My poor HT

ryanjoachim

Is suffering from a lack of guidance and wisdom...

I need some advice on proper placement (hight on the wall, distance between each other, angles, etc). I know my speakers are woefully underpowered right now, so I need to figure out if I can compensate some by arranging everything differently.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

PS...sorry bout the mess, my son likes to "help" out when we clean.

mmadden28

You don't believe in balance or symmetry do you?
The offset TV and rears at different heights would drive me nuts.

Actually some time ago I had my rears at different heights, but only because I had no choice - even then though I don't think it greatly affected the effect.

Any chance you could give the front speakers a bit more room and perhaps toe them in towards your listening position?

I recall the polk manual suggesting just above ear height and just behind the ear position, for the surrounds. I can't remember the distance now. I actually have my surrounds on the sides now. If they were in the rear (for 6.1 and 7.1) I believe they should be about 5' apart, or right next to each other for THX placement.
Here's a link to Dolby's setup guide if it helps any.
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/setup/speaker-setup-guide/index.html
And a link to THX's setup guide
http://www.thx.com/home/setup/speakers/side.html

Sometimes though speaker placement can't be done ideally because of varying room designs and WAF.

As far as angles, flat on the wall. The FXi's are designed that way. However you do have a selection for di-pole or bi-pole modes. Play with them both to see which sounds the best.

leroyjr1

I also have my surrounds very similar to yours. 2 feet above my head with the surrounds
reversed like yours ( woofers facing listener). I would try to pull the front speakers apart just a bit more.
Play around with the placement to see what sounds best.


http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l182/leroyjr1/photo-16.jpg?t=1258870080


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ryanjoachim

When you say "toe in" does that mean angle the tweeters/speakers in towards the seating positions?

I'll have to re-cut some speaker cable, but I can definately give around 12-20" to each speaker from where they are now.

I've always thought my FXi's were up too high on the wall, but I keep hearing "6-8'" off the ground from somewhere.

I have terrible hearing (75% loss in right ear, 40% loss in left), so telling if something sounds "marginally" better (bi-pole, di-pole) would be really hard for me.

FYI, I have my sub under the high-chair in the picture of my surrounds. Not sure if I should move it back by the tv or somewhere else. It's a wide-open room, around 30'x17 (length/width). Unfortunately I'm renting, which really limits what i'm able to do.

leroyjr1

With the fronts being so close together there's no need for toe in.

mmadden28

ryanjoachim wrote: »

When you say "toe in" does that mean angle the tweeters/speakers in towards the seating positions?
...

Yes. Angle them so that if you had a laser on top of them, they would intersect just behind the listening position.

ryanjoachim wrote: »

...FYI, I have my sub under the high-chair in the picture of my surrounds. Not sure if I should move it back by the tv or somewhere else. It's a wide-open room, around 30'x17 (length/width). Unfortunately I'm renting, which really limits what i'm able to do.

Sub placement is highly dependint on the room, usually a sub works out best up front near the L or R speaker. With the sub so close to the couch, the low freq waves may not have enough time to work their magic.
You should also ensure that the sub is not crossed over above 100Hz, since frequencies above that become directional and you shouldn't be able to pinpoint the location of a subwoofer in a room just hearing it.


A trick to finding the best location for a sub is to put (temporarily of course) the sub on the couch in the sweet spot (your fav spot), then while playing something bass heavy or with a test tone, crawl around the room and listen for changes in the tones pitch/sound. Then put the sub in the best spot (of course limiting those spots to where you would actually put it).

Sorry to hear (no pun intended) about your hearing loss, one of my biggest fears right now.... I actually had a hard time comparing between the two modes myself, of course I had to stop the movie, climb a ladder, flip the switch, move the ladder flip the other switch, then start the movie again. Ad its not like just any sounds will reveal the difference. One mode is supposed to make the surround effects more direct or directional, while the other is suppose to make them more disperse, less directional.

Try them both ways anyway, and have your wife in the room with you. If you can't hear a difference, maybe she can, and you really want your wife to ba happy with the sound right?

ryanjoachim

I'll definitely be moving the speakers away from the tv, as it should also help widen the sound stage a bit.

Now that i've had my setup for a couple years, i'm worried that I should have gone with some "standard" type surround speakers as opposed to the 2-sided type. I've moved once since I bought them, and both places have had wide-open living/listening areas which I think really reduced the usefulness of those types of speakers.

dudeinaroom

mmadden28 wrote: »

....Sub placement is highly dependint on the room, .....

A trick to finding the best location for a sub is to put (temporarily of course) the sub on the couch in the sweet spot (your fav spot), then while playing something bass heavy or with a test tone, crawl around the room and listen for changes in the tones pitch/sound. Then put the sub in the best spot (of course limiting those spots to where you would actually put it)......

Good advice.

mmadden28 wrote: »

You should also ensure that the sub is not crossed over above 100Hz, since frequencies above that become directional and you shouldn't be able to pinpoint the location of a subwoofer in a room just hearing it.....

Not 100% true it is actually dependent on driver size. The smaller the driver the higher the frequency the directionality starts.

In other words at a give frequency a 15" sub would be more directional than an 8" driver

ryanjoachim

How do you guys control your sub volume? My DSW has the freaky "light" volume gague, which is sometimes really hard to decipher. So I generally keep the sub at max volume and turn the sub channel down on my reciever to compensate.

Any pros/cons to this type of management?

mmadden28

I use a Velodyne SMS-1 Sub EQ for my Sub volume control. If I didn't have that I'd use the preprogrammed options on the MicroPro sub I have.

Yeah the blinking light for volume control is a FAIL in my book.

Honestly I've become so attached to the convenience of sub volume control at the touch of a button, that eve if I didn't need the SMS-1 in the mix, I'd still have it just for volume control.