Try the clap test, walk around the room and clap your hands real hard, do you hear an echo? If yes, think about what happens to sound coming from your speakers. The direct sound from the speaker arrives at your ears different from the reflections from your wall and floor and ceiling.

If you don't want to get into bass traps and acoustic panels, at least throw some nice carpet throw rugs or something on the floor between you and the front speakers.

Anything, you can add to break up the reflections a bit will help with the overall sound.

I have pics on my website of the panels I've built for HT1 and HT2.

there is definitely some echo coming. I will try the rug. see if it helps.

I have another question though, if I do decide to go with the QS8, do I need to get 4 of them? How should the placement be?
what about if I decide to stick with the M22 and then buy 2 more Qs8?

I'd say, definitely get the QS8s. Place them on the side walls to the side of the couch. They seem to be very forgiving for placement so they could be positioned just slightly ahead, behind or even with the couch. If you can devise a way to experiment before drilling screw holes, it could be a fun experiment. Otherwise, you should be very happy as long as you give them some breathing room from the ceiling and the back wall.

If the door or other issues cause placement problems on the walls, you could always place them to the sides using the stands you already own.

If you can get the couch pulled out from the back wall 4' or so, you could experiment with 7.1. If I were you, I wouldn't invest in extra speakers for 7.1 right away but use a couple of your existing speakers as the rears to experiment with. You might even decide to keep the existing bookshelves as rears as they may work very well for you. Many people use direct radiating for rears together with QS style for surrounds.

In my current room, my couch was only about 3-4' from the back wall and I experimented with my old HK bookshelves as rears for 7.1. I actually went back to 5.1 with just my QS8s for surrounds. I just didn't find enough improvement.

In fact, it could have been me, but because the rears were not working very well in thier required placement, I found I was losing some surround effects that sounded better when the processor was doing straight 5.1 instead of trying to figure out what will got to my ineffective rears and what will go to the surrounds. Might have been paranoia though.

With your older speakers, pre-existing stands, and a little extra speaker wire, you are set up to have lots of fun experimenting.

The QS8s for surrounds though, are a definate must have.

With placing the QS8's should they be placed facing forward to the TV? or facing the couch?

Normally for 5.1, you want your side surrounds facing each other, for 7.1 the rears would be facing the front of the room.

so if I have QS8...it should be like This?


and with direct radiating it should be like this?

The tweeters on the QSs should be firing to the front and rear of the room. You don't have to position the side direct radiators the way you've shown. You can point the drivers slightly away from your listening position to diffuse the sound.

I've had direct radiators as sides and I would never recommend them over the QSs.

As Mojo mentioned, there are two tweeters on the front of the Qs8's, one firing to the left, one firing to the right. So, you want the front (with axiom logo) facing the listeners so the tweeters are firing around you and enveloping you.



With direct radiating it would be more like you describe, haveing them face the listening area.

Frosti, the back surround speakers in 7.1 setup require some room behind the listening position(say at least 4')for the back surround effect to develop. If you can move the couch forward enough to make 7.1 worthwhile, then the side surrounds should be on the side walls directly to the side of the couch and about 2-3' above ear level. The back surrounds should be on the back wall(facing forward)at the same height and separated to the left and right edges of the couch.

If you remain almost up against the back wall, a 5.1 setup is advisable; the surrounds could either be on the side walls just a few inches from the back wall or on the back wall(again facing forward)just a few inches from the side walls.

Ok...this is what I will do...
I will buy the QS8 and and move my couches forward.

Mount the QS8 on the wall. How high should I mount it? or should I just get the Stand.

Also should i return the m22 and get a smaller M2 or M3 for the surround back? or Just get 4 Qs8? lol

Is it worth it to go 7.1?