Seating placement

[kiwiaudionut]

I'd appreciate your thoughts with regard to seating placement within a dedicated theater room that is about 50% completed. I've taken to heart Bryans (GIK fame) recommendation of two rows only in my 20x12 theater room. With the screen on a short wall, he recommends the first row at 62% of room depth and the second row at a split point between this and the rear wall. These measurements are human ear location points.

Now, this sounds viable, and I've designed my room to this end result, but I see a slew of very professional theaters online that obviously ignore this rule, and my curiosity is piqued! I'm sure they are positioned to some advanced theory, so who amongst you intelligent souls knows what that might be?
Perhaps the rooms width changes the ratio of front to back placement?

 

[bpape]

It's more a matter of the extra seats are there and rarely used so they don't care what they sound like. A lot of theaters that LOOK very well designed - are designed to look great and sound good in the main seats where the owner and family sits for 99% of the room's usage.

One can design for optimal main seating and live with the rest, or, one can design for 'no bad seats' which is what I laid out for you. Sometimes it's just not feasible. In a 20' long room, you should have lots of options.

Bryan