surround speaker height for two different ear levels

[xboxweasel]

It was hard to detect from where the sound was coming from, which, I guess, is the whole point of surrounds. But the flip side of that is I kept wondering if they were loud enough. I'll have at it with my SPL meter, but for now, I *might* wind up increasing the surrounds by 0.5 dB or even 1 dB.

I think with surrounds is that it all comes down to how the source is mixed. A lot of movies don't do too much with the surround channels. Mostly ambient effects. The director does not want you turning your head away from the picture because some surround effect caught your attention. I used to turn mine up to. But after calibrating everything I'm happier the ways it sounds. It all comes together nicely. With a good sound track (I like picking War of the Worlds) it's bloody awsome and I truely enjoy (and never question the money I spend on) my system.

 

[supervij]

Okay, I take back what I said about the surrounds not being loud enough.

I put the shelves up so that the tweeters are three feet above the ears, like I said. Today, a friend and I watched a movie that does have lots of surround: Cube Zero (not as good as the first Cube, but miles better than Hypercube), and the surrounds were incredible. I hadn't increased them at all, I left them at YPAO levels, and the surrounds kicked *ss! I was completely blown away by how much better my new setup is; I could finally hear things coming from the opposite surround, and it made for a far better experience. Thanks to everyone for their help/advice!

cheers,
supervij