Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences everyone. I am leaning toward 4 Qs8s because the primary purpose will be HT and the tradeoffs for music don't sound all that bad; I may still have to explore the bookshelf idea.
Part of the reason I am still waffling is I can't quite figure out how I am going to install the side surrounds. The room is in the middle of the house, with a lot going on, 4 internal doors, 2 external doors and an open transition into the dining room on one side. The side Qs8s might have to be on stands, how stable are they? I don't know how to do computer graphic drawing but I may have to draw something by hand to get some advice, it's a bit complicated.
I was thinking about towers on either side of the couch as left and right surrounds so they wouldn't tip over (7-year-old daughter, 1-year old cat who likes to fly through the air whenever possible) but that's probably not a workable solution either because there is no basement and wood floors so there would be no way to run the speaker cable in an unobtrusive manner. On the right side of the couch there's a square pillar in the middle of the room, on the left side you have a door to the outside and then a fireplace so the surround would have to be a bit high up. Ideally you want the left and right surrounds at ear level, do you not?
To boil it down, I guess the questions I'm wondering about at the moment are: 1) I could put the surround on the left side of the couch on top of the fireplace which is 59" tall, is that too high? 2) The pillar on the right side sits just in front of the couch, is that too far forward (i.e., 2-3 feet in front of the listener once the listener is in a lounging position)? 3) Do the left and right surrounds need to be directly across from each other?
SK
