surround placement for my system

[Joshr]

I am getting ready to move into a new loft style apt (i.e., open kitchen, dining area and living area) and am putting in a 5.1 system (Energy Veritas V2.3i fronts, V2.0Ci center and V2.0Ri rears/surrounds). Picture a rectangular open area with the kitchen at one end facing the other end (as if the kitchen were one endzone on a football field facing the opposite endzone), a dining area in the middle and the living area at the end opposite the kitchen. The key thing is that the viewing/listening direction is widthwise--i.e., if you are sitting in the sofa, you have windows to your right, bookshelves behind you, plasma in front of you over fireplace, and to your left is open to dining area and kitchen. Hope that's clear enough. The challenge is where to put the surrounds since the preferred position on side walls a bit aft of the listening position aimed at each other is not possible since there's no left wall where the living area is open to the dining area and kitchen and a speaker on a stand there is not an option.

These surrounds are bipolar/dipolar (can be set in either mode...see www.energy-speakers.com for details on design and how they fire).

So, presumably I will have to put the surrounds behind the sofa facing forward, trying to avoid getting too close to the corner with the right surround. Given that these speakers each fire in 3 directions, will I get a good enough surround effect that way, or should I be trying to design some kind of a swing arm mounted on the built-in shelving behind the sofa that allows the speakers to be swung out and aimed at the listener from 110 degrees or some such?

In general what would you experts do in this situation? Thanks!

 

[saurabh]

Well, under your room layout, I would myself have tried using monopoles for the surrounds (I know they cant compete with the bipolars, but still). You could have then used floor stands to place the monopoles at 6ft height and directed towards each other and see how they behave (can you borrow from someone to experiment).

Otherwise the placement for your bipolars as you have mentioned would be correct, the bookshelf behind the seating is a plus but you need to see if the depth of the bookshelf will not obstruct the path of the bipolar surround sound since the bookshelf will have some depth and you will hook the bipolars on the wall.

hmmmm my DIY mind also came up with a solution while I was writing this for hooking up your left bipolar on the side without the sidewall, create an iron bend so that you can screw one end up on the ceiling and the other end for the bipolar. You will have to be sure about the length from the ceiling though and would depend if you can actually fix it to the ceiling and/or the decor police approves it.

 

[Joshr]

my surround placement

Thanks! A couple comments on your comments:L

1) speaker stands wouldn't have been option anyway b/c of furniture layout

2) I should have mentioned that, assuming the dipoles go on the shelving behind sofa, I plan NOT to sit them back in the shelves mounted on the wall for the reasons you point out (the dipole firing into the sides of the shelves. Since these are custom built-in shelves, we can create a shelf where the cabinets recede into the shelving a bit but the drivers protrude and fire out into open space...make sense? Should that work/help?

Thanks again.

 

[saurabh]

my fault, i didnt notice, you had already mentioned that cant use the stands and if the drivers protude out of the shelf like you mention then it works for me............best judge would be your ears !!!!!!