Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Surround Question (with pictures)

I am remodeling my living room, and I'm getting close to needing to pre-run speaker wire. I'm in need of some advice on where I should run it.

I currently have VP150 center, M22's for my front LR, QS4's for the LR Side Surrounds, and M2's for my rear surrounds.

Here is a website I will use to post pictures to:
Living Room Remodel

This is what I am debating:

1) Should I go with a 5.1 setup or a 7.1 setup?
You can see from the site where I am considering placements and my room size.

2) In a 5.1 setup, should I trade up and get the QS8's?

3) In a 7.1 setup, should I go with 4 QS8's or 2 QS8's on the side and use my M2's on the rear surrounds?

I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future, but I wanted to get the post started. Any comments (likes or dislikes) about any of my setup is greatly appreciated!

Thank,s
Andrew

I think you would benefit from 7.1, and the speakers you have are probably sufficient. I think several people go with the QS speakers on the side and a direct speaker in the rear.
If you feel your current speakers are lacking after getting everything hooked up, you could consider getting a pair of QS8's for the side surrounds, and then decide if you like the qs4's or m2's better at the back. Then again, with the rear speakers being up as high as the will be the downward firing QS'8s might be better than the M2's... hmmmm.

I can't comment too much since I only run 5.1 (with QS'8s), so I'll let someone else chime in.

Andrew, you didn't specifically show your planned listening position, but the length of the room indicates that you'll likely have enough room behind you(at least 4')for a good rear sound field to develop. Especially since you already have the M2s, they seem to be a good choice for the back surrounds since there's likely to be enough room(at least 6')to the listening position for the sound to be well spread out.

Awesome pictures! Beautiful home!

As to products, I agree with what David and John said. I

As to placement...

I would seriously consider a FMB or some other tilting bracket for the rear speakers.

I don't think that the placement of the surround (side) speakers would necessarily be different for 5.1 v. 7.1. Their placement should be just behind the listening position in either case. I would not move the surround speakers to the rear corner if going 5.1 as in your illustration.

Since you already have everything, I'd definitely wire for 7.1.

I'm looking forward to future pictures! Enjoy the journey!

Wow, seeing those pictures brings a tear to my eye. Being able to do a room from scratch like that is invaluable, you can't put a price on it. The freedom, the choices, the possibilities... with so many directions in which you can go, it's almost paralyzing!!! Still I'd rather have a room like that with which to work than a fully finished room any day. The only downside to a project like that is that you will invariably end up forgetting to do something, or overlooking something until everything is said and done, and you will hit yourself over the head for not doing it once you realize what it is you've forgotten! The problem is no matter how many times you play it out in your head, it's just not the same as the moment of truth when you're making all of your connections and suddenly you go, "oh damn, I completely forgot about the _ _ _ _ _ _"... and you wonder how you could have been so dim to have missed it!

Still, I say all of this with envy in my heart, as I wish I could have such a project going on right now. As much satisfaction as enjoying a finished project brings, for me 2/3rds of the fun is the journey. So savor these next few weeks and months, these are the good times!

And personally, 7.1 would be the way I'd go.

Thank you for the replies!

I agree, I will go with the 7.1 setup.

Where should I place the side surrounds in relation to the listening area? Directly to the side or back a little bit. And what about the rear surrounds?

Thanks for the advice. When I get more pictures, I'll post them. And I will have some questions about the sub, receiver, and fronts soon:)


Micah: I am hoping by getting y'all's input early and often, I can avoid that that "oh crud" moment:) I'm doing my best to enjoy the project; however, living in the house during the remodel gets really old! Not to mention I still have holes into my attic and it's supposed to be -3 on Thursday:(

In a 7.1 setup the side surrounds should be directly to the side of the listening position, since they don't need to help supply a rear sound field. The back surrounds should generally be spread about as far as they're behind the listening position, but also at least enough so that the listeners have one behind them to their left and one to their right(i.e., wider than the width of the listening position).

I (and Dolby) say the surrounds (sides) should go directly to the left and right of the seating position. That's fine, if you're always going to be using a 7.1 mode (like Dolby Prologic IIx, or DTS NEO:6). If you'll be playing 5.1 content without the rear surround steering, I'd say place the surrounds slightly behind the listing position. But if you don't mind the expansion provided by Dolby or DTS, then having the surrounds lined up with your ears really does work best.

The rear surrounds should be placed just beyond the edges of your listening area. But it's more about angles between speakers than distances.

Dolby has a pretty good, interactive guide on their site:
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/setup/speaker-setup-guide/

EDIT: Heh, John was typing while I was finding Dolby's setup guide. But yeah, we agree.

Andrew whenever we built our room and determined where the seating placement was going to be, I used Alan's 'Guide to Home Theatre Layout' (Dolby Digital EX/Dolby Pro LogicIIx/7.1) article and diagram for correct placement of all speakers, Sharpied my beloved garage stool with the ranges marked using a protractor, placed the stool in the sweet spot and with the help of a laser pin-pointer I then marked the unfinished wall where each speaker would be placed in the room.

That's genius.