Speakers and Speaker Placement

nolec5

Hi Everyone,

I'm actually in the process of building a new home and would like to set up a really nice home theater setup. We are finishing about 300 sq feet of the basement and I would like to use this space mainly for this purpose. I've had 5.1 setups in the past but would really like to get a killer 7.1 setup going.

It is a bit of a weird layout and I'm not really sure what to do for speakers. I have the ability to run speaker wire during the electrical walk through and was thinking of doing in ceiling speakers.....but not sure what the best option would be.

I currently have Monitor 70's with matching center for the fronts but need to come up with something for the surround speakers for the short term. I'd really like to upgrade the fronts to RTI A7's down the road.

I was leaning towards FXi A6 or FXi A4 in the rear and then ceiling mounted speakers (RC80i??)

I currently have an Onkyo 607 receiver that I'd like to upgrade down the road, but just trying to get something up and running for the short term that I can grow into. Below is an outline of the basement with an idea of where I was thinking to place speakers. I'd appreciate any thoughts or input you can provide as I really am a fish out of water here! Thanks in advance.

MetropolisLake

1. Your rears need to be direct firing if at all possible, even with traditional setup, but especially if you are going with Atmos. So, look at different surrounds than the ones you listed.

2. You really need to prewire for Atmos at this point even if you're not immediately interested in doing so. You'll kick yourself later if you don't. Only run ceiling speakers for your height/Atmos effects. Read up on 7.1.4 Atmos speaker layout recommendations from Dolby. They want 7 speakers as identical as possible, at the same height as your mains.

3. Based on your drawing, it seems that your rear / 7.1 speakers aren't the issue as much as your side / 5.1 speakers are since it is not enclosed. You may want to consider trying to have matching towers for your sides. Which, would be awesome. Otherwise, bookshelves on a stand maybe, but you're going to need wiring coming up through the floor either way.

4. You have the perfect opportunity for a baffle/false wall and an acoustically transparent screen. Ditch that dinky center channel and get a matching tower so you will have identical LCR's behind the screen. If you want a "killer" and "really nice" setup as you mentioned, this part is huge so don't ignore it, this layout would be very easy to do, just close off that cubby hole where the speakers are. You need some nice subs up front and it's a heck of a lot easier to just hide the things rather than to make them look super cool especially if you go the DIY route. No serious home theater has a horizontal center channel by choice if the owner knows what they're doing.

5. Speaking of which, you need to prewire for a projector at this point, which will be behind you. You may have a false ceiling which would make it easier, but otherwise running HDMI and power cables in the wall after everything is complete isn't exactly a fun thing to do. I realize you will probably have a TV now, but its a heck of a lot easier to upgrade later on if you do it now.

6. Make a dedicated AV closet at this point. You don't want your blinky lights to be in front of you. At least put it behind you, but ideally your gear and movies will be in a separate room. You have plenty of room around that bathroom, either to the side of how it is, or you may want to consider ditching the shower in that bathroom. We did the same thing and never use the shower, only the toilet and sink. A shower with no AV closet is a bad idea. Also prewire for subs if you do this, as it would be nice to have a pro amp in the closet then run speaker wire from it to the screen area. Prewire any other place you might want to run speakers or subs as well, such as subs in the rear.

7. Since you only have one row, you may want to consider going the other way and having the screen on the wall on the right, not sure, it would have its pros and cons but mostly pros. The symmetry of the side walls would be nice, would be nicer to have a side surround near or on a wall as well, instead of out in the middle of the floor, plus having symmetrical acoustic panels on each side would be nice. Subwoofers may be easier to make right as well. Everything would just be more symmetrical at that point. 13.5' deep then building a false wall may be a little more cramped than you want though but it's still doable. I'm 10-11' from a 110" screen and it's great. It's not like you're up against a back wall either though, considering the open area to the right of the bathroom it may work out great. Best I can tell you'd have at least around 10' between the stairs and the other wall which may be fine. If the room is already able to be walked in to you might try to do some visualizing and at least entertain this idea.

nolec5

Wow....thank you so much for such a through response!! Honestly, as awesome as it sounds, I'm not sure I'm up for all of this (monetarily).

I had not even considered going the atmos route. For future growth with the system, it sounds like wiring for atmos would be a good idea?? Or is this just a fad?

I really need to decide on what speakers I'm going to do and where for the short term. Were the ones I recommended totally off base??

MetropolisLake

nolec5 wrote: »

Honestly, as awesome as it sounds, I'm not sure I'm up for all of this (monetarily).

Prewiring and building a short wall or two is cheap and you will kick yourself later once you learn more stuff if you neglect it at this point. Seriously, you have a great opportunity to have something super nice on the cheap and easy considering where you are on the house. Don't blow it off. Great rooms are all about the actual room way more than the speakers. I can show you a room with only $1,500 in it that would make your jaw drop.

nolec5 wrote: »

For future growth with the system, it sounds like wiring for atmos would be a good idea?? Or is this just a fad?

Do it, it's not going anywhere. Wire is cheap anyway.

nolec5 wrote: »

I really need to decide on what speakers I'm going to do and where for the short term. Were the ones I recommended totally off base??

They will work on the sides, but, don't use them on the rear surrounds, period. Use direct radiating ones in the back no matter what you do. If you want to go with Atmos I wouldn't use them on the sides either. They will work but it's not ideal with Atmos.

Your biggest issue right now is getting the side surrounds right due to there being no wall with the planned layout. I'd be worrying about that way more than anything else. Consider what I said about flipping it 90 degrees. Otherwise I'd be looking at matching towers. There's just nowhere to put the left surround otherwise right now. Flipping it would let your left and right wall be symmetrical and on-wall / in-wall speakers would be usable doing it that way, plus your acoustic panels will be symmetrical.

Worry about the placement of your sides much more than the actual rear surrounds right now. There are MUCH bigger things to worry about at this point than exactly which surrounds you're going to use.

MetropolisLake

Here is what I'm proposing, with direct firing surrounds. You can prewire for rear subs as well.

MetropolisLake

Or how about this. Build a wall that closes in the theater. Less wasted space maybe. Not sure what you'd do with it, but still. Would be easier to get a baffle wall and AT screen going this way.

nolec5

This is super helpful! Thank you! We aren't actually doing the bathroom in the basement at this time....it is just a rough in.....so technically, I don't think we would have to move the wall with the layout you've proposed....correct? I could still do the cabinet/rack behind the way without moving. Also, we had planned on using that smaller room as a space for a play area for the kids.....with the layout you've proposed...you really don't lose that space at all really, which I think is good, especially when trying to sell it to the wife.

I was on the fence about doing 5.1.2 vs 5.1.4....mainly due to the increased costs of the higher channel receivers. If I went the route you've proposed.....would I need an 11 channel receiver (i.e. $$$$)??

The wall that you have the screen and front speakers on will have a small window towards the top of the wall....not exactly sure where it will be laid out as of yet. My guess is that this doesn't really change anything but thought it was worth mentioning.

For scaleability....would I be able to "grow" into the layout you've suggested? Meaning could I go ahead and run wire for everyone you've laid out but just use a 7.1 setup for now until I get the proper receiver for atoms? Or get a 7 channel atoms receiver and run that for now with just two of the height speakers?

I love the idea of doing a projector.....hadn't really thought about that at all really as I know nothing about projectors.....how much would you expect that to run?

If I'm going to have the cabinet in the back of the room....would I be able to do things like xbox kinnect or leap tv??? Not sure how the cables would work for this?? These are things that my kids use at this point in time.

MetropolisLake

Wire is cheap, so go crazy. Wire for 7.1.4 and both front and rear subwoofers at the minimum. I would start off assuming 4 ceiling speakers for Atmos which anybody will say is superior. I'd be way more worried about layout, construction, and prewiring rather than exact gear at this point. You have one shot to get these things right. You can upgrade gear as you go.

As for the receiver, yeah they claim 11 channels but it's more like 9 channels plus two preouts to an external amp, either a nice one for the mains or a cheap one for two of the Atmos ceiling speakers. You don't have to use it all now, I'm just saying prewire for that right now.

Game controllers should still work as long as they're not too far away, but I dunno about Kinect and whatnot. You may want to consider a second cheaper TV based setup in that play room area you mentioned just for things like this. Even with a projector alone such things wouldn't work well at all even if your gear was all in the front.

Projectors are pretty cheap for what you are getting. You can make your own screen made out of the same material that George Lucas uses in the Skywalker ranch for like a few hundred bucks, otherwise you can buy a factory one for anywhere from $400 to $1,500 depending on how nice and big it is. Projectors could be gotten in to as cheap as $1,000 for a BenQ, maybe $1,500 to $2,000 for a Panasonic, $3,500 for a standard Sony, $4,000 to $8,000 for a JVC. You're mostly paying for contrast and black levels, cheaper ones are a light cannon whose black levels get washed out. But yeah a Panasonic or used cheaper Sony/JVC and a DIY screen can be cheaper than lots of TV's so don't let the perceived cost hold you back.

Not sure which layout floats your boat more so I'm not sure which wall you're talking about on that window and play area.

nolec5

Thank you very much! I think the window will be on the wall where you put the tv in the first picture....which is the one I'm leaning towards. While building a wall between the two spaces doesn't seem like a big deal, I don't know if the builder is open to these kinds of adjustments at this point in the build.

The viewing distance seems like it would be pretty short in the second picture you posted....would you still envision a projector for this layout??

MetropolisLake

nolec5 wrote: »

I think the window will be on the wall where you put the tv in the first picture....which is the one I'm leaning towards. While building a wall between the two spaces doesn't seem like a big deal, I don't know if the builder is open to these kinds of adjustments at this point in the build.

Realistically you don't even need a wall all that much with that layout. You could have rear surrounds that are mounted on a bracket or something on the walls right behind you. Won't be ideal positioning but its close enough all things considered. Ideally they'd be closer together. If you really didn't want one you could just have a rack in the back corner, that's what I do. AV closets are nicer though, your amps don't heat up the room, cooling fans don't make noise in the room, and no worries about the lights illuminating anything. Plus it just looks cleaner and there's nothing for the subs to rattle.

nolec5 wrote: »

The viewing distance seems like it would be pretty short in the second picture you posted....would you still envision a projector for this layout??

Before I hacked it up I thought you had labeled that room as being 17' long. If so that's plenty of room for a projector even with a baffle wall. Kinda looks closer to 15' though. Mine is in a 15' room. The bigger question is whether it's enough room for rear 7.1 surrounds. Ideally your rears would be a decent distance behind you. When they are right up on you it's not all that great.

Greater distance away from the side surrounds works better too. The first pic would be better in this regard. It can be weird for people sitting on the side near a side surround if it is too close. That first pic would probably be nicer the more I think about it.