Based on placement. I am trying to decide on speakers for my family room. It is primarily a TV room (HT) but does play some music. My concerns are room characteristics and how speakers will be affected.
The room is 13'.5 x 17'x 8'.5 with a 10' opening to the kitchen along one of the 17' walls. Lets see if I can draw this.
------------------|
|______________|
| x -------- x |__________________|_____________________________|
|_____________________________|
|_____________________________|
|X___________________________X|
__________________________17.5|
______________________________|
______________________________|
______________________________|
_____X_______13.5________X____|

The x's represent speaker placement within the room and the dotted line between the uppermost X's is a 61" dlp. The tv will be on a stand (built in) approximately 20" high. The placement of furniture means I need to put the speakers on the shelf next to the tv. I believe there is room for M80's but was wondering if they were the best choice, given the proximity of the tv given the corners and room layout.
If it matters I am considering w22 for the rears.

Edited...
I will try to clarify if this post receives responses.

Like you said, hard to visualize, better drawing please. Why W22s? QS8's or 4's are the speaker of choice for surrounds in these parts. M80s work in pretty much any enviroment, just depends on whether you like a more forward sounding speaker or not.

Any better? Its a tight fit for the speakers and tv in the alcove. I would probably use qs8's on the sides but on the back wall I am concerned that my wife would collide with the qs's as she is visually impaired.

Shoot, I can't even edit it further as time has expired...seems silly.

How about a pic, you can get free hosting elsewhere, photobucket, flicker, etc. and then upload them to here with [img] host site url[/img] tagging

Thanks, I'll take pics tomorrow and learn how to host them

The picture is pretty garbled on my screen as well. Is the TV in the corner flat against a 17' wall ? If so, I have to think that angling the TV out into the room would make a huge difference.

Is the 10' opening in the opposite 17' wall from the TV ?

What kind of furniture are you trying to fit into the area ?

Test

[img]http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff27/Warrant_photos/familyroom.jpg?t=1192753955[/img]

OK what am I doing wrong?

I think your picture might be too large to show up? The syntax looks right.

how's this working?

picture

The link works but it won't load up to the boards as an image, that's why I thought the file might be too large.

Excellent, at least people caqn click on the link. The alcove is directly in front of you and is divided in two, on the right side is the equipment rack and occupies one quarter of the space, ~2'. The remainder ~68" will house a Sammy hlt6198 and a pair of speakers.
On the left side is a large opening into the kitchen and on the right is a 5' sliding glass door. The opening into the kitchen is ~8x10 and the kitchen is 14x20.

If you eliminate everything between the ".jpg" and the "[/img]" tag, you can add the photo directly to your post. But, please resize the photo before doing so, as it is a bit large.

Great advice Jack!

Am I the only person that gets annoyed with pics added in a thread that are so large you have to use the left/right scroll feature to read the replies, typically that alone will deter me from reading further into the thread.

I can't help it, I'm getting old.

Nope! Me too!


Yep! I'm already there.

Likewise.

And for all you guys who say "use a higher resolution," I'm using 3 1280x1024 monitors at work, and a 1920x1200 monitor on my laptop. That doesn't mean I want to maximize my browser window across all displays or the whole display.

Why don't you use a higher resolution?

Hi Warrant,

It's not generally a good idea to put any floorstanding speakers into alcoves because the nearby intersecting wall surfaces cause too much boundary reinforcement, which will tonally color the upper and lower bass. Bookshelf speakers are less susceptible to this because they just don't have extended bass response.

If you put the latter on shelves, leave them on an open shelf. Don't "bury" them in surrounding shelves for the aforementioned reasons.

Regards,

Alan

Hi Alan,
Thanks for the reply, ok m80's are out...now what? I ahve read that the speakers should not be placed too far forward of the screen when in a HT application. If I were to draw an imaginary line at the front of the alcove and and placed the speakers in the room where would they be placed intially, given that the tv will remain in the alcove with the screen edge parallel to the imaginary line? I understand it takes tuning to get optimal sonics given furniture placement etc.
Next question, given the short wall prior to the opening into the kitchen (~7'), am I better off keeping the side/surrounds against the wall and closer to the front of the room or place them equidistant and have back to the open room?

More to follow...

So I take it you are now looking at the bookshelves? The M22 is the more detailed of the bookshelves, more along the same line as the M80.

Surrounds like the QS8 can be put virtually anywhere you can squeeze them in and still have great surround envelopment. But I would go with equidistant and backs to open room, as I prefer to have my affects coming from the rear/side opposed to front/side and I beleive THX specs recommend closer to rear or rear than in front of you.

Thanks for the response. So with 5.1 its front and rear, 7.1 fills in the sides, as far to the rear as feasable?