Advice on home theater speaker setup

jgongo

Hi there,

After listening several brands of speakers in some local dealers I'm in the process of buying a Polk audio system for music listening and home theater system.

The system would include the following:
Front: Monitor 60 / 70 (depending on budget and wife approval )
Center: CS1
Subwoofer: PSW10
Surround: FXi3 (bipolar mode)

The room is 5,35m x 4,15m and here you may find a floor plan of the room with expected location of speakers:

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CC

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|·····F··TTTTTT··F·#S········| D, W - Door and windows
W····························D # - Columns
W····························D TT - Television (Sony 41SP retroprojection)
W····························| CC - Center (wall mounted ~1,5m high)
W····························| F - Front (~2m separation, on a 0,35m high platform)
W····························| R - Rear
|····························| S - Subwoofer
|······LLLLLLLLLL··R·········| L - Listening position (sofa)
|···R··············#·········|

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WWWWWWWWWWWW

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I have several doubts:
1. Is this system overkill for this room? I'm afraid I'm expending too much money in something I wouldn't be able to fully seize

2. If you take a look at the layout of the room, it's impossible to locate the rear speakers lined up, as I have no wall space between the rear window and the column. Would a bipolar system suffer from such a layout? I understand that part of the effect of such a surrond speaker is obtained thanks to reflections in the wall they're mounted. Should I lose this effect if I mount one of them in a column with little reflecting surface? (The columns are 0,45m wide x 0,25m depth)

3. Is there any problem locating the center speaker that high (around 1,5m)?

Thanks a lot in advance, best regards
Jose

Toxis

my question to every customer who says "But my room isn't very large..."



"How big does your room have to be for you to enjoy better sounding speakers?"



Also, with the larger towers up front, get the CS2 to match up better.

gregure

Why can't you mount the surrounds on the walls on the side of listening position? It looks like one could go on the left just after the window, and line directly up with the other on the opposite side. That would be the ideal setup, especially with the FXi3's. On stands ? behind the couch does not sound nearly as good.
The height on the center channel shouldn't be a problem. It's a little high, but if it works for your room it's not a huge compromise, and should still give you a good front soundstage.

jgongo

There are two reasons why I can't put them in the side walls:

1. I didn't include all the furniture in the picture... a little tedious to do using ASCII art We have a library on the left side of the couch and a tall buffet on the right side, between the column and the right wall. Just for completeness, the empty space in the right is ocuppied by a dinning table, we have another couch in the left wall / window and the rear column is 0,17m depth, not 0,25m.

2. My WAF credit is way over. I have been told that after buying this I won't be able to buy any other "caprice" in approximately fifty years, so putting the rear speakers in that location would make the whole project to fail. Jokes aside, I positively know that my wife really dislikes having such great speakers in the room, so I would like to keep them as "nice" as possible. Putting them in the right wall would make them "invade" the dinning area.

I also understood that putting the rear speakers in that position (lined up on the side of listening position) is the ideal or required layout for dipolar mode, but for bipolar mode it would be better to place them behind the listening position, am I wrong in this assumption?

Thanks a lot, best regards
Jose