Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Rear surrounds - rear or...sides?

Yes the idea was to optimize the sound for the front row. I almost had it optimized for one seat in the ultra-sweet spot but the wife would have none of that so it is a compromise sweet spot (what the heck, she makes me popcorn for every movie ..no not microwave, too many hydrogenates).

My main goal was to keep the wire runs to the wall plates as short as possible but worst case scneario is that I end up using painted flat wire to hide most of the length.


If I stick with Dolby Digital EX then the rears are likely fine where they are. If a lot of 7.1 material happens to appear on the market then a wider rear channel separation would seem to be best. At least with using wall plates, I have the flexibility of adding as much wire as I need and moving the speakers to where they will end up sounding the "best".

Bruce, you may want to experiment with the height of the rears and sides as well before making final decision. In my experience getting them lower improved things considerably. I ended putting them just barely above the ear level, maybe 15cm or so above ears when seated. The sound change from vertical adjustment was more than the change from moving them laterally. I would also experiment with moving the sides a bit further back so that they are not as much in front of the back seat. but rather at most directly to the side of it - at least in line with the front edge of the seat. Again "my experience" has been that placing side channels anywhere ahead of the listening position destroys the surround "magic".

Good point. Did you have to mount your QS8s to the studs? If they can not be mounted to the drywall through the use of wall plugs, I may have to plan for some extra braces in the wall to give me some lateral movement flexibility instead of every 16".

Love your setup, by the way. Very simple and clean. Did you use component video to the projector or S-video?

One of my QS8s is tied in to a stud, the other is in drywall, no problems at all.

Both of my 8s are in the drywall on the T bracket. No problems.

Woo Hoo! That's great. I did not want to compromise the insulation in my exterior wall by throwing in a stud brace.

Thanks guys!

My Qs are just attached to the dry-wall - no studs. I just made sure to add some dry-wall anchors and place plenty of screws in the T-Bracket to spread out the load.

Shoot - I mounted my plasma on the bare dry-wall without any studs - I just bought some freakishly haevy-duty dry-wall anchors. No problems here so far.

One of my QS8s was screwed to that cheap thin wood panelling, no stud. I used about 5 screws to distribute the load.

The other was on soup cans. Works but looks ugly.

At least some of the T-bracket holes align with the studs, the rest use plastic drywall screw plugs. The rubber bumpers do a great job of silencing the link - no rattles or any hint of instability. One of my QS8's is now mounted on the room door - suboptimal but that was the only place that was not too far behind or not too far front. The wire went inside the door so it is not visually too ugly. The door is of basic variety and regular screws seem to do the job - although I am definitely not trying to load test it or slam the door

>> Did you use component video to the projector or S-video?
Component DIY cable that goes up the back wall (behind the paint) and above the ceiling tiles. I have the S-video cable thrown in for redundancy but I am not using it as Marantz upconverts everything to component.
The cable has 5 shielded coaxes inside and I am using one of them to get the signal from the FM antenna that is also hidden above the ceiling tiles back to the equipment rack in front. I used a Radio Shack 24db or so FM amp - also in the ceiling to boost the poor reception in the basement. One coax is unused and the remaining 3 provide for component video connections.