Rear surround placement 7.1

ckphoto

I know this has been covered many times but my room will not allow for proper placement of the right rear surround. I have included a diagram of my room showing the 2 options I think I have, Option A mounted in open stairwell 3' further back then left rear, option B mounted on side wall but this will have the speaker facing in the room not towards the listener. I am in the process of painting and will be moving everything into the room sometime within the next 3 weeks. I am open for suggestions and ideas on all speaker placement. I forgot to include my CSi40 center in the diagram

kuntasensei

Wow. Neither of your rear surrounds are placed well, honestly. And with 7.1, if you can't place the speakers where they're supposed to go... I'd just stick with 5.1 instead.

The only option I could see that would make sense would be getting some Omnimounts and hanging them from the ceiling, though you'd likely have to screw a mounting plate into your speakers.

wingnut4772

Yeah. That's not gonna work well at all. Can you ceiling mount them?

ckphoto

Mounting the left rear to the ceiling to bring it to the right more is not a issue. I can mount the right to the ceiling but I would have to keep it mounted on the right wall so it is not hanging in you face when you walk down (wife would not like that).

comfortablycurt

If you can't place the speaker properly in a 7.1 system...stick with 5.1

Most movies aren't even recorded in 7.1 anyway...so you're not really missing out on much. Granted most receivers do a pretty good job of converting them to 7.1...but it's not exactly a night and day difference.

A properly place 5.1 setup is going to blow away an improperly placed 7.1 setup.

kuntasensei

Yeah, I gotta say... short of you using some aimable in-ceiling speakers for the rear surrounds, I wouldn't bother with 7.1 in that room. Hate to say that, 'cause you have the FXi50s... but I wouldn't do it.

This'll sound crazy... but if you could figure out a safe way to actually secure them directly to the ceiling so that the angled face of the FXi50 points toward the listening position (i.e. the woofer/tweeter side points toward couch and tweeter only side points toward the back wall/stairs), that would work. I'm just not sure how you would do it so they would be secure, since all they have is keyhole mounts.

Either way, I envy you for having those speakers. I wanted FXi50s for my surrounds to go with my RTi70/CSi40 front soundstage, but am using 4 RTi28s instead.

ckphoto

well I guess I will be going with stands and put the couch on the opposite wall any suggestions for the FXi50s