Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Need some advise on rear surrounds for my new HT

I'm in the framing stage of my basement remodel / HT project. On a suggestion from a relative I opened up the back wall (instead of having just a door) between the main HT room and where I will be having a small bar. I like the look and feel that it is adding but it screwed up mounting options for a pair of rear surrounds (for 7.1).

Checkout the floorplan here.

I screwed a couple of boxes to the wall where I'm thinking about putting the rear surrounds. So use your imagination while you are laughing.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

My dilemma is, what speaker should I plan for and how would I mount it? I have a pair of QS4's that I have been using for side surrounds. I'm looking for a reason to upgrade to QS8's since this room is decent sized but most say direct radiating speakers are preferred for the rear surrounds. So considering that I think I'm left with M2's but I'm not sure how well those would mount up there near the ceiling. I guess I could always look at ceiling mounted speakers but that's not the best performing solution. So I'm looking for some feedback.

I don't think that it is most would prefer to have direct radiators for the rears, it is just that most would prefer to spend less money on the rears, as they aren't supported by most soundtracks.

I use Prologic IIx for everything. I can't wait to get my Q8s all around.

Okay, Ben; I studied the floor-plan and pictures. It appears that the back surrounds would be about 8' behind your ears. Although direct speakers would have room to disperse at that distance, there's certainly nothing wrong with using QSs there also. I'd suggest QS8s on the side and probably move the QS4s to the back. They should be separated a little more widely than shown, especially by moving the right back out farther, to get maybe the same 8' separation as the distance they're behind you.

Ya the spacing and mounting options for the rears is not ideal. With the door leading to the stairs it limits my ability to move the left rear surround much farther over. I thought the rear surrounds, since they are basically mono in 7.1, didn't need to be too far from each other? I always look at these things being symmetrical but perhaps since the right side of the room has more space to be filled it would benefit by having that right rear surround over farther to the right than the left. From a pure cosmetic standpoint I wonder if putting the two surrounds directly over the opening between the two rooms would function well enough from a sound standpoint?

My other concern using my QS4's there would be that they have the top firing speaker. They are going to be mounted so close to the ceiling I'm not sure what impact that would have on the sound.

My plans for rear surrounds, so far, are to use in-ceiling speakers that will be mounted a couple of feet behind the seating area.

What JohnK said.

You can mount the QS series pretty close to the ceiling. Axiom has some ceiling-mount brackets specifically for this purpose, and Sirquack made some pretty cool brackets by repurposing some Menard's hardware.

I have QS8's all around and am very happy with that arrangement.

In my version 3 of the Plex, my rear Qs8's are going to be wall mounted with included T bracket pretty much right behind the 2nd row of seats and 3ft above their heads. The sides will be mounted with a full metal bracket and moved forward somewhat. This is all to a accomodate me adding a rear and side wall to enclose in everything. It is not ideal, but should work fine.

For DTS ES, and DD EX the rear channel was mono, but for the 7.1, discrete mixes on blu-rays, the each rear channel is completely separate. Even the 7.1 expansion of 5.1 mixes via Dolby Prologic IIx/z delivers a stereo rear.

You don't have to use a QS for your rear speakers. You were just under the assumption that they are not suited, and in general monopoles are better. But that's not the case, the QS series can work very well as rears, just as they do to the sides. But if they don't fit your room/budget, they don't fit.

I'm open to the idea of using the QS4's for the rear. That gives me the excuse I need to buy the QS8's for the sides. I assume even on the new HD audio standards the side surrounds are still more important than the rears?

So how important is the placement of the rears to be behind and centered? I would believe that may be more important with monopoles than if I used the QS4's, no?

I updated the drawing with the rears being slightly offset. Honestly it would probably look better this way but I'm a stickler for precision on certain things. Not having the two speakers equal distance worries me. But of course the rear dimensions of the room are not perfectly ideal anyway for a HT.

Updated Floorplan

The channel trims and delays in the receiver will easily deal with small asymmetries, so no big worry there.

Yeah, the sides are more important than the rears, but on most 7.1 discs, and with PLIIx there's plenty of content coming from my two rears. So if you go that route, they won't be unused.