Best surround speaker type and placement

**anejo99** · **06-08-09, 12:43 AM**

I am trying to determine the best home theater speaker arrangement for my room. The challege is the room is open on one end - meaning one of the side walls is actually much further away (i.e. leading to the stairs and hallway) thus I really can only easily get speakers on 3 walls (Front, Rear and Right side), thus I am considering ceiling speakers for my rear surrounds. In addition, the room depth is only about 14 feet, thus my couch backs-up almost to the back wall.

I am open to any ideas on what type and how best to mount the surround speakers. I recently read keelay's thread and that seems the most interesting so far.
http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...surrounds.html

Any other suggestions?
Thanks.

**Anthony** · **06-08-09, 09:17 AM**

Have you thought about stands for the surround speakers? You could have them flank the couch, or just put the one on the open end on a stand.

I used to have Atlantic Tech 350's on stands and they looked pretty good and sounded great.

A quick picture (Google sketchup, powerpoint, hand draw and scanned) would help out quite a bit.

**fbov** · **06-08-09, 12:20 PM**

I've been experimenting with surround options and the one I prefer so far is described here.
http://linkwitzlab.com/surround_speaker.htm

I've got a similar layout; 15x22 room with a 5' doorway at the left (15') side. I keep the seating area a good 3' away from the back wall and so have a 10' viewing distance. The simple, single, full-range driver omni set-up in the link is beating the out of the several direct-radiating options at my disposal (not a very comprehensive choice), without any EQ. They're floor-standing, small footprint and can be painted to match the decor if desired. The challenge in your case is the absence of any wall on the open side, but I suspect the resulting sound level difference can be compensated by increase gain in that location. Sound leakage will be bad, but it's already bad I suspect.

Have fun,
Frank

**tonyvdb** · **06-08-09, 01:17 PM**

I always try to talk people out of going with In Ceiling/Wall speakers as you always loose performance and quality going that route. If your not dead set against having a bookshelf speaker hanging from the ceiling that would be a far better choice.

**fredm** · **06-08-09, 02:47 PM**

Does anyone know of a good simple article on 5.1 speaker placement? All the pictures I see are totally different with regards to rear surrounds.

**tonyvdb** · **06-08-09, 03:50 PM**

Dolby has a great setup guide located here

**anejo99** · **06-08-09, 11:51 PM**

I have actually been thinking of 'hanging' some bookshelf-type of speakers such as was suggested, but since I have a relatively low (8 ft) ceiling, I have been thinking about recessing them somewhat like the way it was done here:

http://www.reefworkshop.com/speakers/

Has anyone else done it this way? What might be the pros/cons with this?

**Anthony** · **06-09-09, 08:24 AM**

Thread moved to System Setup and Connections.

**tonyvdb** · **06-09-09, 10:15 AM**

Quote:

anejo99 wrote:

I have actually been thinking of 'hanging' some bookshelf-type of speakers such as was suggested, but since I have a relatively low (8 ft) ceiling, I have been thinking about recessing them somewhat like the way it was done here:

http://www.reefworkshop.com/speakers/

Has anyone else done it this way? What might be the pros/cons with this?

That is an option just make sure that the speakers are front ported not rear.

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