Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater good size for new HT room?

We are soon building a new home and I have some flexiblity in designing the HT room. What would you recommend for a good size HT room. I was looking at a 13' by 24' room. Speakers include 2xM60s, 2xQS8, 2xM22 for rears, VP150 and a svs sub driven by yamaha 2400 7.1. Really need some input on this please. Also, should I mount the m22 on rear walls or place on stands?

This is completely outside my purview, but this might help.

The m22 manual says "Don't put your speakers tight against the wall behind them. The bass Vortex Port (the big hole on the rear panel) needs a few inches of separation from the wall to vent low bass frequencies into the room." So, you can mount the 22s on the wall, or use stands, but be sure to leave enough space behind the speaker. When in doubt give Axiom a call. They'll be glad to help you.

Cool link, Jack.

I noticed recently that having plenty of room across the front (viewing) side of the room made a big difference to me. It's really a logistical problem; I wanted to provide "decent" seating for more than just the three people on the couch, and have no ability or desire to go to "theatre" seating (rows). So, you need a rather wide room to accommodate even a couch width plus love-seat depth plus walking around room.

I KNOW 12 feet is too narrow. 14 is probably as narrow as I'd go, provided the option to design from scratch.

And obviously, you don't want to be backed up against the rear wall, either. Alan recently posted some kind of golden rule about how far away from your TV you should be - something like 2.5 times the diagonal measure of the screen (need help here). So, how big is your TV going to be?

With ~8 foot ceilings, I would personally gravitate toward the bigger room listed in the Sepmeyer ratio link that Jack provided (~13x19).

Do you have all those speakers already?!?! M22's as rear surrounds sounds like The Ultimate!

Thanks Tom. I just hope that scuff finds it useful.

Good info Jack. I remeber Alan saying something about the "golden ratio".

scuff - if you can swing it, the bigger the better. I have a 16x22x10 family room and I wish I had made it a bit bigger. The 16' width really adds to the flexibility (we saw a house with our plan with a 13' 6" family room just after the dry wall was installed and it looked a bit like a hallway).

Also, think about where you want to put your fire place (if you are doing one). They can pretty much cancel a wall out. I wish we had thought about a corner unit, or a 2 sided one we could have used as a room divider to the kitchen.

A suggestion. Get your self a quadrille note pad and draw the room to scale. Then cut out your furniture and speakers and place the to see how you can arrange it. 2 or 4 blocks to a foot should be a scale that might work, even if you need to tape a few sheets together.

Thanks for the link. However, for a 7.1 setup, should I go with the 19 foot length which the ratio suggests or should I go with the extra five feet. I am pretty much limited to 13'6" for the width based on our current houseplan but can stretch the room from 19 to 24 feet. Have a 57" HD Toshiba monitor. Basically I need to get advice on how far back my rear M22s should be from the seating postion.As well any height suggestions for these speakers would be appreciated since I need to incorporate some 2x6 in the rear wall for mounting to support the brackets/speakers if wall mounted. Thanks again for your help. BTW, house construction starts in about 2 weeks.
One last thing, any tips on type of flooring for theatre room?

I was going to start a new post, but since mine relates to this think I'll just chime in.

I am looking at a house w/ a huge finished basement. On one side of the basement is what I think is a perfect setting for a HT. The front wall is 10 feet wide. Perfect for my TV(57" toshiba)/front speakers(debating on the axiom M60's or the 22's)/Entertainment rack. The length of the room is 20 feet and it's outter width(seating area) is 16 feet (this opens up to the bigger part of the basement that would be about 16 x 30). The ceiling in the basement is 7.5 feet w/ drywall. How's this set up sound?

Secondly...I am looking to upgrade my current speakers to Axioms (Ya'll got me convinced)....anyway...in that room it would be used primarily for DVD's, I'd run a second pair of speakers to the other part of the basement for music (bar / pool table area)... so I was thinking of going w/ the Bookshelf M22's for movie watching. I have an SVS 20-39PCi sub for the bass...would these suffice? Or since my room has three walls, and opens up to a larger area, should I opt to get M60's for the fronts? For the rears I was leaning on saving some $$ and going w/ the QS4's rather than the 8's OR should I just shell out the xtra and get the 8's?

Chris - watch out - the guys on this forum love to spend other people's money. Before you know it, you be buying the M80's, the VP150, a pair of subwoofers, a separate amplifier, a bigger TV, a new SACD player .....

I think that you HT area is gonna be awesome. Basically, with those front speakers firing directly at the listening area, there won't be much loss in sound/volume. The open rear area might actually help to reduce some reflected sounds. With regards to the M22s and the sub, people around here tend to think that they go together like stink on a pig, and that you'll be just fine. You may benefit from moving the sub around in the listening area to see where you get the most/best response, but I wouldn't worry too much about filling that area with sound. The M22s will probably make you very happy.

That said, I think the QS8s are always gonna be a good upgrade. With the advent of 5.1/6.1 music, and better mixed DVDs with awesome surround effects, I think it is silly to chimp on these. Treat them as if they are as important as your mains. Nothing will kill the enveloping surround sound effect like wimpy surrounds. This is not to say that the QS4's are wimpy, but going whole hog on these will likely be a great investment.

Good luck.