RTI Fxi A4/theater setup distance advice required

kuznagi

Hello,

Recently had a few upgrades to my system from some xmas sales, I expect to have my RTIa9's arrive, with that I have upgraded my Centre to a CSI a6 and got a great deal on the FXi A4's but I'd like to know the best place to put the FXi A4's. Unfortunately the back 'wall' is actually a large window so wall mounting is not an option, its just a ton of blinds over it. So I am working to build a stand at the correct height, that said a couple of questions.

1) How high above ear level should the surrounds be? My theater space is large but not large enough where my couch could be very far away from the back wall where the speakers are. I measured it and the distance from the back of my couch to the wall is 18 inches or 1.5 feet. Currently I have the speakers about 13-15 inches or 1.16 feet above my ears. Given my setup (see picture) how high above ear level should the speakers be?

Also to note: the couch is 9-10feet away from my TV, it is a 65" so its just enough, I could move the couch up a bit more without the TV experience suffering I guess.

2) See the picture for an idea of my setup, should the surrounds be in the position of the red squares or green squares? I've seen setups with both, given the speakers are somewhat bi-directional I am inclined to think that the red set up is better but let me know where it should be. How far of a distance should there be between the surrounds? Like from one red square to another how far apart should they be?

Thanks!

Kuz

domflane

The general consensus is that the tweeter should be as close as possible to ear level when you're sitting down. So if you're building your own stands, you should probably make them high enough so that the bottom of the enclosure clears the top of the couch by a couple inches. It doesn't have to be that precise though, they are rear speakers after all.

As far as placement, I think the red would be better, but here is a great page to help get you started.
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/setup/connection-guide/home-theater-speaker-guide/index.html#
One nice thing about having them on stands and not wall mounting them is that you can adjust them until you get the most seamless imaging across the back of your soundstage.

By the way, what speakers are you using for side surrounds? Just curious. Anyway, you have a great setup for H/T. Good luck and welcome to Club Polk!

jbooker82

Surrounds should be a couple feet higher than your ear level for home theater. People who listen to SACD or multi channel music prefer the tweeters to be at ear level.

kuznagi

Thanks for the feedback so the consensus is that I should have it a couple feet above earlevel, since I am mainly watching movies I'll go a bit higher.

Does it matter that the distence between my couch and wall is only 18 inches or 1.5 feet, that's the best I can do given my room setup.

Donflame - I've been slowly building up these speakers, I originally came from an Onkyo 7.1 surround system, so those two were my lowest priority replacement, just standard 120w onkyo ones. Do you have any suggestions for what to replace em with?

burts

My surround left right and rears are about 4 feet above my ear level, my rear surrounds and wall are about 2 feet behind my couch and is fine to my taste.. Sometimes you can scoot your couch forward for movie watching to get them farther away.

domflane

I don't know abot a couple of feet above ear level. Even the Dolby site says "just above ear level". Personally, I dont want my rear speakers to sound like they're coming from above me, which I think would be obvious if they're a couple feet above you. The idea behind all of this is that you dont want to be able to hear the location of any of your speakers, it should be nearly seamless.

That being said, the Onkyo speakers you plan on using as sides are going to have a really hard time competing with the FXi's. IIf you have the extra cable, I say you try your setup with them and without them. If your rear speakers are positioned properly, you might not even miss them. The FXi's are excellent speakers and should do a great job blending the sound across the rear and sides. If you do eventually buy new one's to replace the sides, I would get FXiA6's, use them as rears and move your A4's to the side. The best thing you can do is try a bunch of different configurations, put in a movie and see which one sounds best to you. Your tastes might be different from everyone elses. Enjoy those A9's by the way, they're monsters. What are you using to drive them?

kuznagi

Yeah your right domflame, I think it should be higher if the surrounds are way back but you wouldn't want it to sound way above your head, so I will think of making it just a bit above my couch. Should I set it to bipole or dipole given that they are behind me? Note, it won't bounce off the right wall since its an open space to the kitchen.

The consensus in this thread is dipole for movies and bipole for music, but the polk audio home theater guide says bipole if its behind the wall and dipole for side surround speakers?

Oooh the fxi a6s eh? I may have a harder time finding em in Canada, I was able to get the 4s for 260 so are the 6s worth 450-500 in the long run, I was planning to upgrade one of my subs to an SVS first??? cuz one of my subs is still from my onkyo htib, is side surrounds used enough to justify it?

Have an Onkyo 809 and have an emotiva xpa-3 coming in (2-3 weeks), will run Audyssey once the RTIa9s come in. Any suggestions on how to set my speakers until I get my amp Hz-wise? eg. 80hz for fronts, what should i do for surrounds?

domflane

As far as setting up your surrounds, again listening is the key. Try both ways and see which one you like better. As you mentioned, Polk recommends that if your rear surrounds are behind the seating position, they should be set to bipole. I think that's what mine are set to. A good description of bipole vs dipole can be found here: http://www.polkaudio.com/education/showanswer.php?question_num=45 . Again it's easy to switch it, so do some listening and let your ears decide.

As far as the FXiA6's, I couldn't recommend them more highly. They're amazing surround speakers and I think you might need them to hang with the big boys you have up front, especially if you're going to amp the fronts with the Emo. Also, I would leave all the HTIB gear out of your system, it's not going to blend well with your new stuff. If you do want to pick up a pair, keep an eye on the for sale section here on the forum. I bought mine from a forum member for $300, in near perfect condition.

An SVS would be a nice addition, what model are you considering? Depending on what your other sub is, I suggest buying the SVS before you worry about the side surrounds. A good sub, many SVS's are GREAT subs, will anchor your HT, and take the stress off of your A9's. 80hz is a good starting point for your mains, depending on your sub. 100hz would probably be a good place to start for the surrounds and the center, maybe 120 for the surrounds, but the audyssey should give you a better idea. Then you can tweak it depending on your tastes.

You're putting together a pretty enviable system, so enjoy. This is the fun part.

michael1947

that is a great drawing. I have a similar lay-out and just placed a pair of Polk rt2000p's in the rear corners. The additional base i amazing.

kuznagi

Gotcha, I checked out the link and it seems like that is what I am doing at the moment so I'll check that out and see whats best I've been loading up Transformers Dark of the Moon (Opening Paramount Logo/Sequence) as a test, however since I haven't got the RTIa9's yet, the sound is imbalanced at the moment. Will test further once I get em. Doing the same thing with subwoofer phase, I think Phase 180 (for the back sub) is better than 0 phase.

Yeah, you're right seems like the timber will be off for those, but knowing how things have been working, I bet the FXI A4's will drown out the remaining onkyo, would I be missing much from not having those two on the L/R side of my couch? I'll be on a watchout for deals. Is there still warrenty on speakers if used? For Polk I thought you need to be the original owner, but I guess they don't break often unless you blow them or have wrong power amplification.

For sub, I will probably go for http://www.sonicboomaudio.com/new-pb12nsd-powered-box-sub-12-nsd-woofer-black-p-6.html (thats the only place I can buy em in Canada). I currently have a Velodyne DLR4000 12" Sub on the back and a HTIB Onkyo (packs quite a punch for a HTIB one) in the front. I was thinking to buy one once I sold my onkyo stuff and replace the front or back sub(and move the velodyne up to the front). Depending on what works better. From my understanding the Velodyne packs quite a punch (from what I read/personal experience) but SVS provides much more accurate bass??

Thanks again, I'll give some of those settings a try once I get the RTI's it should be coming anytime this week. I find that Audyssey lowers the levels like fronts were only 60HZ and surrounds 100Hz? So I always keep adjusting it higher.

When I get the amp (2-3 weeks because of US to Canada shipping, customs, etc...) I'll rerun Audyssey a final time, but does anything change? Or does my amp automatically power the 3 speakers I connect it to leaving my Onkyo to power the surrounds? Like would I need to set the Hz any differantly etc.

kuznagi

Quick update, I got the speakers, set up and positioned them and run Audyssey MultiEQ to measure 8 points. In the end after some adjustment from some reference material here is what I got so far? What are your thoughts on these numbers thus far?

Independence: 6 Ohms
Speaker Type = Front (not biamp)
--
Front = 80 Hz
Center = 90 Hz
Surrounds = 100 Hz (These are the onkyos?)
Surround Back = 100 Hz
LPF of LFE = 120 Hz
Sub Phase = 0 Degrees

-- Speaker levels (Adjusted based on demo reference material)

Front Left -0.5 db
Front Center -2.0 db
Front Right -2.5 db
Surround Right (onkyo) +7.5db
Surround Back Right -3.5db
Surround Back Left -4.5db
Surround Left +7db
Subwoofer -4.5 db

These work fairly well when watching some blu rays, tv, music etc. Some sources were extra louder but I think its the source like when watching Supernatural on Bluray they always open each episode with a loud rock sound and the voices are louder, but everything else is fine so should be ok.

domflane

First off , ditch the Onkyo speakers. Your receiver has the level cranked on them because there's no way they can compete with your other speakers. Run Audyssey again once they're gone and the other levels will probably all come up, which should balance your volumes a little better. Also, don't be afraid to manually adjust your settings to your liking, everyone's different and the Audyssey settings are more of a guideline to help get a feel for your room and get you started. Maybe try to cross your sub a little lower, the A9's can easily handle the 120 - 100Hz range and this'll leave your sub free to handle the really low stuff. When you get your amp you're going to have to tweak everything again, as the extra power should open up the bottom end of the A9's. Most importantly, enjoy your new rig.

- Dom

kuznagi

Haha those darn Onkyos are messing everything up so I'll take em out on next Audyssey. Should be getting the amp on monday, when you say cross the sub lower does that mean that LPF of LFE should be lower and the front/center higher?

Once the amp is in (hooked up to all fronts) I guess going for 120hz would be good eh

Will report back after amp is installed and Audyssey is run.

JimMueller

Check out the following link for viewing distance calculations. I start at 6' from my 54" plasma, and push it back a little at a time until any screen door effect is minimized.
http://carltonbale.com/home-theater/home-theater-calculator

Your rears may be too close to your seating position to make the most of a 7.1 setup. Some recommend at least 5' between the seating position and the rear surrounds. Try just using the 5.1 without the Onkyo's for awhile, you can always buy more speakers later if you don't like it

kuznagi

Ya that's a good idea, I think if I try to just do without it I may not even notice the difference. I'll still run Audyssey with 5.1 but I want to plug in the speakers just for transformers 3 (3d) later this month one of the rare 7.1s I will be watching.

I'm wondering though, most movies are 5.1 but when i hear surround effects why does it seem like my ears are hearing it coming from the surrounds as opposed to the back surrounds (I'm not looking at where the sound is obviously just what I hear), that is why I'm a bit worried to disable the onkyo surrounds.

kuznagi

Ok, so I got the EMotiva XPA-3 and set it up, reran Audyssey MultiEQ however I could not run it without plugging in all speakers including the Onkyos it would error out. So I ran it with the Onkyo HTIB surround speakers and made some adjustments to it afterwards, what are your thoughts on these settings with the amp now, things sound pretty good but I haven't had time to watch anything major so far...

Speaker Impendance - 6 ohms (dunno if you ever should change this)

Speaker Configuration:
Front: 100 Hz
Center: 100 Hz
Surround: 100 Hz (These are the onkyos)
Surround Back: 80 Hz
LPF of LFE: 120 Hz

Speaker Level (Adjusted based on playing some demo reference material):
Left: -5.5 dB
Center: -4.0dB
Right: -6.0 dB
Surround Right: 8.5 dB (onkyo speaker)
Surr Back Right: -3.5 dB
Surr Back Left: -3.5 dB
Surround Left: 7.5 dB (onkyo speaker)
Subwoofer: -1.5