Stick to 5.1 or move to 7.1 for small room?

[Bluesmoke]

I have a small HT room. It's 9x10 feet. It's a projector setup with a 9 feet throw distance. My couch is about 8 1/2 feet from the screen. Now, I have a 5.1 setup, but I was wondering whether I would benefit from a 7.1 setup? I know Blu Ray has announced some 7.1 mixes, and I will get a PS3 eventually for my HD needs. Anyways, I have my 5.1 setup the way Dolby advises. I don't have much room in the back for 2 additional speakers. I planned on wall mounting them 6 feet high and pointing downwards.

I've heard several people mention that having speakers too close to you can break the surround field behind you and sound too positional or direct. Just wanted to hear some thoughts on the matter. I added a pic to illustrate my desired 7.1 setup. My equipment is in my sig if it helps.

 

[Bluesmoke]

Bump. Little advice?

 

[MDS]

If you only have 1 foot or even a few feet behind the couch, I wouldn't bother with 7.1. The surround speakers and especially the rear surrounds in a 7.1 setup are mostly for ambience and the occasional direct sound where the mixing engineeer intended the sound to come from behind you; in other words they aren't utilized all that much.

In a small room you can get surround effects from even two speakers up front (because the sound bounces off the walls). A well done 5.1 setup will be much better than the overkill of extra rear surround speakers for 7.1, IMO.

Still, if you really want to experiment with 7.1, I would suggest dipole or bipole speakers to spread the surround info around. Regular monopole speakers one foot behind you will get really annoying really quick.

 

[yakuzaboss1975]

i have a 7.1 set-up in my one bedroom apartment condo. my living room measures 12x12 feet. i probably should have gone with 5.1 but it would have been a shame to put the other 2 speakers in storage. and i managed to position the rear speakers actually behind me since i moved the couch almost a foot away from the wall. 7.1 in my home isnt necessary but i figured, why not?

 

[blackjackshalac]

I hope you don't mind me jumping on board your post but my sistuation is very similar. My room is slightly larger at 14x14. Right now I'm using 6.1 but I have an extra speaker from when I bought the 6th rear back channel and it seems like a waste not to use it. My problem is I don't have anywhere to put it unless I switch my surround speakers around a bit. Instead of using the Bose 201 series v as the rear back channels and moving them to the right and left rear channels and then take the Bose VCS-30 series 2's i was ussing as the rear channels and use them as the rear back channels. Because there is a big window on the back wall the bigger 201 series won't fit but the smaller ones I can fit. So now my concers are towards my new R&L rear channels. Because they are 9" deep if I keep them up against the rear wall like the previous units(whcih were only 2" deep maybe)the eat up a lot of the space between me the back wall and would be almost on top of me(putting them in the corner does the same thing). Should I try mounting the 201's on the side wall and have them face the other side of the wall? Would that help or hurt my cause? Or should I just stay with the 6.1 the way I have it and stock that 7th speaker away until a day comes when I have a big enough room to use it?