Theater room overhaul

[Rambo4]

Hi, thought I would chime in with a thread regarding my trials with a long battle with poor room setup. After being disappointed with the overall audio quality in my theater room I have set about to change up the positioning of my entire front speakers.

Originally, my two bookshelf speakers were attached to the wall with bookshelf speaker wall mounts. Roughly 11 feet apart and toed in an inch from the back wall, and each a foot from the corner of room. My center channel was positioned in the same way in center over the projection screen approx.. 7 feet in the air. As I enjoy listening to music as well as movies, this setup, I came to realize, just would not do, no matter how much Auralex I added. So thinking it was my speakers, I visited a high end audio shop and they allowed me to bring my bookshelves along to do a audio quality comparison in their shop. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the speakers were no where as bad as I thought, in comparison.

Armed with this knowledge and their suggestions I have now removed them from the walls, contrary to the original installers recommendations, and will have my entire front array of speakers a few feet away from the walls, place them all on stands, approx. seven feet apart. This will also allow the center channel to be in closer proximity to the horizontal line of the bookshelf speakers. I did a little test run and I am VERY impressed with the audio improvement to these speakers. As soon as I am finished drywall patching, painting, building a center channel stand, and putting velvet curtains up on either side of the screen, this room will be done!

If anyone has had similar experience with speaker placement, please feel free to comment.

[bpape]

Right on the money. Setup makes all the difference in the world. When we're designing a treatment regimine for a room, the FIRST thing I suggest to them is any places I see where speaker/sub/seating placement could be improved.

And the best thing is - it's free.

Glad you're on your way.

Bryan

[Anthony]

First off, wall mounting speakers should only be done as an aesthetic requirement. If you can put them out into the room, always do it.

Also, I have never heard a center channel above the big screen that sounded as good as one below. I think that has to do with the fact that ceilings are almost always hard, while floors have a mixture of of hard and soft surfaces. The comb filtering is not as bad.

Chances are your speaker designer built in a baffle step compensation that was designed for a specific distance from the wall. This was likely balanced against the bass reponse, which improves as you go into the corners (most of the time).

If you can find out what the manuf. recommends as a side and back wall position for the speakers, try that out first and move things around. Chances are that will get you close to optimal.

[dieselpower1966]

a few suggestions.
the tweeters for the front three speakers should be as close to the same height in relation to your ear level when seated. the left and right tweeter should be no higher than 18" inches than than the center channel tweeter. if you don't believe this try it. put you center channel really low and put your front left and right say 25" higher or more and watch a movie, when the surround comes across the front you'll see what I'm saying.

[salvasol]

You're right, placement is the first thing to consider

But, you didn't mention anything about accoustic treatment in your room ... Do you have any??? that will also improve your listening experience

[John Simpson]

Keep in mind that some speakers actually benefit from being close to a wall... depends on their construction. The installer may have been thinking of his training on another brand, or your ears may prefer a more open sound... it's a personal thing.

Best thing is to experiment and find what suits your ears best. Believe me, people can be wildly different in what they call "good" sound... that's why different manufacturers choose different setups.

And David's right -- room treatment (even a couple of well-placed rugs) can be the cheapest way to upgrade your equipment.

[dieselpower1966]

I do have room treatment,
nothing expensive, a nice area rug on my hardwood floors,
very heavy draperies on both side walls, and in the center of the rear wall.
no corner bass traps and nothing behind the front speakers, btw the front speakers are Polk Rt55 which are ported to the rear, i did have absorption behind them, but I didn't like the sound.
dieselpower1966

[Rambo4]

My Athena are similar to the Polks, in as much as they are ported to the rear. I found the openess to be lacking and speakers were almost harsh sounding on the wall mounts; away from the wall they are much more even sounding. I also have these speakers on metal stands with sand filled core and spikes for feet. I think the installer was taking into account our second row of seating on the riser so all the sound would be as close to equal as possible for when company was over. And it did sound good in the second row, but I primarily sit in the front, and found the response lacking in that location.

Just trying to track down a good rule of thumb guide for speaker placement, formula's etc. to get my speakers set in the right spot from the outset. Then no moving anymore.

[Anthony]

Google Cardas method. It doesn't work for every room, but there are some formulas there that worked for my dipole speakers (he has formulas for other speakers as well).

Also ported speakers almost always need a little breathing room. They don't need to be three feet from the back wall, but up close or in a cabinet is a definite no no (especially with a rear port).

It sounds like you are well on your way. Good luck.

[Rambo4]

Thanks for the tips! I feel I am getting a better grip on this whole arena. So much to remember...

One question that is nagging a bit at me is when I place the center channel under the screen I have three options:

1) Use the component wall mount I used as a makeshift center channel mount. Plus side is that I already own it, but it will only take the rear ported speaker about 5 inches from the wall max.

2) Build my own center channel stand from MDF and PVC.

3) Buy the ST-CC-17 stand from Plateau. http://www.plateaucorp.com/html/spea...s/st-cc-17.htm