Rear surrounds: Direct or multipole for this room?

[chicagomd]

Here is a little something to take your minds off London today. (If anyone is there, my heart goes out to you.)

I recently purchased a new home with a nice finsihed basement, and of course took the opportunity to get a new system for the "home theater area", which was pre-wired by the previous owner. (Unfortunatly, it was wired with a set of "box" speakers in mind, so I may not use ANY of the wires.) Based on the comments from this site and some other research, I went with one of the Axiom systems, which I unpacked today:

VP100 Center
Pair Millennia M22ti
Pair QS8 Surrounds
EP350 Powered Subwoofer

Here is the room: (Forgive the keyboard art, I have upload issues at work):
It is basically an "L" with the listening/viewing area in the short arm, which is 13' x 15'. Please ignore the horizontal dashes inside the listening area, they are there so the format translates correctly.

------------------------50'------------
l
l
l
ls - - - -- s
l
l - - a - - l---------------------------
l - - - - - l
l - - - - -15'
l - - - - - l
-----13'----

Those two "s" are where the wire is for the the rear surround channels. They are about 9 feet (vertically, not diagonially) behind the "a", which is the approximate listening location. The monitor is going on the "13'" wall.

So I have a couple of questions:

1) Given the "L" shape of the room the monitor, front and center speakers along the 13' wall or the 15' wall?

2) IF the 13' wall is the right place for the monitor, am I better off keeping the Q8s and putting them along the same line as "a", or keeping my old direct surrounds (Phasetech ATS) and mounting them at the "x" spots?

On a side note, the Q8s are huge for the space and may not pass the wife test, so this discussion might be mute. The real downside to the whole situation is that we are not fully moved in yet, and the acoustics in the space are terrible: The walls are bare, and there is nothing in the basement save a bunch of empty boxes from Axiom. I swear you can hear your foot- steps echo even with wall-to-wall capreting.

Thoughts?

 

[tbewick]

My listening room is L-shaped.

I'd certainly put some stuff in the room to help improve the acoustics, or things will sound bad. I've read that any reflective surfaces should be near the sound source, with absorbers behind and diffusers on the side walls. Preferably you'd have absorption behind the sound source (fronts) as well.

My room's set up so that the listening area is against the 13' wall, and the monitor is where you have 'a'. I've done this because I think it's important to more reverberation from where the sound source is, and to have absorption behind the listening area. I also think that the high frequencies from the fronts are more easily absorbed in this configuration. Whatever you do, try to preserve symmetry, as this helps to improve imaging. I'd try and put the surrounds on two side walls if you can, or things might sound unbalanced.

I'd try out listening to the surrounds you've got already and if your satisfied, then keep them. Monopoles might be better for surround music.

 

[chicagomd]

Thanks for the reply.

Having the monitor at "a" is out, as there is a bar opposite the 13' wall against the 50' wall, and people seated there would be looking at the back of the display. (My suggestion was a little LCD in the bar area, but that didn't go over so well with my wife).

I usually listen to music in 2.0 or 2.1, so surround music is not really a consideration. I think the Q8s will pass the wife test when mounted, so the side listening positions it is!

This room, and the listening space in particular, is going to require quite a bit of acoustical treatment, with absorbption behind the fronts as a first priority. I hope to get some bookcases in as defusers for the side walls. This is my first venture into the world of HT, and I am having to break my wife in as I go.