Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Rear Surround Placement?

Hello All.

I ordered some new Axiom speakers a couple of weeks ago (M22 - Fronts, M2 - Rear, QS4 - Surround, VP150 - Center). And I am trying to figure out where to place them. I am trying to make it fit according to the "An Essential Guide to Home Theater Layout", except the size of my room is limiting.

I am in the process of building my own stands. I have already built stands for the surrounds, but I need to build the stands for the rears. The problem is I can only have the speakers about a foot and half away from the back of the couch (according to the layout they should be about 3ft behind the couch).

My question is: Should I build stands that allow me to angle the rear speakers (M2's) down towards couch since they'll be so close, or should I make the speakers face straight forward?

The bottom of my QS4's are 5'2" from the ground and I was wanting to build the other stands to match these.

Any suggestions?

It's my first post...could someone tell me how to add pictures to the post?

Thanks for the help!
Andrew

I'm not sure, but I would angle them down if they are going to be that close. Axioms are pretty good off axis but if you get more than say 30 degrees off you are going to definitely lose some sound quality. Five feet up and a couple of feet away seems like at least 45 degrees...

Andrew, welcome. My thought is that even with direct radiating back surrounds when you're looking for a more specific localizing of some movie events, you shouldn't have them pointing down directly at your ears when you're that close. Try them first pointing straight ahead, but before you make your back stands experiment with different positions on boxes or other temporary supports.

Should I go ahead and make the speakers at the same height of the side surrounds, regardless of the angle? The side surrounds are about 2'2" above ear level.

And, since i'm a "newbie", do I not have picture posting privileges? or am I just missing something?

You can post pictures if you have the image already available on a web server. Look in the FAQ and it will tell you how.

Andrew
Welcome to the board.

If you click on FAQ's at the top of this page, it tells you how to add an image to a message. I've not tried it yet myself, but good luck.

You beat me to it.

Thanks for the picture info. I don't have a webpage, so pictures will have to come at a later date.

Another question...my side surrounds are QS4's, and my rear surrounds are M2's. The M2 is taller than the QS4, does it matter height wise if I center, make the tops line up, or make the bottoms line up of the M2's compared to QS4's? Or do I just pick what I think looks best?

Thanks again!
Andrew

Andrew, it's generally suggested that the side and back surrounds be at about the same height, but this isn't critical if something a little different looks better to you.

>>Or do I just pick what I think looks best?

A few inches isn't going to make any noticeable difference. One school of thought is that having surrounds and rears at different heights gives you a more 3-dimensional sound stage... the other school of thought is "yeah, it's more three-dimensional but less realistic". I don't know which is right, having (a) not had time to hook up my M2 rears, and (b) not having had time to play with the resulting system and see what difference moving the speakers makes.

Hey guys. Here is a couple pictures of my setup. As you can see there's not a whole lot of room behind my couch to put the rears.

I set up the speakers last night (facing straight forward) and they sounded really good to me, so I'll probably build the stands w/the speakers facing straight forward.

I also posted a close up of one of the stands that I built for the side surround...what do you think?

Andrew

Andrew nice setup, awesome job and innovation on the stands.

Different indeed, Andrew, but attractive. When you have the back surrounds in operation you can try moving those side speakers a little farther forward(directly to the side of the listeners)for the best side surround effect, since you'll have actual speakers in back to handle the back surround effect.