Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Sub woofer & possible L/R surround placement

This are my current systems.

What would be the best sub (red dot) placement, current place or swap with the left tower or move to the right hand side of the recliner?

Also, if I would upgrade my Orb surround to QS8, would it be advise to place the Left surround to the same place as the ORB (which angle to the listening area)? If so the QS8 would be facing the TV area.

Or shall I just place the QS8 a bit further than current Orb (facing the door entrance) but not parallel with the Right surround?

Would you all think the current SVS PC12+ will be under power for my room?

Actual room size 15'x 20'x 11' with opening to dinning & kitchen as seen in the drawing.

Thanks.


Michael

Michael, the position I'd suggest for the sub would be directly in the right front corner where a rack is shown now. Generally the strongest and smoothest(except in a square room)location for a single sub is the corner farthest from a large opening. I'd think that the PC12+ would be adequate for that size room.

Since you'll be using both side and back surrounds, the side surrounds should be placed if possible directly to the side of(not back of)the listening position, pointing straight across the room.

Thanks for the suggestion.
However I cannot place the side surround right beside the listening area as the opening to the dining do not have any wall for me to wall mount the speakers.
Will try out the new place for the sub if there would be any improvement.

You could opt to hang the side surrounds from the ceiling for better placement in a 7.1 system. It definitely would work better but if you already have things wired, I wouldn't start over.

Sub placement is different for every room, so it is not easy for us to tell you where to place it, you need to experiment. As John mentioned, often the corner opposite the opening into the overall room is a great place to start. I would start near that corner, and maybe move the sub a few feet along each wall to find the best position. Keep in mind, you will have to recalibrate your sub and speakers to the same dB's using the built in setup on the receiver, or with an SPL meter.

For 7.1, the side surrounds normally should be to the side of you, or slightly in front. What is behind the recliner on the left wall? Is that open, or is there a wall by the stairs going upstairs? Can you put the left surround to the left of that recliner, and move the right surround forward more? The Qs8's can be ceiling mounted as well if that helps...

The wall behind the recliner is half open with stairs going up to upstairs.

To move the surround placement, the wiring have to be re-do as all wires goes inside the plaster ceiling now, which could be hassle.

Ceiling mount the QS8? hmmm, never thought of that.

Will try different sub placement once I get the longer sub cable in.

Still considering to get a cheap monoprice cable or use my Axiom dollar to get a free Axiom sub cable.... :p

The Axiom Q's are very forgiving, so you may find they work great in place of the current location. Once you setup the receiver distances and dB levels, you may find they work great.

That room looks to be very similarly in shape to my basement HT in my old house. The deep pocket you have behind the couch is ideal for creating a great surround environment. In my old HT room the side surrounds were directly on either side of the seating area as others on here have suggested. Then my first pair of back surrounds (I had the 9.1 set-up that Denon allows for) were half way between the seating area and the back wall, and the second set of back surrounds were on the back wall in about the same position as yours are. This made for truely remarkable effects, even with the inferior Cambridge Soundworks surrounds I was using in that set-up.

Since my seating position in my current HT is only 4 feet from the back wall I have my surrounds (only in 5.1 configuration at this time, will be upgrading to 9.1 again eventually) on spread out along the back wall. Once I get my next two QS8's I will place them on either side of my seating position, plugging them into the side surround outs and turn the one's on my back wall into the rear channels. Now, the tricky part for me comes when deciding what to do with the last pair of QS8's I'll get to turn it into a 9.1 system... since there isn't much room behind my seating area to really be able to place 6 surrounds around without looking, and probably sounding very crowded, I have been toying with the idea of placing the second set of back surrounds towards the front of the room instead. I got this idea also from reading up on the Dolby story where they talked about placing rear surrounds up high in the front of the room. Something about how the brain works makes you think it's coming from behind you or something. Doesn't sound like the IDEAL location or anything, but in my case it might be the only place that would be practical.

Who knows, with the side surround information coming at me from directly beside me, and the rear surround information being split between directly behind me and three quarters of the way towards the front of the room, it might just work out nicely!

Micah, I'd like a cite to that "Dolby story" since I've never heard of that before. The only psycho-acoustic effect that's remotely similar is that a single centered back speaker can sometimes create a "reversal" where a sound intended to be imaged directly behind instead appears to come from the front.

I'm in agreement on that one John.