RC85i In-Wall Placement

seguetester

So, I am setting up my first HT and have a question on speaker placement. I am going cheap for WAF and all in-wall except for the center channel. The center will be a CS20, the fronts will be RC85i. Now is where it gets trickey. I was going to use a set of RC85i as the side surround and a set of RC80i in-ceiling as the rear surrounds. However, my room is only 11' x 12' so I have to commit the HT sin of the couch on the back wall. So, I see two options:

Option 1) Only run the system as a 5.1. If I do this, where should I put the RC85i surrounds? It seems strange to have them on each side of the couch so close to the back of the room. However, I have read that you want them at or behind ear level. Also, how high should I place them on the wall? Same level as the fronts or higher?

Option 2) Fake a 7.1. I was thinking that I could put the Rc85i in the side walls and then put the RC80i in the cieling above the couch and aim the tweeters to bounce off of the back wall. I may be able to get the couch away from the back wall by about 12"...if I am lucky. Again WFA issues.

So, which setup would you run and exactly where would you place the surrounds?

Thanks in advance.

- Michael

dragon1952

Personally, with that size room I'd just go with 5.1. I've got a similar set-up with 5 x RC85i in an 18x16 room and it's actually very good. With the point-able tweeters I don't think you have to necessarily have them at ear level. My fronts are 50" from the floor to the bottom of the grill and 57" from the floor to the middle of the grill. I point the tweeters slightly angled in and down towards ear level. My rears are 59" from the floor to the bottom of the grill and 66" from the floor to the middle of the grill. I point the tweeters down and angled in towards the listeners.
I can't remember where I did my research, but the front L/C/R I wanted all at the same height and above the screen, and the rears were placed at that height based on some of my research.
I installed mine during construction so I had 4x6's installed on those walls to make the 'enclosures' deeper and put 4x6 pieces above and below to make kind of a 5 ft tall speaker box for each one. I then stuffed leftover insulation in each 'box', enough to cover the entire area before installing the speakers. Anyway it works really nicely. My sofa is pulled out about 6 " and the sub is in the left rear corner under the fake plant. Here's some pics. For reference, the TV is 60"

EDIT: I think I put the rears at that height and spacing so they wouldn't be right on top of the listeners. I figured the extra distance would be good and I think it works better like this. It's normally just my wife and I so we sit between the rears.