I'm going to be mounting a plasma and front three channels this weekend and could use some free advice. My basement wall is 7' high so placing the tv in the middle with the top about 58" off the floor. How much space would you leave between the speakers and the tvand how high off the ground for the right and left channels? I am thinking that the center channel would be mounted below the tv. My wife and I are both 5'4" so our ear level is about 40".

Thanks!

Are you going to be standing up when viewing? If not you should consider your seated ear height. Also, the center of your TV screen should be close to your eyeball height when seated. 58" sounds too high, even if you will be standing up when viewing.

When we are seated my ears are 40" off the ground. It is a 50" plasma tv, thus the top of the tv would be 58" off the ground and the bottom would be 26" -- trying to achieve having the tv in the middle of the wall.

Oh sorry I mis-read your message. At 26" from the bottom to the floor, sounds like the right height. Same rule applies to the speakers, they should be at ear height.

As far as how far apart the speakers should be, there is a rule of thumb for that I think it's 70-80% of the distance away for the speakers. So if you will be sitting 10' from the speakers they should be placed 7-8' apart. Someone will chime in if I'm wrong.

That seems about right to me. The lower the better.

Michael

Check this out, article from the Axiom expert

http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/129023.html

I have m22's and the vp150. The mp22's are 20" high so how far off the ground should the bottom of the speaker be?

The bottom of the TV is only 26" off the floor? That is only a little over two feet, seems way to low. Not sure about TV's but for projection screens your eyes should be abut 1/6th to 1/3rd from the bottom of the screen. Funny, I'm about 6ft, and my ears aren't that high when sitting in my lazy boys either upright or reclined a bit. You normally want the tweeters for all three to be as close to ear leve as possible, a little off will be fine.

Your going to mount the 22's on the wall, or set them on stands? The W22's are ideal for onwall applications.

Thats interesting. My rp is sitting so that the center of the screen is about eye height. I thought thats how you were supposed to set them up??

The advice I read when setting up my projection system was that your eyes should be ~1/3 from the bottom of the screen. Unfortunately in my setup that wasn't possible (I have a sloped wall on which the screen hangs) and I had to mount it lower.

I can confirm this is less than ideal as it does cause your neck to be uncomfortable after a couple of hours looking at the screen. It's not something you notice immediately, but after 2-3 hours, you realize something's not quite right.

Jason

I would have thought the oposite. If the screen is too high it would be uncomfortable. I may try putting something under my display to move it up a little to see how it feels.

I am using a coffee table right now. It would be nice to have a little more room under the display when I go with a stand.

When your sitting, you don't want to be looking downward. It is much more comfortable to be looking upwards, especially if your reclining somewhat.

Bingo... when you recline and then have to tuck your chin down even more, it's not comfortable.

I have recliners as well and have the TV (52") High. It's a lot better, at the start I had it lower and when reclined it was uncomfortable, so I raised it 11". Much better

That 'splains it. I have no recliners.

Even with no recliners and a ear/eye height of around 40", your eyes would be lined up closer to the top of the TV, I guess you can just move your eyeballs not your entire head.

My Dads Pioneer Plasma is mounted above a mantel which is above his gas log fireplace, so the tv is probably 4-5ft up from the gound, works great for all seats in the room.

Also, the speaker tweeters would be more at ear level this way.

Hmm... Shuffle, shuffle... Measure, measure.

By god man, your right!

The center of the screen is at 36". Sitting upright my eyes are at 44", so probably 40" when sitting comfortably.

Its nice to know I have a little more room available for when I build a stand.

If only I could raise my ceiling 11" and do the same (but I'm glad it worked for you)

Jason, just renovate the one wall and ceiling, a weekend project at best

Unfortunately the roofline would need to be adjusted as well, which I guess would make it a 3-day project.

I meant roofline by ceiling, you obviously figured it out. So, everyone to Jason's on the next long weekend for a reno project.

Just build an electric motored TV stand or frame that adjusts as you need it. If you also build a motor into your reclining seat and incorporate an RF controlled switch or maybe 'IR with an IR Blaster', you could have the TV adjust up and down automatically when you hit the Recline button on your Universal Remote.

Thank God I have a wife who keeps me from attempting these things.