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Theater Room Speaker location 7.1 surround sound


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[attachment=1003:tHEATER rOOM.JPG]

Thats the layout of the theater room i have going in my basement. I will be wiring my speakers this weekend. This is the setup crutchfield and dolby and a few other audio websites recomend. The main items are labelled, and the couch and two charis are in front of that window. does that setup make the mostm sense. any other recomendations?

any thoughts or ideas welcomed..

sidenote: no option of doing ceiling speakers, doing a drop ceiling, not worth the hassle to do them that way so they will all in in-wall..

Thanks in advance!
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That is possibly optimal...I assume a subwoofer is in a corner location somewhere in there. I might move the chairs and couch a little away from that back wall and experiment with sound field/delay settings with those back speakers with a movie that has a lot of sound output. I am also not sure about that left/right setup with the speakers next to the chairs. You might get better sound installing those in the middle of the side walls just past the hallway and moving the furniture up so they are close to your ears. The rear speakers aren't supposed to be the loudest as their input is usually delayed to give you the "from behind" effect. All your primary dialogue volume is going to come from the front. Make sure you position your sub in such a way that it has maximum reflection off of a wall to get the most out of the reverbations. It also depends on how big the room is too. I am sure you will find something you can live with. Like you said though, once you decide where they will all go, they are mounted into the walls so there's no going back. My Dad has a similar setup in his media room in his house with his 162" HDTV.
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good input, afew things..

I cant move the furniture, the hallway is in the way, unless i move it like 4 feet from the tv, which would be kinda silly, so the furniture is going to be there, it may not be all the way against the walls on the sides, but there isnt room to move it forward.

also, all decent, current receivers come with a setup mic, and auto setup, which you place in the "primary listening area" and hit "setup" and it runs every single speaker test sounds of high and lows and seperate and together and adjust the volume of each speaker to it fits its location in the room. if the room were bigger it would be nicer to give some spacing around the back speakers, but thats sadly not an option, the room is only 14' x 17'-ish
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[quote name='GoBengals' timestamp='1338741092' post='1133684']
good input, afew things..

I cant move the furniture, the hallway is in the way, unless i move it like 4 feet from the tv, which would be kinda silly, so the furniture is going to be there, it may not be all the way against the walls on the sides, but there isnt room to move it forward.

also, all decent, current receivers come with a setup mic, and auto setup, which you place in the "primary listening area" and hit "setup" and it runs every single speaker test sounds of high and lows and seperate and together and adjust the volume of each speaker to it fits its location in the room. if the room were bigger it would be nicer to give some spacing around the back speakers, but thats sadly not an option, the room is only 14' x 17'-ish
[/quote]

I didn't realize the room is that small, so yeah, moving the furniture forward that close to the TV won't work. I'd just hate to be the guy sitting in one of those chairs in the corners with that speaker in my right/left ear during something particularly loud. I am sure you will get something workable, as you say, all your levels are adjustable to each speaker. It looks like the best seat in the room is going to be square in the middle of the couch.
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yea, i have a similar setup in the family room upstairs, but its only 5.1 so there are only rear speakers back there. and my lazyboy is in the corner, so i hear mostly the one speaker, i set it up so the couch is primary. but that room only has 3 walls upstairs, so i was limited to 5.1(or so i thought, the above setup would kinda work upstairs too) but there is a window on the right side roughly ear level...

also for the subwoofer, i will probably put it between the couch and chair in the back of the room, i have it there in the family room, and the "rumble" it generates in the seating areas there is sweet during movie watching. its also part of the auto setup with the mic thing so its not overpowering, but is higher in "movie" mode vs "tv mode" on the receiver.

all i have read basically states to put the subwoofer wherever you want, as long as its adjusted properly it will sound great.... seems to be pretty accurate..

drywall guy is coming to give estimate a week from today, we already talked price with just sending him a floor plan, but gettingfinal pricing monday and started that week, so two weeks from now I will be painting getting exciting the closer it gets to done.. i have all of the electrical done now, so these wires for the 7.1 are all thats left before drywall (aside from adjusting two air returns and two vents from ceiling to in-wall. so a grand total of two days work..
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Hi Go,
Long time member just not much for posting. I do want to comment on your proposed layout but it would help if you could provide your screen size and what type of speakers you will be using and whether or not they are wall mountable. It looks like right now you have the TV on teh 14 ft wall? Is it possible that the couch could be centered between the hall entrance and the other side wall (without the window) on the wall with the hallway in order to place the TV and front channes on the long wall? The other two chairs could then be placed to form a sort of semi-circle. Depending on the screen size you may not want to be almost 17 ft back from the screen.
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Glad you posted! I have likely going with a 65" LED if at all possible(financially) and i re-measured doing some wiring last night, and its just under 17" before i did my floating walls, so i ended up around 15'6" there, counting furniture the persons head is probably 12' front the tv, 13'-sh at the most.

my ms paint picture isnt too proportional the wall by the hallway is a hair under 8 feet long. so its possible, but it also leads to more awkward speaker setups with one wall being 5-6' further away from seating area than the other side.. not a huge deal, but still an odd arangement..

i have virtually the same setup in my family room, just without the wall you mentioned as its open to the dining room/kitchen areas.. and a 46" led in there and its a good setup for the area.. the home theater places rocomend 8.5'-18' for a 65" tv. so i SHOULD fall into the good viewing range..

as for speakers, i am doing in-wall speakers, just some real basic 6.5" for rear and 8" for front, just some basic kevlar cone decent in walls...

im no audiophile, just want a decent place to have a second media area...(or a new primary media area, i guess)

i just want to make sure i dont do anything stupid that i have to fix or re-do later...
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[quote name='GoBengals' timestamp='1338854233' post='1133858']
Glad you posted! I have likely going with a 65" LED if at all possible(financially) and i re-measured doing some wiring last night, and its just under 17" before i did my floating walls, so i ended up around 15'6" there, counting furniture the persons head is probably 12' front the tv, 13'-sh at the most.

my ms paint picture isnt too proportional the wall by the hallway is a hair under 8 feet long. so its possible, but it also leads to more awkward speaker setups with one wall being 5-6' further away from seating area than the other side.. not a huge deal, but still an odd arangement..

i have virtually the same setup in my family room, just without the wall you mentioned as its open to the dining room/kitchen areas.. and a 46" led in there and its a good setup for the area.. the home theater places rocomend 8.5'-18' for a 65" tv. so i SHOULD fall into the good viewing range..

as for speakers, i am doing in-wall speakers, just some real basic 6.5" for rear and 8" for front, just some basic kevlar cone decent in walls...

im no audiophile, just want a decent place to have a second media area...(or a new primary media area, i guess)

i just want to make sure i dont do anything stupid that i have to fix or re-do later...
[/quote]

Volume can cure a lot of ills if the speakers or seating area are somewhat misaligned. If you are getting kevlar-coned speakers and a decent amp/receiver, you can easily overcome any "audiophile" deficiencies in your setup with more volume. It may not be ideal but I am sure it will be livable for you. I find the opening scene to "Top Gun" to be a good test movie for surround sound (no joke). Lots of variable input across all frequencies.
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Thanks Go, and you are right about not wanting to have to re-do later. I have a couple of friends who didn't get their set up right when building their home theater and have come to regret it later. I see now with the length of the wall between hallway and other wall being 8 feet, that does make it difficult to achieve a somewhat symetrical setup. I would say from the dimensions you provided the setup you arrived at would be your best bet.

I was a little concered about light pollution coming from the window directly across the TV, but with an LED TV that shouldn't be so much of a concern and can be corrected with window treatments. A 65 inch would fit your room perfectly, although you could certainly get by with a bit smaller. Since you are doing in-wall speakers, you will have to be careful to get the speaker height set right the first time. I would recommend the front right and left speakers having the tweeters at about the same levels as your ears while seated on the couch. I would place the center just below the TV rather than above, especially if you go with a 65". You could always hang the TV a few inches higher to give the center channel enough height. The side and rear surrounds would then be mounted so that the tweeters are 2-4 ft above seated ear level. That should give you the best spread on the rear effects. I don't think the back speakers are as critical placement-wise, but they should be at the same level as the side surrounds. THX-derived surround modes differ a little from Dolby's in that they are optimized for the back surrounds to be closer together, but I don't think it will have that much impact anyway with the couch being so near to the back wall.

I would use some decent wire no less than 14 Guage (Audioquest makes a good inexpensive in-wall wire) and leave yourself plenty of extra at the mounting point. Maybe you can post some pics when you get it set up?
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good input. That was pretty much my plan to a T on the speaker placement. thats what i did in the fam room. Crutchfield website was pretty helpful in speaker palcement direction at that time..

i am using [size=3][color="#0000cc"][b]12AWG CL2 Rated 2-Conductor Loud Speaker Cable (For In-Wall Installation) [/b][/color][/size]wire. its crazy cheap, 100ft is like $32.

I will post some pics this coming week, once i get the wires to the media box. I got a 4 gang outlet box. I have a set of inserts that are for surround sound. first has the front left, rear left side lft on it, 2 has the center channel, HDMI, and sub connectors, and 3rd is opposite of the first, and the 4th I did the coax for directv. So i have running all of the wires to the bix, using the inserts and then from the wall connectors to the receiver. keeps things simple and organized. I ran the sub wire to the rear of the room and to the front corner so i can switch its placement and put a sub insert in both places in the wall in an outlet box..

trying to be as neat and organized as possible.

i am doing a drop ceiling of 2x2' coffered tiles. and with the floating walls being a few inches from the concrete, I can always restring wire to anywhere than I have outlet boxes already.. but obviously trying to avoid every doing so...

as for the window in the rear, its a window well since its in the basement, and i am putting frosted glass window well covers over it, and "black out" window shade on the inside.. so i should be able to eliminate all light in there pretty easy.. that was my main concern with the setup like it is..

im running the wire a few feet higher than the electric wire just in case of any interference..

i am about 7-8 months into this project, it has been quite fun, but lots and lots to learn and think through ahead of time at every phase..
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It sounds like you have done a thorough job thinking it through. You reminded me of the subs with the dual placement....excellent idea to give you the flexibiity to add another sub at a later time. Also, I liked that you separated the power and speaker wires...always a good thing.

In a previous home I had used acoustic drop ceiling tiles to great effect as far as the surround system was concered. Only don't expect them to make much difference on keeping the sound levels down upstairs. In fact, I was informed by a friend who had gone upstairs to use the bathroom directly above that he could hear every word of a conversation I was having at the time.....go figure!

Now I want to re-do my basement home thearter! Looking forward to the pics.
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Funny you mention the sound barrier issues, my family room with 5.1 and theater room with 7.1 are only seperated by 3/4" playwood and carpet. I am going to put 9" thick insulation in the floor joists in the ceiling of the basement to help with the sound, the panels are super thin (any decent acoustic panels nearly triple the cost per panel, which isnt in the budget) so i am crossing my fingers that the thick insulation will be good enough...

the biggest puzzle i have had was the electrical. not that it was too tough, but that i didnt think of things in the first place, and i used twice as much wire as i expected. I bought only normal rocker switches and didnt realize i needed two 3-way rocker switches for the hallway. and didnt get any 3way wire, and drilling through the concrete siding on the exterior to run the conduit to the box was a challenge to say the least... i learned a lot, but also wasted a lot of time going to and from lowe's returning and exchanging stuff.

i did 12/2 wire everywhere and 20a circuits, just to be safe, i put about 10 outlets per breaker, and split them nice and evenly, so i have basically no chance of overloading a circuit or anything silly.

mounting the can lights onto the drop ceiling frame is going to be interesting i think..

anyway, i dont know if you saw the original thread here: http://forum.go-bengals.com/index.php?showtopic=62983 its kind of an in-progress thread on the basement from when i started to now... i need to post more pics in there though...
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Comity mentions speaker height as an issue WRT tweeter versus woofer placement I assume. Aren't your wall mounted speakers integrated in that regard? There isn't a separate placement "spot" for the woofer versus the tweeter...right? The types of speakers I am used to in home audio are nothing like the component speakers you see in car audio (which I have a lot more experience in than home).
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[quote name='Bunghole' timestamp='1338869565' post='1133895']
Comity mentions speaker height as an issue WRT tweeter versus woofer placement I assume. Aren't your wall mounted speakers integrated in that regard? There isn't a separate placement "spot" for the woofer versus the tweeter...right? The types of speakers I am used to in home audio are nothing like the component speakers you see in car audio (which I have a lot more experience in than home).
[/quote]

something similar to this is what i am using.

[img]http://images2.monoprice.com/productlargeimages/41001.jpg[/img]

so you are correct that they arent seperate speakers, but the center of the woofer and the center of the tweeter are a good 6-8" apart. some are shaped more oblong than these, so as long as the center of the whole unit is roughly ear level i should be fine, given the difference in peoples height it would be impossible to be perfect for "everyone" to be exactly tweeter height..

but yea, all in one unit..
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Go, I would say from the looks of the speakers that you do have separate woofer and tweeter components mounted on one panel.....they look to be pretty good quality and should provide a nice sound. I agree that if you put the center of the speaker panel at ear level you will be fine.

You can tweak the bass management with your receiver to give you the best overall sound, depending on how much low frequency info you can get out of them. It seems like so much information these days is sent to the center channel that you want the center to be driven as full range as possible. If there was ever one speaker you would want to be as high of quality as possible it is the center channel.

I feel your pain with wiring. I also wired my basement and it took multiple (and multiple) trips to the hardware store, but hat seems to be the norm for most of my home projects. It also sounds like you have adequate coverage by going with 20 A circuits. I went a little crazy with my install and ran dedicated 20 A circuits for the amp and projector. In retrospect, I don't think it was necessary.

Thanks for the link....I'll check it out.
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I ended up with 10 outlets one one, 11 outlets on another, and 12 can lights and two GFI on the 3rd. the can lights will use CFL spotlight bulbs so they are pulling like 1.5 amps total if they are ALL on.. the 10 outlet one includes the hallway and office outlets, at most 5 would be in use at once all with a computer and general electronics on it, which is virtually nothing... the one with 11, has the biggest load, i put 2x double gang boxes in the corner of the room, i plan on using a short corner entertainment stand for the entertainment devices, so i have 8 total outlets behind it next to the speaker/media 4 gang box... so i shouldnt need a big crazy surge protector with a ton of wires everywhere, everything should get its own plug nice and organized..*i hope*...
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