Should the center and towers be ear level?

[WxMan]

I know there has been a barrage of questions about center placement. I placed mine above the screen as it seems to create the best illusion for having the sound emanate from the screen as opposed to placement below the screen. Anyway, I know where I would like it to be. The towers are about 9 ft apart, the center is about 5 1/2 ft off the floor mounted on the wall, and the towers stand on the floor about 1 ft from the wall and 3 ft from each corner. We sit about 9 ft from the screen.

However, such placement creates another problem. My center is now over 2 1/2 feet above my towers which are nearly ear level. Is the sound mixed in most movie studios for having the fronts all at ear level?

If so, my question is then, even though it may not sound as good to me, should I place the center back under the screen so it puts the center woofers/tweeters nearly in line with the tower woofers, mids, and tweeters?

Or, should I mount the towers on the wall on each side of the screen so that the speakers are once again nearly lined up? I have the wall space. The towers will still be about 3 ft from the corners. Mounting the towers on the wall is no problem either. But will it sound right? That's the problem. Will they tend to sound thin and distant mounted that way? BTW, they have front firing ports which should permit wall mounting.

Comments from anyone would greatly be appreciated.

 

[j_garcia]

In an ideal setup, yes, the three should be at the same level and all at ear level when seated. If you like it the way you have it though, there's no reason not to keep it that way.

 

[WxMan]

Beautiful sound lies in the ears of the beholder. If it sounds good, it must be right for the one despite it being opposed to the dictates of theory.

But in theory it shouldn't be.

Thanks for the input, j_g.

 

[Matt34]

If you can aim the center to ear level at the LP, and your AVR has some sort of auto-cal, I wouldn't worry to much about it.

 

[WxMan]

Yes, I have the center aimed to ear level from where we sit, watch, and listen to movies and music. I won't be able to aim the towers to ear level though. It would be too risky and just too unstable tilting a heavy tall speaker that much. My surrounds aren't aimed at the listening area either. They sound great wall mounted without any tilt at all.

This evening I made a quick temporary prototype wall support for one of the towers just to see how it looks mostly. I think it will look pretty classy having all the speakers similarly wall mounted. My wife loves it because that puts it well off the floor and eliminates the dust traps and dust balls (mixed with cat fur) that tend to accumulate in that corner of the room. Luckily we have mostly bare floors except around the cat lounge and cat tree area and a few throw rugs.

My AVR (Yamaha) has a rather crude sort of auto-cal firmware called YPAO. I really dislike the sound whether done Natural or Flat. Either one accentuates the highs far too much by around (+5 to +6 db boost, especially in the 6K to 8K range) in all five speakers to the point of sounding shrill and harsh. To put it bluntly, it butchers the sound.

I don't fault YPAO though. It's quite a beast of living space and a challenge for such an attempt. If you've ever been in or lived in a casa latina, with mostly bare floors, like tile or wood, bare walls except for lots of large pictures, and lots of couches and chairs angled in various directions overflowing with different sized pillows, then you know what I mean. The HT in the grand room, along with the kitchen and dining area are all essentially one humongous room under a high vaulted ceiling. It is not designed for home theater by any way, shape, or means. I have to use the built-in manual equalizer to get a more natural sound. I've found that a slow treble cut solved the harshness problem in the highs, certainly not by use of treble boost as done by YPAO. I set 2.5 k to -1.0 db, 6.3 to -2.0 db, and 16K to -3.0 db in all five speaker channels. Below 1 K it's set fairly flat. All our musica latina sounds splendidly magnificent that way too. Acoustical room treatments are certainly out of the question.