Hi,
I am hoping that one of you can offer some pointers regarding surround speaker placement in relation to room size and structure. There seems to be a lot of expertise in this forum so thanks for the fine site and opportunity to ask questions. I am currently evaluating needs/money for a decent 5.1 system.

I have been examining systems and I am pretty much sold on Axioms based on what I see.

My room is 20 feet by 20 feet square and has 14 foot ceilings. I believe this to be about 5600 cubic feet and 400 square feet. At the couch end of my room, there is a plant shelf, or insert if you will, at 8 feet that cuts back 3 feet to a short wall that goes on up to 14 feet . It runs the entire length of that side of the room. I have been considering placement of my eventual QS4/8's and what would be appropriate vs. what I can get away with.

When I built the house I did install decent speaker wire from the TV side of the room up and through the attic and back down to a plate up on the plant shelf. What I am wondering is, could I leave my back surrounds up there if I elevated them with some feet so that the bottom driver would not be obstructed? Again, they would be 8 feet up,
and as far or near apart as I needed since the plant shelf runs the whole back length of the room.

The entire room is hardwood, so running new wire under the floor for stand placement on the floor on either side of my sofa is not possible. A few years after the house was built we finished out some bonus rooms upstairs so I do not have access to my old wiring job. Since the ceiling in the room is 14 feet all around there is a stud at 8 feet in the walls all the way around the room...getting pro's in to cut and run wires through the walls would probably get pretty expensive at 75.00 an hour around here.

I have read here that the QS4/8 sets are supposed to be pretty forgiving in regard to placement, so I am hoping that the plant shelf idea will work.

As far as which overall system to get, I am a little uncertain of this also. Should I be concerned about cubic feet or just square feet when it comes to receiver and speaker selection? The wizard here on this site only deals with square feet, but I am wondering if the extra volume due to the relatively high ceilings will shrink my eventual system.

What would you guys do?

Thanks a bunch, and have a good day!

Billy