Side Surround Speaker Placement

[THD1%]

Hello all,

I am new to these forums and have a question or two to ask. This is a great site by the way...I love the reviews and how they take stuff apart to see the build quality...now thats a review...I always pop the top on my stuff when I get it...nothing like the smell of new electronic heaven...oh and the opening of the box..heaven!!! anyways to the question: I am in the process of having a home built that has a media room option and it has the cute little pilasters with the sconce lights in four corners (near corners) of the room. The problem is that they are in the sweet spot of where the side surrounds should go (according to Dolby and THX), so my question is: is it critical to have the side surrounds directly to the side of the listening position or can they be slightly in front of the listening position..say 1-2 feet forward? and should they be dipole/bipole or direct?

The room is going to be wired for 7.1 and its 13'-9" x 15'-7" 1810.22 cubic feet (I modeled it in CAD) so its not that big so I want to get a far back as I can with the seating for maximum screen...otherwise I would move the seating up a bit. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[avaserfi]

If you look here you will see that there is some room to play with the surround speaker locations. The important part is that you keep the angles proper. You will most likely be able to fall in or extremely close to this range and with proper calibration and acoustics you will be golden.

 

[MDS]

If the side surrounds are going to be slightly ahead of the listening position I'd suggest dipoles. With monopoles it may be slightly more obvious that the surround effects are in front of you.

Still you have to work with what you've got. Having the surrounds slightly in front of the listening position isn't going to totally destroy the effect - it just won't be 'ideal'.

 

[THD1%]

Thanks. I was just wondering if it was going to be a big deal because I could not get the rear pilasters put in but I kind of like them...they are cheesy cool. I attached a file that has my proposed set up. The surrounds will be around 2.5 feet in front of main listening. Another thing is I have to mark up where the surround junction boxes will go...so I want to get them close as possible to the "ideal" position. I dont want to run wire when I can get them positioned in the right spot.

 

[MDS]

I think bi/dipoles would be slightly better but that is actually a decent room for surround. Because di/bipole fire in two directions, you'd get sound fired behind you and reflected off the back as well as sound fired toward the front and reflected off the front wall.

With monopoles you may get the impression that left to right pans appear to be slightly in front of you.

While many strive for the absolute ideal, I try to approach things more pragmatically and balance sound quality with aesthetics. I don' think you'll be disappointed in any case but would give the nod to bi/dipoles if you can find some that meet your other criteria for looks, specs, cost, etc.

 

[THD1%]

Thanks a lot. So the rear should be direct or should they be dipoles as well?

 

[MDS]

I can't say from experience as I only use 5.1 but based on that room layout I'd say it won't matter much. If you use monopoles they'd fire directly at the back of your head and that is fine. You only get 7.1 when using PLIIx or THX surround modes anyway.

The usual approach would be dipoles on the sides and bipoles at the rear. In your case I still think dipoles would be best for side surrounds but monopole or bipole for the rear would work equally well. Bipole would just give a potentially more diffuse surround effect whereas monopoles would be more 'in your face' if you will.