here's my room, simple design and nothing in my way really. i will be putting french doors in the opening on the side.

going 5.1 for now so the question is where sshould the surrounds go? directly next to the couch or slightly behind it?

Personally, I favor slightly behind. The Axiom FAQ says "Ideally, surround speakers should be either wall-mounted or stand-mounted to either side of the couch or primary listening area, from one to six feet higher than seated listeners' ears, and slightly forward or rearward of the listening area if you wish." Sorta leaves it up to you, doesn't it?

Here's a diagram ... Speaker Placement.

I would mount them a bit behind the couch, and definitely mount them up high. You get much better 3d effects if the surrounds are mounted higher than the other speakers.

John how high do you have your side surrounds mounted?

I have mine in a similar situation. The QS8s are slightly behind the couch at an angle (about 45 degrees) as recommended by Axiom. They sound great!

thanks guys, i dont know why the picture showed up so small. my room is 13 X 23.

one more question. if i were later add two rear speakers for 7.1, would those surrounds still be slightly behind the couch or would adding the rears push them forward to the side of it?

>>John how high do you have your side surrounds mounted?

Currently they are at ear level when seated (soup cans, remember ?), which isn't very good. I used to have them about 6 feet up, ie a couple of feet from the ceiling, and the surround effects were much better.

I've got my surrounds on stands at ear level on the sides of the couch due to my room layout. Would my sound improve if I raised them a foot or two? The only problem would be is I would be unable to put any downward angle on them. I've got my rears set up high behind the couch angled down towards the listening position.

Swirv, in a 5.1 setup without back surround speakers it's desirable to have the side surrounds slightly(say 2')behind the listening position to give a little "back" effect, both from being a little to the rear and from "phantom" imaging sounds equally loud in both speakers as if there was a speaker in the back middle.

When back surrounds are added for a 7.1 setup, this positioning of the side surrounds toward the rear isn't necessary, since there're real back speakers. In that case the side surrounds can be positioned directly to the side, for possibly a bit better purely side effect, although with wide dispersion, such as the QSs provide, it shouldn't really be a critical adjustment.