Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Help with height for new QS4 placement, pic inside

Hi all,
Just ordered the QS4. Can't wait for them to arrive
My question is how tall above the ears should I hang them in my living room on my back wall for a 5.1 system:
The green dot is the only place I will sit in. No one will sit in any other locations.
From my head to the front speakers 220 cm (86").
From my head to the back wall 65 cm (26").
The new QS4 rear speakers [marked as (1) and (2)] will be mounted on the back wall with 240 cm (94") between them - the Rear Right only 100 cm (39") from the right wall while the Rear Left will be 270 cm (106") away from the left wall.
Hope you can help.

The QS speakers are very forgiving. I had a similar setup years ago, and had my QS8s mounting about 5 inches from the ceiling. That worked well. Of course, now I have them about a foot or two above ear height when seated. That works great too.

I agree totally with that .. because of a few obstacles on the walls I have the qs8's 6 inches from the ceiling and works great.. you can position the qs speakers almost at any height as long as they are all at the same height and you have them correctly configured in your AVR

I'm free to mount them anywhere from ear level to the ceiling. On this spectrum, what height will benefit them the most? closer to the ears or farther away as possible (aka closer to my ceiling)?

Most people that put them closer to the ceiling are doing so only because of some other physical limitation. About a foot above seated ear height seems ideal. Now, that is based off of different factors.

THX recommends 2 or more feet above the ears, but they are generally basing that off of direct-radiating surrounds (like putting M2s or something in for the surrounds) where the speaker points directly at the listener. With the QS series speakers, and with nothing firing directly at the listening, you can drop that down a bit without the worry of "blasting" sound right at your ears.

What Nick said. Unless you're going to bump into them, I think 2-3' above ear level is about right.

Slow, welcome to Axiom. As has been pointed out, the exact height isn't crucial, particularly with wide dispersion surrounds like the QSs. The most typical suggestion is 2-3' above ear level.

Something to keep in mind is that the surrounds in a 5.1 setup are still side surrounds, even when mounted on the back wall. This leads to a suggestion to spread the surrounds out more than shown in your diagram, so as to give more of a "side" effect than a back effect. Moving them both out at least another 2'(if the window in the right corner allows)should be considered.

Another suggestion is to place the sub directly in the right front corner, for stronger room reinforcement. If not directly in the right corner, moved out about 5'(1/4th of the room width)from the side wall.

Good point John about pushing them out to the sides further. That is what was recommended to me back in 2004 with V2.0 of the theater where my seating was against one wall like that. I had forgotten about pushing them out a couple of feet wider than my couch.

Potential problem may be that slowdive's right surround would get pushed in front of a window...

You could go with stands for them, or what about mirroring the room and putting the main couch where the TV is and the TV where the couch is? You would be able to mount one to a wall and the other hung from the ceiling.

OR

What about turning everything 90degrees to the right. The TV is on the wall on the right of the diagram. The surround speakers could be set up more properly, however you end up with a single seat (recliner maybe) without a home. I kept everything the same but slightly adjusted the couch to allow for more walking space on the left of the couch (top of the diagram).

Thanks everyone for your help!
Moving the speakers away is not an option because of the window on the right, speaker (1) can't move any further. The Front Left (FL) speaker is also at it's limit, can't move it any further to the left (it will block the path). These two dictates speaker (2) position (symmetrical to (1) ). I know that it's far from ideal but hoping to get the best sound for movies is the reason I ordered the QS4 to replace bookshelves speakers I have today, hope they will make a real movies sound improvement.
Now that (1) and (2) positions are anchored, the only free axis I can play with is the height. I guess that the idea is for me to benefit the most of the QS4, is to understand that there is a trade off: on the one hand to get the most of the 4 elements in each speaker I need to be as far as possible from them (aka up as possible in location (1) and (2) - as you guys recommend it should be about 2-3 feet above the ears). On the Other hand of the trade off, because of the up firing element in each speaker, I don't want the speaker to be too close to the ceiling. As I was told, here the minimum distance should be 4 inch from the ceiling but what is the optimal distance from the ceiling I should aim for??

P.S. Nick, thank you for the 90 degree idea and sketch but I like my life and my wife will kill me if I do this

Hey no worries. We've all had to live with a significant other (spouse, friend, cat, dog, etc) and need to cater to their "tolerance" of what we want.