Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater MC's Basement HT

I'm curious as to why you didn't wall mount the M3s rather than use stands.
Would help to curtail the floor cabling situation and should be easy to do if you have a drop ceiling in the room.
Less chance of knocking them over upon room entry.

Nice room though. I wish our drop ceiling had been put in with perfectly vertical wires. The contractors never used cross braces for the locations in which a joist wasn't available so trying to lift out a ceiling panel is a real bitch.

I would have, but the right wall is open, so there is no place to mount a side surround in that location. Mounting them to the ceiling was out of the question, as there would be very little separation between them and the height channels. Not to mention Atmos recommends sides and rears at ear level.

I solved the wire situation, as the right surround runs under the couch and to a jack on the left wall along with the left surround. Nothing will be visible once I tidy the room. I was also thinking about hanging a black curtain under the beam to close of the theater when watching movies. I haven't decided yet, but it will help to hide the speaker. At the end of the day, it doesn't really bother me. Just another piece of furniture in the room, no different from my fronts and sub...lol.

So I messed around with calibrating the projector a bit and watched a few youtube videos. The side surrounds for anyone sitting on the edges of the couch seem a little distracting. Going to run Audyssey again, but wondering if I should use QS8s for surrounds to help diffuse things better. Anyone have experience with speakers close to the listening position? The sides are only like a foot away from the couch.

The general rule is to use QS surrounds when they need to be close to the listening position and limit use of direct speakers to when they can be further away.

On the other hand, as I understand it the rule for Atmos is to use direct speakers anyways; not sure how to reconcile those two other than postulating an implicit "and of course your room needs to be really big" rule for Atmos.

On the gripping hand, even QS speakers might not be good that close to the listening position because they don't radiate at all out the front, just angling forward & backward. I have my QS's a bit behind the listening position for space reasons but it probably helps a bit with sound as well.

First thing I would try is moving them back a foot or so (as far as you can go without the couch back getting in the way too much) and angling them forward to get a bit more separation from the side listeners.

At a foot away you should need to turn them nearly off after a calibration.
If 5.1 I'd move them behind your seat by at least 2' if possible.
If 7.1 try them inline with your knees when seated before reclining and turn them down a little after you do a calibration on your AVR .

by the knees? like door speakers in the soccer van?

I know where you are going. Moving them up and further back is the trick while aiming them at the mlp. You want to reduce hotspotting while maintaining frequency response integrity and discrete localization. Bridgman has it.

Not at knee height inline with your knees as though your knees intersect the imaginary line beyween the L&R surrounds.
Its certainly worth trying, its worked well for me in a few different narrow rooms/layouts.
He'll still want to turn them down a bit because they're so close. They'll almost work like wides rather than side surrounds...it fills the sound hole between the front soundstage and rear surrounds.
I stopped doing this when I got my Hp's. The side surrounds and fronts were competing, the front soundstage filled the room and around my seat on their own.
Now all my surrounds are turned way down (sometimes off all together).

Gotcha. At first I was like say wuuuuut?!

Yeah, I think I am just going to move them behind the couch and toe them towards the center position of the couch. That will easily give me 3'. It kills the idea of 7.1.r though, as the surrounds would be to close to the rears. Ah well, compromise. Just have to start watching stuff and testing speaker positions.

So been super busy lately, but have continued to mess around with the side speakers. I have tried them on the sides and directly against the rear wall and angled towards the MLP. That makes them about 4' from the MLP and 2.5' from the end seating positions. Seems a little better. I also had someone recommend pointing them directly at each other instead of angled toward the MLP. I haven't tried that one yet. Moving them towards the rear also places them directly under the rear heights. Not sure if that is going to cause separation issues.

Starting to think I should have just went 7.1.