[sansqhash]

Hi all

I am in the process of building a home and not sure about the best (if any) sound setup I should implement in my main living area.

I have attached my floor plan and some 3d images on the links below:

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3


Basically there's an entrance (3m high ceiling) that leads into a living area on the right (6m high void) and another area on the left (3m high ceiling). The dashed line in the floor plan is just to show separation of the two areas (different heights), this isn't a wall, it's all open. I've also shown a section of what the TV wall looks like. I have to maintain min. 300mm clearance from the fire place.

Absolutely no idea what to do here, I know it's not an ideal room for sound, but any suggestions would be better than audio directly out of the TV. I need it to look aesthetically pleasing too, so placing floor standing speakers around the room isn't an option for us.

Love to hear your thoughts!

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Not that hard for the most part. Left and right speakers sitting in the book shelves. Center speaker on the ledge under the TV. Right and left surround speakers on (or in) the walls to the sides of the couch, eight feet up. If you want 7.1, two speakers on (or in) the back wall facing the back of the sofa, ~six feet up. If your build has some flexibility, make the lower two front cabinets large enough to fit a subwoofer inside on each side. It’s going to take a couple of big ones to fill that room.

Regards,
Wayne

 

[Da Wiz]

I strongly suggest you use the information in Wilfred Van Ballen's article in the current issue of Widescreen Review magazine to help you select the best loudspeaker layout for ALL immersive sound formats. He has the best explanation I have ever read on this topic since immersive sound appeared. widescreenreview.com Subscriptions are free for industry professionals (manufacturers, studios, content providers, retail sales, install and service, etc.). All others pay a nominal annual subscription fee ($15 last time I looked) for access to new issues and all previous issues going back into the 1990s. The contents include reviews of UHD/HDR movies with the activity in the immersive channels evaluated as a separate item so you can learn which movies have good immersive soundtracks (not many, unfortunately) and which ones have poorly executed immersive sound (almost all titles with Atmos or DTS:X, unfortunately). The main reason is that "object oriented" sound for the height channels is not a good idea no matter what Dolby and DTS say about it. When there is object oriented immersive sound, it is almost impossible to put AMBIENT immersive sound into the height channels and AMBIENT sound is the KEY to ideal immersive sound. Frankly, most ATMOS and DTS:X soundtracks sound BETTER WITHOUT decoding the Atmos or DTS:X and using AuroMatic to create the immersive sound from the 5 or 7 channels of sound in the "main" soundtrack. Stereo music even sounds better with AuroMatic (part of Auro-3D) processing instead of listening in Stereo. Both the Dolby Surroud and Neural:X upmixers are so bad, they make stereo music sound BETTER than their terrible-sounding processed versions.

 

[Lee Batchelor]

Nice looking room. One thing I notice is the seating area looks very close to the center of the room. That is, the couch is about the midway point between the fireplace/TV and back wall. This will be your first horror story in trying to achieve decent subwoofer bass. The midpoint of any room is where the bass waves of certain frequencies cancel each other. I'd plan to change the seating distance or as Wayne mentioned, be prepared to buy two subs. To his thoughts, I would even prewire for one sub up front and the other along the back wall somewhere. They don't need to be large. They just need to be of good quality. Some room treatments and bass trapping would certainly help. I know the drawing is only conceptual but some soft surfaces will be needed.

Speaking of cabling, run two of everything to the back wall. If one set of conductors fail, you're covered. Otherwise, you may be into ripping out large amounts of drywall. Been there, done that!