Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Difficult surround placement help

Hello all,

My room is a bit difficult for surround placement and I'm hoping the quadrapole design of the QS speakers will help me. Basically the room has a peaked ceiling that is 14' at the highest and goes down to about 4' on one side and about 8' on the other with a door in a bump-out. So, 1 surround speaker would be about 3' off the floor and 1' from a sloping ceiling; the other about 7' from the floor (over the door) and 3' from the ceiling. Both of them would be directly to the side of the listening position and about 1' from the back wall. To top it off, the listening position is over to the right side so the lower speaker will be closer to the listeners.

Since the room is not regularly shaped, the only way I could get equal positioning for both side would be to put them on the back wall.

I put up a quick drawing to hopefully explain this better:
http://chasal.net/photo/Wall.gif

Do I have any hope of getting decent surround imaging in this environment?

Thanks for the help,

Mike

Have you simply considered using stands for the surrounds instead of trying to mount them on the walls. Given your room type wall palcement would not give you a very satisfactory result. there is too much differential in height placement to work effectivly. Axiom make some nice stands that would work well for you.

The problem with using stands is that there is a door on the wall below the left surrond, that's why its up high. Putting it on a stand would put it right in the middle of the main path through the room. I suppose I could have it on a stand in the corner or something and move it out when I want to use it, but I'd like to avoid that if possible.

Thanks,

Mike

I have a similar setup and it sounds fine. One of my surrounds is in a built in bookshelf, the other is above a doorway about 7' from the floor. Make sure you get them calibrated with an SPL meter and you should be fine.

I'm using QS8's.

Hi mchasal,

I've often praised how forgiving our QS surrounds are of asymmetrical placement--and they are, but such a radical difference in height may be problematic. But follow my guidelines and try it. You may be surprised. Plus the irregular shape of the room should auger well for fewer standing waves and better overall sound envelopment.

The different distances from the surrounds to the listening area aren't a problem because you can compensate for that in the setup menu of your receiver. My own surrounds are at quite different distances (and heights) and they work wonderfully (you must take care in the initial setup menu and use an SPL meter--get it at Rat Shack-- to carefully tweak levels).

Can't you mount the closer surround to the sloping ceiling on an angle nearer the height of the other?

Regards,

Thanks for the suggestion Alan, I didn't think of mounting the one on the ceiling to get closer to the same height. I'll give it a try. Also, thanks for the report wbwatts. I'm pretty confident something will work at this point.

Thanks,

Mike