Speaker Placement

over50

My room is 12x20.My placement is M70II,cs2,psw505 are all in front of main couch. I just bought new furniture and i have my RtiA3 as surrounds,left-right of my couch. Because of my furniture placement my M40 surround back are off to the right of my main seating. My question is since i'm unable to place the m40 in the back,should i leave them or remove and just use my 5.1 speaker placement?

Almadacr

Here`s one of the options that i find very helpful
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/setup/speaker-setup-guide/index.html

over50

Dolby guide shows the surround back be placed behind the seating area. That's my problem, i`m unable to place surround back in recommended position. So either i leave them to the right of seating or remove them and go from 7.1 to 5.1 set up. One thought is if they do not take away from the surround right/left then no harm is done by leaving them.That's another concern that the back speakers would take away from the right/lefts.

stangjason

Take this with a grain of salt because I'm no expert but I would point them behind the listeners and see if that adds or takes away from the surround effect. If that doesn't work well you might even face them towards the back of the room. The moral of the story experiment with different locations. My one issue with my rear speakers is that I could put them high up on the wall but if I don't like them I'm left with holes in the wall.

Also does your receiver have a front high speaker setting? If so you might try that but getting approval from the wife in my case prevents me from doing that plus I don't have very high ceilings so a lot of people say it doesn't work unless you do. I have to admit the virtual front high speaker setting on my Pioneer 1120 sounds phenomenal to my ears...YMMV as another poster puts on here

spock 2054

over50 wrote: »

Dolby guide shows the surround back be placed behind the seating area. That's my problem, i`m unable to place surround back in recommended position. So either i leave them to the right of seating or remove them and go from 7.1 to 5.1 set up. One thought is if they do not take away from the surround right/left then no harm is done by leaving them.That's another concern that the back speakers would take away from the right/lefts.

Hi Over 50:

My room is 12X14. M70's, CS2 in the front, M60's for surrounds and JBL E20's back surrounds behind the love seat. I did have a pair of JBL E10's above the pocket doors, but removed them and put the E20's on speaker stands. (see attached) I used the suggested 7.1 placement from Dolby. It's tight in the back, but it sounds great. Try experimenting with the M40's as surround backs and see how that works out for you. Don't forget to run Audyssey to balance your speakers.

over50

Thanks for the info.I've odered some speaker wire from Monoprice. I'm going to place my m40 on the floor next to my couch,i will run Audyssey and see how that sounds.

mdaudioguy

over50 wrote: »

Thanks for the info.I've odered some speaker wire from Monoprice. I'm going to place my m40 on the floor next to my couch,i will run Audyssey and see how that sounds.

Of all the options, that's probably the worst. Ear level or higher. I vote for 5.1. Use all of your Monitor series for your HT. Take your RTiA3s and use them for a nice 2-channel bookshelf system elsewhere.

over50

You might be right mdaudioguy. I placed the m40 behind my couch, and i think it sounded better with 5.1 set up. I will continue to experiment. thanks for the advice.

mdaudioguy

You're welcome. We do what we can here to help each other. Some pics of your room, or a drawing showing the layout of the room might help us to offer suggestions too.

LitoZacky

I think you should remove the surround rear and stick with 5.1 unless you can place the M40s properly

over50

Thanks for the input . A few replys said a good placed 5.1 is better. After trying a few placements i`m thinking that might be the way to go. My room furniture and size limits my choices of the m40. Thanks to all for taking time give me ideas.

over50

To continue on with this same post, my question now is if placement of surround back doesn't work how about front wide or front highs. Or leave the m70 alone in front.

mdaudioguy

I experimented with a Yamaha version of wides/heights that they called "Presence" speakers. To me, they weren't worth the effort. (I still have the wires sticking out of the wall where I had them mounted. Seemed a bit gimmicky to me, since these only worked when certain Yamaha DSP modes were activated. The speakers came down when I moved away from Yamaha.

That said, some people on here are reporting some satisfaction with the Dolby-supported implementation of height channels/speakers via PLIIz with equipped Onkyo AVRs. Once again, I say try it (although placing these speakers for a "try" won't be easily accomplished). Remember, there's no content that sends a separate signal to these speakers; rather, their signal is derived through processing the same signal that is supplied to your front speakers.

On the other hand, you already have the pieces you need for a fine 5.1 HT. The 70s should be very capable and more than adequate on their own. Like many of us, there's the urge to "use" all of the features packed into your AVR. With some experience, I've learned that many of them can (and probably should) be ignored. YMMV.

mantis

From looking at your pic's your fronts are toes in to much and the center is pointing to high.
What I would do as space seems very limited , take your front channels and point them to the seat where you sit. You want to see the inside side panel slighty and none of the outside panel. If you where to go behind your seat and kneel down to sitting height , in this position you should not see the sides of your speakers. This is good for stereo. For theater you can toe out just a tad more if you wish to cover more seats. You can also point the fronts almost straight forward with just a slighty toe in.
I hate floor standing speakers for rears. Way to local , It would be so much better to get on walls or in walls for surround speakers. Place them on wall so the Tweeter is 72 inches to the tweeter. Same goes for surroundback , using correct placement which in your room surroundback should be 72 inches to tweeter and about 2 to 3 feet apart.

I forgot about the Center channel, this speaker needs to be pointed at your seat at when you look at it you should see only the grill and not top or bottom. To change this angle , shop by Home Depot and get rubber door stops. You can move them forward and backwards underneath the center to get the desired angle.
These improvements will greatly improve your system. Please recalibrate system after all changes.

over50

Thanks for the reply mdaudioguy. That seems like straight forward information i was looking for. I`m, really happy with the 5.1. I just put away my m40. Like you said , these avr have a lot of features, some i will never use, some are important, other not. Like you said, urge to use, i have to realize this and resist . Thanks for taking time to reply.