 with custom enclosure
rear speakers no changes (polk RTi A3) but have tried a few other stuffs borrowed from friends (same results).
emotiva XPA7G3+A5175
4x svs elevation for heights
couch is now suede leather

I've experimented by facing the back of the room (TV behind me) and played test audio on the LCR (including amp level test noise) and guess what? there is some audio from the front speakers (which are behind me) that I hear in front of me (rear of the room), not as bad but I can hear it - tried covering the walls all over with those acoustic foam and thick drapes (temporary taped them all over the walls)- still the same. Issue is more prominent with left rear and left rear height speakers.

I have concluded that it's the room characteristics (size, wall materials, acoustic treatment type/locations etc) - need professional help and will probably cost quite a bit. A few friends have confirmed this 'phenomena' so I'm sure it's not some psychoacoustic thing unique to my hearing. Some posters may be right - I might be trying to do 7.2.4 in a room only suitable form 5.2.2.

These days I just enjoy whatever I have. Apart from this issue everything else sounds great. Movies are great - main issue is during gaming where I sometimes get confused on the positional audio.

Thanks for the input everyone - I've learned a lot from this thread.

 

[nathan_h]

Glad you are enjoying your setup. What I learned is that reflections are real, and distracting, and that a couple hundred bucks spent on real acoustic panels (not foam egg crate stuff, not drapes, but 2" to 4" thick fiberglass or rockwool panels) can make a world of difference. On top of that, my solution was to get the seating off the rear wall, and have the speakers pointing at me and not at the walls.

Each room is different of course.