Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater surround speaker placement ?

The problem: the room measures 17.5 feet by 11.5 feet with ten foot ceilings. The listening position is on the short wall (11.5 foot maximum to the front wall and front speakers). Ceiling mounting the surround speakers won't be possible. Side mounting the surrounds also won't work (one side opens to another room, the other side is a wall of glass with a hallway to another room). My only option is the rear wall above the seating position. After a lot of searching, my best bets (to this point) are the Axiom QS-8 Speakers.

The associated equipment: I have (and love) a pair of Paradigm Active 20s and an Active CC center channel. The rest of the equipment will be added when the room is complete.

The questions: Will QS8 be in the ball park for timbre matching with the Actives? Where and how high on the wall should they be mounted? Will I localize the surrounds given that one driver faces down toward the listening position? How well will the surround effect fill the room (I'm shooting for maximum envelopment...aren't we all :-) ). Are there any other speaker choices or mounting options that would better serve my needs, given my placement limitations?

Any and all suggestions are appreciated...the sooner the better as the wire needs to go down before the tile...which is next week.
Thanks in advance.

Hello ndeavour,

Since I already answered your queries by email, I think other board visitors may be interested in my responses.

You've likely seen my posts regarding Dolby Labs specs re surround placement on the side walls. That's where they'll always work best. However, the QS8s are very accommodating to eccentric placement in less than optimal locations. They'll timbre match very well with Paradigms (I have several of the latter in one of my systems with Axioms as well).

Get the QS8s well above the heads of seated listeners (2 - 3 ft.) but not against or too close to the ceiling. All nearby surfaces affect the tonal balance of any speaker. You might think of trying QS8s on stands, or at least temporarily putting them on supports at the rear to see how they perform in their intended locations. Every room is different.

To correct a misapprehension on your part: about 50% (or more) of the sounds reaching your ears from any pair of speakers are reflected from various room surfaces--walls to either side, the ceiling, objects in the room, windows, etc., so if the QS8s are on the rear wall, their multidirectional dispersion will continue to be effective, and I expect you'll achieve a nice sense of envelopment. The side walls being 8 feet away matters not--it means the delays of reflected sound will be a few milliseconds longer, which will add to the sense of envelopment.

If I were playing the devil's advocate, and you are "worried about envelopment", I'd say, well, mount the surround speakers where they are intended to go, and where they perform best--on the side walls, just like all the Dolby-equipped movie theaters!

That said, the virtue of all multipolar surround speakers of all types (bipole/dipole, which I used for years) is the ease with which they accommodate less than ideal locations--and that's true of the QS8s.

Axiom, Mirage, Energy, PSB, and Paradigm all began in Canada at about the same time and are fiercely competitive. Their legacy goes back to Dr. Floyd Toole's work at the National REsearch Council of CAnada, where Axiom still develops its designs and does its initial listening comparisons.

I haven't heard the Mirage speakers you refer to but I expect their performance would be similar to Axiom's but at a considerable price premium. For example, I used Paradigm Reference 20's for years. In blind listening tests with our Axiom M22ti's, they are essentially indistinguishable. But the Paradigms are almost twice as expensive. Actually, the M22ti's image somewhat better than the Reference 20s, and their soundstage is a little more spacious...

Regards,

Mr. Alan, over the few months i've been seeing your posts on sound speaker placement "Get the QS8s well above the heads of seated listeners (2 - 3 ft.) but not against or too close to the ceiling" I bought the speaker stands because the brackets supplied weren't real good imo and thought that with the stand i would have em at the right hieght.(for side & rear sourounds)QSS8 so from what i understand is the stands make for a unacurate placement because the hieght is not really optimal (according to you) so why make stands for a perticual speaker if it is at a wrong hieght to begin with.... and if i should have em like you say well still have a pair in the box can i return them for???

Hi Johnny_Be_Good,

The point I make is "ideal" placement, based on my own experience in various listening rooms at A/V magazines where I've worked and reviewed all kinds of speakers, including in my own living room and at Axiom's dedicated listening room at the plant.

It's what Dolby Labs suggests and I concur. BUT NO ROOM IS IDEAL (or few are) and multipolar radiators are very forgiving. It's impractical to make stands of ridiculous heights. The QS surrounds work well on the stands supplied. Are you happy with the sense of envelopment they provide?

Up higher is usually better--my QS surrounds are at uneven heights. One is on a stand, the other is much higher across the room on top of a steel mesh equipment stand. It didn't take much adjustment of levels and surround distances in my setup menu to get them delivering a really fine sense of envelopment.

I've heard installations using direct radiators at the rear of the listening room that delivered a terrific sense of envelopment. You have to experiment, and these "rules" are meant to be broken when the limitations of the room dictate certain setups. In my experience--and I stress that--it's easier to achieve good envelopment using quadpolar (or bipole/dipoles) surrounds than direct radiators. And that's also how the vast majority of multichannel movies are mixed--with dipole surrounds. (Multichannel audio--DVD-Audio and SACD are a different case, and tend to be mixed with direct radiators all-round, which is fine for the mixing engineer with his chair on castors in front of the console. He can move back and forth and find the "sweet spot"..Most of us can't do that with home setups, which is why I continue to recommend multichannel surrounds for DVD-A and SACD.

Regards,