Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Plant Shelf, Surrounds and Room Size..Newbie ?'s

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

Billy, welcome. If your term "couch end" implies that the couch is almost right up against the back wall, although 20 feet of depth are available, then placing QSs on the back wall and widely separated(at least 15 feet)almost to the side walls should be very effective. This would be little different from a side wall placement near the back wall. I'll add that you should raise the QSs to give at least 2" of room from the shelf on the bottom, and that the fronts shouldn't be at all recessed into the shelf area.

In your size room the M60s would be fine, although you also have enough room for M80s if that fits your budget. Sitting that far back, the front speakers should be separated on the order of 15 feet.

Thank you for replying. Yes, the couch is up against the back wall on the other side of the room.

I took some pix last night but per the FAQ it does not look like I can post them here. A picture may be worth $1000 here. I know that ultimately for the best sound, that when I sit on my couch in my room and turn my head all the way to the right or left, I should see a QS8 hanging on the wall. That will take some pretty convuluted cutting and wiring....just wondering if I could get away with buying some rubber feet or something at a hardware store to get the surrounds up in the air a little bit and just leave them up on the plant shelf abouve the couch. I could send pix to an email address, but would certainly need your permission first. Thanks

These guys will host your pics for free:

http://photobucket.com/

In reply to:

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These guys will host your pics for free:

http://photobucket.com/

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As will I. If photobucket is too complicated or time-consuming, you can just e-mail the photos to me and I will put them on my webserver and post them here for you.

I have PMed my e-mail address to you just in case.

Thanks! I have sent one photo of the area. You are too kind!

No problem at all. Here you go:

Man, thanks again!

I put one of my old NHT's up on the plant shelf for a reference in the pic. That's where I was hoping the QS8 could live. I could possibly hand them over the edge some with the bracket that Axiom has. I know that the side wall just to the right of the floor standing lamp would be a good place but that would be an outside contractor job to get the wires down there. I have the same situation on the other side of the room. I suppose I could try them up on the shelf and if it just didn't work out I could bite the bullet and just have it done later on...just wondering if anybody has a situation similar to mike and how it worked out...Thx

you might need to keep in mind that the QS8 and QS4 have a downward firing speaker on the bottom, so you arent gonna want to place them sitting flat on any surface. you can mount them out on brackets, but if you want them on that ledge, you are gonna need to devise some way to elevate them a little

bigjohn

What John says is correct. Ray3, who hopefully will come by later tonight, has his QS8s on shelves supported on either side of the downfiring driver by plumbing fixtures he picked up somewhere. I have mine temporarily propped up on 3 paperback books to each side of the downfiring driver. Not exactly the best setup, but they sound fabulous. You only need about 3 inches of clearance for the bottom driver to work properly.

If you end up putting them up there on the shelf, I think moving them away from the side wall by at least 3 to 6 inches, or angling them toward the listening area, would help the dispersion some. In general, the QS8s are pretty forgiving when it comes to placement.