I am wondering what the best positioning for my qs8's would be. My room is about 11.5' wide and the sweet spot is about 6' from the back wall. I just ordered qs8 ceiling mounts and I plan to mount them a couple of inches away from the side walls to avoid curtains on one side and a doorway on the other side. Is is best to stick with the dolby recommendations of 0 to 10 degrees back from the sweet spot? I wanted to go a couple feet back (this works out to be about 20 degrees) to keep the front tweeter from firing too far past me. I cannot really play around with placement to see what works best since one speaker will be in the doorway and I don't have two ladders to set them up on anyway. So I have to get the placement right the first time. I am hoping that someone has a similar sized room and has played around with placement and can recommend what is the best. I could even put them on the back wall if that is best, but most people around here say that they work best on the side walls just behind the listening position.

- Nick

I had a very similar situation and installed my QS-8 at about 20 degrees back. The QS-8 are truly forgiving of placement (good engineering for surround speakers). At that angle, they sounded just great. Since then, I bought a pair of M80s (those are INCREDIBLE), and I had to move my couch back by about 18 inches, which brough the QS-8 back into the "Dolby recommended" position. I can honestly tell you that I did not sense any improvement (maybe even a slight degradation). So, I don't feel you should worry too much about that and you should definitely keep your back walls for an eventual 7.1.

Nick,

Placing them behind you definitely sounds different than beside you. Not better or worse but different. For PLII and Neo music modes, I prefer them at the sides. For movies, I prefer them at the rear.

Nick,

Everyone is different, and there is no ONE best position. To be honest some people like the left/right surrounds slightly in front versus behind, or directly to the sides.

Keep in mind these are not direct radiating speakers, so when mounted directly to the side, the tweeters are directing sound behind and in front of you. If you have them to far back, the rear tweeter is not helping the experience and conflicting with the rear Qs8's in a 7.1 setup.

A lot depends on your room. Most importantly you need to experiment with differenct locations. Don't take our word for it, use what sounds best to you.

Hi Nick. I have to agree with everyone on this. Eric is right they are very forgiving and likely to sound great wherever you put them. I learned from experience that Randy’s advice to experiment with placement is sage.

And to finish sucking up I also agree with Mojo. I also prefer them more to the side for the music modes and further back for movies and I would add video games. In my room I found that the best place ended up being in the back corners which puts them at 135 degrees from the screen.

Another thing I noticed in my room is that placing them high at the ceiling or low on stands made a difference depending on if I’m listening to movies or music and video games. For music and video games they sound better at ear level the same as the tweeters on my M80s. At ear level the panning of music and video games is seamless. When I tried them up higher it often sounded like music and video game sounds moved up higher as they panned to the rear. The QS8s were never localizable just that some frequencies in the sound caused the whole soundstage to seem to move up as it moved back. I didn’t notice this at all with movies. Actually the ambient sounds from movies seemed to sound a little better with the QS8s placed higher up.

my problem with surround placement is my couch is right against the wall and I only have 1 side wall available for this speaker. Is it still ok to wall mount them maybe about 3feet up from the listeners ears and about 1foot away from the end of the couch? I guess that position is still within the Dolby requirement, isn't? otherwise what is/are my option/s?

44, Welcome

You have to work with what you have. If you can't mount them to the sides, some have had good results along the back wall spread out and possibly angled in a bit.

Do you have any options of mounting them up higher to your sides either up on the wall or ceiling? I have mine about 7ft off the ground and they work great.

Nick, assuming that you're talking about a 5.1 setup without the back surround speakers that are present in 7.1, the QS8s should be a little farther back than directly to the side, to lend a little back effect, even though they're side surrounds. Maybe 2' back is fine and don't be too concerned about the exact relationship in degrees. Yes, since your room is relatively narrow, you should position them as close to the side walls as possible.

EAP, welcome. Since you'll be almost up against the back wall, your side surrounds can be mounted on the back wall about 3' above ear level and spread as widely as possible, preferably more than the 1' beyond the edge of the couch that you mention.

the room is very tricky... i only have 3ft distance from one end of my couch to the side wall and i also have 3 feet the other end of couch to my kitchen table but no cupboards above that table.

should i buy the full metal bracket so i mount the qs4 or 8 maybe about 3 feet high and about 1.5 feet on either side of couch and then angle it a bit?

OR use the ceiling bracket? if ceiling is the best option, how far away from the couch/back wall should i install these?

i still prefer to have the surround on a back wall though and angle them a bit. what do you think?

So is about 2 ft back from the sweet spot on the side walls too far back to have a 6.1 or 7.1 setup if I plan to go to that in the future, or is best to keep to the dolby recommendation in that case (0 to 1 ft)? Since my room is quite narrow I would go with 6.1 over 7.1 with a qs8 dead center in the back wall.

How does everyone test to see what placement positions they like the best? Do you set these up on 5 of 6ft ladders to see where you want them? These speakers are very awkward to hold let alone stand on top of a tall ladder on the bottom midrange speaker and leave them there for a few days to decide if that is the position that you like. I guess I could use some twine to secure them to the ladders if I can borrow two equally sized ladders from a neighbor.

- Nick

Nick,

I made a mistake by not experimenting with my sides before I mounted them. I thought that if I mount within the area recommended by Dolby I couldn't go wrong. Although I didn't go wrong, I could have gone more right . My surround experience would be better I'm sure if I mounted my side QS8s more forward.

I therefore urge you to do whatever you have to in order to experiment with the placement. Your idea of hanging them from a ladder is a very good one.