need advice for speaker placement

begbie

Hey members.

I'm getting my basement finished and I'm usung my rti series for a 5.1 and maybe a 7.1 setup.
Here's what I have rt800i for fronts. cs400i for center and fx500i for surrounds. Sub is a Velodyne cht12. I've also got one more pair of rt800i's which I could use as back surrounds in a 7.1 setup but I think it takes too much room cause it's a multi purpose area- 60% home theater and 40% kid's play center. I could go in-ceiling for the 6th and 7th speakers. What would be Polk speakers for those?

Here's an attachment of the layout.

The side surrounds is a problem in that option 1 is further to the side from the seating area. Option 2 would put both surrounds further back from the seating area. A third option that's not listed would be to attach the speaker to a bulk head that runs between surround option 1 and surround speaker one. The only problem is that the fx500i would be mounted higher than ear level and would be vertically taller that the bulk head which would pose as head hazard.

Sub option isn't too critiacl but would be your opinion? option 1 or 2 or even a third option near the seating area?

Thx all

TORO3 (TORI3)

Option 1 seems the most practical from my initial impressions. Even though the surrounds are further to the side, you can always calibrate the 'surround speaker 2' (fx500i's) through the receiver to make up for the distance. Since the other half of the room is a kid's play center, I'd probably bypass the option of putting the Rt800i's as rear surrounds -- aesthetically it may not be appealing to the wife. If you have the dough, I'd probably go in-ceiling for the rears, but then again I don't know which Polk in-ceiling speakers are timbre matched to the Rt800i's. Then again, since the rears will only be doing surround duty, it may not matter too much.

In regards to the sub, I really wouldn't set a designated placement. Instead, I'd use the crawling technique where you put the sub on the main seating area and crawl around the room to hear where it sounds best in the room -- which would eventually be the ideal (acoustically) placement of the sub.

I'm sure there will be differing opinions, but this is just my humble opinion. Throw some pics up when you get it set up!!!

begbie

Thanks Toro. I really want to go for the fx500i on the stairway wall but it seems to be out of place with it there. Almost out in another part of the room kind of way. THx for the input I will consider it.

I posted in another part of the forum of having in-ceiling speakers too.

Subwoofer wise I've decided to leave the sub cable out of the wall and experiment with placement.