Hi Alan:
I am about to build a dedicated home theater in my basement the
room will be 21'4"x 13'6"x7'7".There will be two soffits out of neccesity,
10"deep 20" wide running from end to end. There will be two rows of seats
one at 154" and the other at 219" from the front wall. There will be 3' of
distance from the back wall to the rear seating position. My question is
rear speaker placement (possibly QS8's), Dolby recommends 135-150 degrees.
At 135 degrees the speakers would be located in another room, and at 150
degrees the speakers would be located 21" from the adjacent walls. Is 21"
far enough away to allow the QS8's to work properly? Should I be looking at
direct radiating speakers (M3's), maybe a THX speaker placement setup?
Thanks
Bill T.,
former Sound and Vision subscriber
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Hello Bill,
Nice to hear from a former Sound&Vision (Canada)subscriber! Your
room is of fairly modest volume (2,183 cu. ft), so depending on your
preferences, you could go with a pair of our M22 v2 large bookshelf models
as your main front speakers or the M60 v2 floorstanding towers. The latter
will play at extremely loud levels, if desired. The M22s are impressive when
coupled to a subwoofer like the EP500, which I think you'd find thrilling no
matter which front pair you choose. Tonally, the midrange and highs from the
M60s or M22s are quite similar. However, the M60s have more upper and lower
bass authority, whereas the M22s have a little 2- dB boost in the upper
midrange that gives them a sense of slightly greater detail and clarity
compared to the M60s. I emphasize that these differences are subtle and are
only noticeable on immediate blind A/B listening comparisons.
Given the 18-ft. viewing/listening distance of the second row,
the VP150 would be the preferred center channel speaker choice. The Dolby
guidelines are very flexible when you use either the quadpolar QS8s or QS4s,
either of which are very forgiving. I'd suggest a pair of QS8s on each side
wall midway between the two rows of seating, and a pair of QS4s on the rear
wall. Tonally, they're identical. The QS8s have higher power handling for
much larger rooms. Yes, 21 inches is sufficient when you adjust the
individual levels, delay, and distance settings for the side and rear
surrounds in your AV receiver setup menu. Don't use direct-radiating
surrounds in this room. The quadpolars will deliver a much more generous
sense of envelopment for all your viewers than direct radiators. Direct
radiators are also quite fussy about placement, whereas the QS surrounds are
really flexible. Try and get them at least a couple of feet above ear level.
It's not critical. One of my QS8s is about 2 feet higher than the other, and
it makes no difference in the surround field. I don't recommend the THX
setup if you are referring to dipole surround radiators, which create a
null. The Axiom QS surrounds are not dipoles, which THX still promotes; the
QS surrounds are bipoles in that all four drivers in each surround speaker
operate in phase. The problem with dipole (THX) surrounds is that they
generate a peculiar out-of-phase quality that is annoying.
Kind regards,
Alan
