Sorry for the mess in our living room and that I haven't yet learned how to upload images onto the forum.

Sound is excellent with two minor exceptions: 1) right M80 seems slightly crippled by rear projection being muffled by ventilation duct on bottom wall, to correct this I would need to slide everything to the left including placement of center speaker, and 2) left qs8 (pic 5) is about 2 ft too high because of internal 2X4 in wall at the level of right qs8 (pic 3) that blocks the internal wire from descending.

I am fussy about sound so eventually I would like to lower the left surround by whatever means (e.g., white speaker wire on top of drywall if necessary) and slide display to the left (necessitating remounting the center speaker) . . .

Can't figure out how to upload images so here are links:

Fronts

Sub

Right Surround

Rear Surrounds

Left Surround

Sat, those are perfect sizes for the gallery. Click your links, right click on the picture, choose save target as, then go to your gallery post and do the upload jimjam with your saved photos. Also, verra nice! I'm insanely jealous of your sub, your room, and your TV.

Hey thanks, when I right click within this page it saves the image correctly (approx 40 kb), for some reason within picasa itself right click saves only the thumbnail (4kb), even though it's the same image. Could it be firefox? Oh well, the gremlins live on, and I'm sure will remain when I am long gone . . .

BTW don't be fooled, I'm still a ways away from making my system work (and I mean that quite literally, work = just function properly, but hey, that appears to be my reality, this is my first sub, first surround sound system, and first HD DVR with external HD; although I was hoping to skip the painful learning curve I guess that was just an old guy fantasy), and while I wouldn't necessarily count myself as you do in the "I hate tweaking" club (although yes, I agree these days there is no time for such pursuits), I absolutely belong to the "I hate troubleshooting" club, which truth be told, is often the same thing, and where I remain stuck at the moment, although I am hoping this purgatory will not persist for more than a few more weeks or heaven forbid months, aaaaaahhhhh!

Nice looking set-up,Sat.

For those of us too lazy to click on SK's links

Nice Fire!

I see that SatKartr likes to run his sub hot!

How can you tell? The knob is is not in the pi.... Oh. I see what you did there.

Yeah, it gave me a good, hearthy chuckle.

Is that "The Changeling" you are watching there? What a great movie. Antother masterpice from Eastwood.

paul

I get kind of twitchy looking at that pic. But he does have a fire extinguisher handy.

Nice pics SK! Sorry I was a little slow on the uptake on my comments on your separate thread, didn't realize you'd tried again here.

Looking good!

Jason

Yeah you're right but don't worry, after posting I looked at the pic myself and went, hey that looks pretty close, I felt the 800 which was slightly warm (fire had just been lit) so I moved it over a bit.

The good news is that in Texas the occasion to light fires is almost over so I will be able to place the sub wherever I want without having to focus on keeping the natural world separate from the electronic world.

Wow your speakers are beautiful--what's that finish?!!

Nice setup.

Seriously nice setup!

I think Onn has the real wood Rosewood high gloss finish. *ultra drool*

Jason is correct on the finish HG Rosewood and no drooling

Licking?

No drooling, licking, saliva, front and rear rubbing.
I'm afraid to touch them because I'll leave leave prints on them and don't get me started on the dust! If they didn't sound sooooo gooooood I would have to try to get rid of them.

A trick I used in an old room, which might save the substantial work you are talking about, is to put a panel/screen behind the speaker (or all the way across the wall, or behind both speakers, whatever works for you). You can pick your price really, simple to exotic to match the room. Allows the air return to work fine, but gives you a point of reflection that you can control and deaden as you like.

Just as an example: screens or oriental
I built my own using closet doors from home depot, and you can make whatever size and design you like. Just an idea before you fire up the wrecking ball.

For your left QS8 not sounding right, have you played with the channels gain?

Thanks for the idea, I'll look into that, that was one of the main reasons I posted the pics, to see if anyone had any ideas to avoid having to hire some folks to re-install one or two speakers to make a slight, subtle yet to my ears perhaps substantial, improvement.

Yes I have played with the channels gain quite a bit but not with enough intensity to fix the problem, since then in fact I ran the auto-setup on the 663 and with the auto gain level/distance tweaks everything now sounds much improved, the left qs8 sounds basically fine, not sure if my inner fuss-budget will beckon again. I am truly in slo-mo with regard to calibration of the system due to professional busy-ness, and not in a good way, as far as I'm concerned. Before the yamaha auto setup the left qs8 definitely sounded too "high" (the only speaker you could tell that was way up there above your ears, but admittedly it was way above the dolby specs, maybe 10-11 feet in comparison to 9 feet on the right, yet that made all the difference, especially with being flush up against the wall whereas the right qs8 was out there in space, so the precise locale of the left qs8 was more apparent). Continue to have serious problems with my rig (long story that I haven't begun to understand) so I ordered a 3808 to see if I can eliminate the bugaboos, at least insofar as likely suspects are concerned, it should come next week or earlier the week thereafter, I suspect with Audyssey I may be in good shape and would have to get seriously bitten by the upgradeitis bug in order to feel the need to shift the qs8s physically, at which point so-be-it, it's always been my overall karma to pursue sonic perfection (e.g., hey I used to practice guitar 10 hours a day for years, whenever I had the time, ouch it hurts to be me, but the audio might be worth it, I think it is).

Hey, I really hope the 3808 works out. At least you have a number of members on here who can help with any questions you may have. That has to count for something.

Absolutely, that's what I'm counting on, a solid reference point to rule out the issues and distinguish between my ongoing struggles and garden variety HT problems.

I have to believe that when I figure out or accidentally kill the weak link these problems will go away, because I haven't heard anything similar (other than the DTS bomb which is another codec), which would match the defects.

I feel you now, what beautiful Masters you have! Your WAF must be in the stratosphere, my sincere condolences.