Your forgetting a major point which is what im describing is how its mixed in the studio. So your changes misrepresent the accuracy and intended placement of sounds being mixed. Changing these Fundimentals will often give you bad sound effects because your altering with sound reproduction. Stick with dolby and dts recommendations if you want accurate Surround Sound as intended by the director.
and
For extended seating arrangements with two rows you should place L/R Surrounds to the sides of the 2nd row seats and then place Surround Backs at least 4' apart or more depending on your room.
But if I had such a setup I would do what the theaters do which is multiple L&R Surrounds that share the same input signal. But for the Majority of people here 7.2 is more than capable for our needs.
Every mixing studio I've seen pictures of uses direct radiating speakers. I am sure that there are some out there somewhere using di/bi/mono/quad pole speakers though.
Also, Dolby (or was it DTS) DID put out pictures somewhere (it has been some time since I used it for reference since my theater build out and wiring was done a few years ago), but the still said that for 2 row to put the side surrounds 90 degrees from the front row, assuming that the front row is your primary seating. There was never an explanation that I saw or read as to if you normally sit in the second row.
You state that in one post, follow Dolby and DTS, and then in the next just give your opinion....
Just saying....
For my setup, the speaker placement is quite good. I am always just looking for that extra little "tweak" to make it better, and to go back to my original reply, I just said that I would have loved to compare direct radiating vs quadpole when I was setting things up just to see which I lived better instead of just assuming that the QS8s were the way to go.
Also remember that in an "ideal" world, all speakers would be the exact same, fronts, center, and surrounds. That has been the "ideal" for a long time, but just something hard to obtain financially for most, and difficult to do speaker placements as well. Mixing studios use direct radiating and many times the exact same speaker model for all speakers in the room.
Thanks for the good debate. Please understand that I am not attacking you or anything, just offering up some discussion. I only mention that since you are pretty new around here and together we will share ideas and insights that may help someone.
