I am having problems hearing my surround speakers. Mainly, I am overpowered by my front speakers and barely hear the surrounds. I can hear them find when a plane flies over head but I can't hear faint sounds. Prior to having the projector/screen where it is, I had it set up with my big screen with the TV where the Loveseat is now. The surrounds where mounted on either side of my sitting area about a foot higher than my head and I hear every little noise that came out of the surround speakers. Now I hear practially nothing.

My huge problem, as you can see from the diagram of my basement/theatre room is there is an open area to the left of my surrounds and a bar area behind my surrounds so I am losing a lot of sound from both. I have the surrounds ceiling mounted with the base of the QS8's about 5 feet off the floor. I also have them angled down at about a 45 degree angle in an attempt to get more sound pointed toward the seating area.

I tried mounting them off to the side of the seating area but I could not hear the speaker on the opposite side of where I sit. If I turn the volume down on the front speakers and turn it up loud like I hear it, my stupid Onkyo receiver blows and goes into "Protect" mode and shuts off.

Any advise would be great as I am out of ideas. The good news is I will be moving a year to year+half so I only have to deal with this for a while but it would be great to get to what I had.

Have you calibrated your speakers using the Avia (or similar) disc along with a Radio Shack SPL?

Avia

Radio Shack SPL

That was going to be my question, have you calibrated your system. At least you want to run the "test tones" or "pink noise" of your receiver, and using a Radio Shack SPL meter, get everything to 75dB.

Jason,

Your QS8s should be mounted to each side of your listening area and slightly back. Our ear/brain interprets lateral ambient sounds much more precisely and effectively than rear emanating sounds. Try suspending them from the ceiling or using the wall on the right for one QS8 and some other arrangement (from the ceiling or a QS8 stand?)to the left of your seating area.

Ideally, they should be from 3 to 5 feet above your ear level when you are seated, and they do not need to be pointed down. You shouldn't "hear" surround speakers per se, but they should generate an enveloping surround field with well-mixed movies.

The back location for surrounds should only be used for the extra surrounds in a 7.1-channel setup. The QS8s do not need to be at identical heights or even exactly opposite each other.

Thanks to everybody for the advise. I do have the Avia disk but I lent it to my buddy at work and he is on vacation for a few weeks so I am S.O.L. in that regard.

I previously had the surrounds at the ideal location (110 degrees) but I was so far away from the left surround I could not hear it very well. So I went with this layout. I am stuck with it that way unfortunately.

Last night, I moved the chairs back about a foot and that seemed to help out a lot.

I guess I should clarify, I hear the surrounds fine when the noise is loud (i.e. a plane flying overhead or gunfire). I just miss the subtle stuff I use to get (i.e. the leaves blowing in the wind all around me or the crickets chirping during the dialog). They system is still great, don't get me wrong. It just use to be EXCELLENT and I want that back

Thanks again for the advise. I will use the Avia disk when I get it back.

Jason J

Oh, I did do the test tone thing with my reciever and the sound is loud and clear on all speakers - thanks!

Jason, a temporary fix may be to just turn up the db levels on your surrounds through your reciever until they sound how you like.