7.1 Speaker Placement

magellin

Hello. I have an older RTi 7.1 speaker system...similar in size to RTi A7, RTi A3, CSi A6, and FXi A6. I don't have a sub.

We are finalizing our floor plan for a new home we are getting built and I was looking to get the opinions of others on the best placement of the speakers.

The floor plan is here.

The TV and front towers will be located in the great room. The corner fireplace will be moved to the rear wall in place of the triple pane window. I was thinking the couch could be bumped back a bit and the side surrounds mounted on the walls beside the couch, and the back surrounds just sitting on top of the kitchen cupboards (the end ones). Although I'm not sure if that would be too high or not. The FXis would be side surrounds and RTI A3's back surrounds.

I thought I would pose this question on the forum and see what others thought. Like I said the house's floor plan can be adjusted. I should also through into the mix my wife doesn't necessarily like the size of the surround sound speakers, so I was thinking of maybe replacing the back surrounds (and maybe sides) with a pair of smaller satellite ones, like maybe the new blackstones...but I'm not sure on how well these would sound with the fronts since they are in a different series.

I do listen to music, not multi-channel. The surround system is only for movie watching.

Thanks!

dnoyeB

That's a similar layout to my present house. I don't like it as far as surround sound and TV viewing are concerned. Moving the fireplace to the back wall will help your audio layout. However, in my house that window opens to the back yard which is full of trees and I think its beautiful. I don't like that trade. Another unseen thing is that in my house between the great room and morning room is a ceiling support beam. Makes me feel a bit bad about putting speakers on top of the kitchen cabinets but they should work.


If I had the option, I would completely juggle that layout around. I don't like the isolated "flex space." I'd try to get a layout that combines all those spaces in one large area. That would be best for HT. And best for family dining. Heck, for everything because any one activity can spill over into an adjacent room. Did you consider the fenway or hadley?

magellin

dnoyeB wrote: »

That's a similar layout to my present house. I don't like it as far as surround sound and TV viewing are concerned. Moving the fireplace to the back wall will help your audio layout. However, in my house that window opens to the back yard which is full of trees and I think its beautiful. I don't like that trade. Another unseen thing is that in my house between the great room and morning room is a ceiling support beam. Makes me feel a bit bad about putting speakers on top of the kitchen cabinets but they should work.


If I had the option, I would completely juggle that layout around. I don't like the isolated "flex space." I'd try to get a layout that combines all those spaces in one large area. That would be best for HT. And best for family dining. Heck, for everything because any one activity can spill over into an adjacent room. Did you consider the fenway or hadley?

In this floor plan there isn't any support beam between the great room and morning room...I'm just concerned with the back surrounds being too high. As well as looking bad with these big black speakers visible on top of the cabinets. This is why I was thinking of going with the blackstones for the back surrounds, because they are smaller.

We did look at the Hadley and Fenway. The Stratford is what we liked the best and have decided to go with. The problem with juggling the rooms around too much is it costs a lot of money...moving a few things here and there (like the fireplace) is okay because it's relatively cheaper.

If I could get some thoughts about replacing the RTi A3s with blackstones for the back that would be great!

dnoyeB

I think it should work. The Blackstones are completely different speakers though. Satellites that will not produce the volume of those bookshelfs. I considered them for a while. I might even consider putting a sheet over the A3s. might block some of the sound, but you might be able to spare it. An AVR calibration like Audyssey or MCACC might be able to compensate too. If you go with the Blackstones, I would think the calibration could compensate for them being a different line.

I looked at exactly what you are and in the end I decided not to do anything. There was no optimal solution. My plan is to address this issue with my next house purchase. If I really had to do it now, I would go with some A1s probably. Sideways on top of the kitchen cabinets. Nobody looks up anyway.

campisfortis

Our house has almost the exact layout depicted, with the fireplace in the corner. Having the TV and the fireplace on the same wall and corner makes it easier to arrange furniture sitelines. Anyway, we have RTi A5, CS400i (similar to A6), f/x 500i (similar to FXiA6). The f/x 500i (set for dipole) are on 36" speaker stands in-line with the couch. For the rears, we installed RC80i in the ceiling, at about the same distance as your end of the cabinets. Our receiver (Dennon 3801) supports seven channel stereo. Using this mode really helps when you want to watch TV when sitting at the kitchen island (so you don't have to turn up the sound as much). Having seven speakers with 10 midrange drivers and 9 tweeters distributes the sound mostly evenly through the room, and as a bonus, the speakers are well matched in timbre.

By the way, I really recommend a sub, I hid a Velodyne SPL-1200 under a coffee table (just where the round table is in your layout), using a 20 or 25 foot long RCA running under the floor (I hope you have a basement). The sub sounds great there (the coffee table has a fake stone top over cast iron), and the wife doesn't mind. I used a similar setup when we finished our basement, but alas, our new Denon receiver when set on seven channel, adds fake digital surround effects and Audyssey boosts the volume.

I used to use old Polk Monitor 10s for the mains, and when it came time to pick a replacement, this site was very useful in helping me make a decision (I got the A5's on the Polk ebay site and they look and sound great).

Have fun and good luck with your new house.

magellin

Hi guys. Thanks for the responses. I do have a Denon 3808CI (older 130watts/channel) that has the Audissey calibration.

I did think about ceiling speakers for the back surrounds as well. Again though being up so high does it throw things off at all? With the speakers on top of the cabinets I'm guessing it won't be much different.

Here is the official floor plan as it sits now...just got it back from the designers...you guys can see how the fireplace has moved...I'm a bit concerned that the couch may have to be sitting back too far so the side surrounds are beside it now...

http://www.bowsoprecious.com/content/images/Stratford 2322 First Floor.pdf

Thoughts after looking at the new layout?