Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Advice for new house needed

Hello everyone.
Unfortunately I am going through a divorce and will have to move. I will get to take all the AV though with me.
The house I am moving to (which I own and was using as a rental) has limited options for AV placement. Basically it can be in a spare bedroom (10.5 x 10.5) that has been converetd to a sitting room, or in the great room.

The great room has a fireplace. With the layout, the only reasonable location is above the fireplace. The room is basically rectangular and 3280 cu ft. (as looking at the fireplace - 19.5 side to side, 16.83 front to back, 10ft high).

I am concerned this placement might be too high, but would like your thoughts. Viewing would be from about 6-9 feet.

In the pic, you will see where the mirror is above the fireplace. The display would go there, leaving 3 inches from the display edge to each side of the vertical mantels, and about 9 inches above the display to the ceiling.

To offer some scale the white/blue striped trim pieces are 9 inches in width. The display is a 46" lcd.

Your thoughts?

My thoughts were if using this location, to locate AVR/disc players, etc equipment to the left of the fireplace against the wall. I could run the wiring inside the trim pieces. The sub would be located out of the picture to the right.

I would forego a center for right now. Thoughts are to purchase a W150 and locate it in/on the horizontal trim piece.

That leads to the thought of also replacing my towers with W22s. located in/on the vertical trim pieces.

Some thoughts I had on that were:
With the room size, would this be enough? I tend to listen loud at times, and power would be a Pio Elite AVR at 140Wx7.

Would there be a negative effect if I mounted the W22s upside down (tweeter on bottom). Thought here is the L/R tweeter would be lower, and closer to on axis with the center (located under the display) as well as phyiscally taken up space more in the middle of the height of the display.

Does any of this make sense? I hope so.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Mark

I see the happy face next to your name. Is that accurate or have you just not updated it? I'm not sure whether to be happy for you or sad for you.

Mark, so the bottom of the TV screen would be at roughly 7' in that arrangement, and yes, the upward viewing angle would be a bit severe. Is the fireplace really going to be used, or can the TV instead be placed on a stand in front of it, more or less at eye level? If so, the tower speakers could then be placed so as to give an adequate separation of 7' or so.

Pmbuko, I have not updated the icon.

John, the bottom of the display would be at 4'9". (The floor to bottom of the trim is 4'. The trim is 9 inches wide).
That would place the visual center of the display at just under 6'.

If W22s were mounted in the vertical trim pieces, the separation would be about 5'5" ctc.

The fireplace would be seldom used. I had also though of building a false front to face it off, and put the TV in front.

I do think the fireplace will earn some additional points though as we come close to winter and I possibly begin to date again.

Okay, I was trying to judge from your description of the ceiling as 10' and the top of the screen being about 9" below the ceiling.

I'm in a hotel room right now that has a plasma mounted on the wall at that height. My 1st impression when I walked in the room was that is was way too high. I just moved a chair about 8ft away from the screen and I can tell you that it is a very uncomfortable viewing angle. You have to tilt your head back to watch. The angle is severe...

Well I did some trig on this.

As I watch currently lying on the floor, I was able to determine that I normally view the display at an upwards 15.4463* angle.

I am having some measurements double checked, but with what I have here:

Over the fireplace will result in an upwards 14.8757* to 19.4976* angle (depending upon seating location).

In the spare room, it would result in an upwards 4.4672* to 7.1250* angle (depending upon seating location).

Thoughts?
I am not keen on blocking the fireplace. While the spare room could work, seating in there would only be for 3. Not to mention tile floors, so acoustic treatments would be needed.





Other options for the great room.
To the left adjacent wall.
This would require removing a lighting fixture and doing without a dining table (would have to eat in the kitchen area. Also the ceiling is slanted so you would not have a parallel line with the top of the display.



The wall opposite.
This is a big wall. Issue then becomes seating. Seating with the backs to the fireplace does not seem to be a good idea.
I could see about having seating run perpendicular to that wall, but that doesn't feel good either.

Sorry, sorry to hear about the divorce....

As for the smaller room, acoustically you do not want the length, height, and width, to be within 5% of each other. So if you have options, I would use the great room.

Bump

Any additional thoughts?

Mark, I'm a little puzzled by the contrast between the precise numbers you gave in your follow-up posts and the "10ft high" number that you gave in your first. If the ceiling is in fact about 10', then the top of the screen would be at about 9' and the bottom at about 7'. As Steve also pointed out, the viewing angle in this scenario would cause strain over time, so I'd again suggest the placement in front of the fireplace.