Surrounds slightly in front

Polk Terp

Because of a window, I cannot wall mount my FXi3 surrounds slighty to the the rear of the main listening area. I have to instead mount it about 2.5 ft in front of where I'm sitting. Since they're mounted outside of the null area I'm going with the Bipole pattern to give me greater localization. I also have a pair of RC85i in-wall speakers in the rear, which I hope will compensate for the forward placement of the FXi3s.

My issue is that since the FXi3 is now in front, the side with the 5.25" cone is now facing away from me. With proper rear placement, it would facing towards me. Should I swap the left and right speakers so that the 5.25" then does face me? Or since the fact that I'm using Bipole make that a moot point since that pattern "squirts sound all around the room" anyways.

aaharvel

welcome.

If I were in your shoes, the first thing I would do is DON'T switch around your speakers, and set them in dipole mode. The null area isn't that small and if you put it on bipole, you'll definitely notice that the speakers are in front of you.

Dennis Gardner

I would stay with my favorite statement about extended setups............a great 5.1 setup beats a poor 6/7.1 setup everytime. Ditch the sides and set the room up with great 5 channel sound.

The issue of sides being in front of the listener isn't about whether they can be localized or not. It is about cancelization of sound sweeps from front to back. The sides will interfere with the main stereo channels output since the sound comes from the same general direction.

steveinaz

What's a "surround?"

hehe...

Dennis Gardner

steveinaz wrote:

What's a "surround?"

hehe...

With all the speakers that I have in my house, I can only force myself to go with a center added to my mains, and that is mostly for dialogue, and I really don't miss the surrounds that much. I have 2 systems setup that way.

steveinaz

There's a few people who have made that move and like it.

wallstreet

Playing Doom or Halo in 7.1 cannot be beat for entertainment value. You poor boys can't imagine what your missing for a finely tuned surround system. Keep the sides, run in dipole mode and you won't miss a beat. You may want to run the rears a few db's hot to account for the forward placement of the sides.

Dennis Gardner

Had 7.1 in dedicated theater in my old house. It was cool for movies, but once I got real 2 channel gear, I kinda forgot about the surrounds and like it that way. My old sig still shows that gear.

Polk Terp

aaharvel wrote:

welcome.

If I were in your shoes, the first thing I would do is DON'T switch around your speakers, and set them in dipole mode. The null area isn't that small and if you put it on bipole, you'll definitely notice that the speakers are in front of you.

Thanks for the advice, I'll try out that setup.

Early B.

Unless you have a very large room, I agree with Dennis about going 5.1.