Where should I place my speakers
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New member Username: Clintonj747Issaquah, WA US Post Number: 1 Registered: Mar-05 | I purchased a surround sound system this week and I need to figure out the best for my rear speaker locations. I have included a diagram of my living room with furniture. I am a novice in wiring but I'm not affraid to go for it. So here are my issues: 1) my sectional is right against the wall 2) my ceilings are 10 feet high 3) my room is aprox 14x14 4) I'm a novice yet I don't want wires showing Does anyone have a sugguestion? Thanks in advance for all your help.
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Bronze Member Username: DxjnortoSaint George, Utah USA Post Number: 14 Registered: Feb-05 | Clint, You have to put the wires up in the attic if you don't want them showing. You can buy a very long drill bit to do this. They are about six feet long and flexible. I think they cost about $45 or so. You drill a hole in the wall where you want the speaker and then aim for the attic. It [the drill bit] has a little hole in the end where you can drag a string or something down to pull the wire through. Another thing that is not immediately obvious is the roof pitch may prevent you from inserting the wires where you want them even if you put a hole there if you can't reach the hole you drilled. If that is going to be a problem, there are various wire covers you can buy at Home Depot that thread over the wire to attach them to the wall in a more cosmetic manner. I have the same problem as you. I have a sectional that is against the wall opposite the entertainment center. I just put my rear surrounds on the back wall about seven feet above the listening position or "sweet spot" and about twelve feet apart. It seems strange because they are very close to my left and right surrounds. I installed my left and right surrounds so the tops measure five feet from the floor facing the listening position. They say to put them higher, but I like them lower. The front and center speakers are a no-brainer. Left and right and on top of the entertainment center. No special wiring required there. Fortunately you have a stub wall on the left so you can put your left and right surrounds in the left and right corners. Here's the link to how Dolby recommends placing speakers: http://www.dolby.com/images/consumer/home_entertainment/room_d2.gif They recommend the rear surrounds a few feet behind the listening position, but since there is no "behind" my solution was to mount them higher. They are about seven feet from the listening position. I read somewhere that for sounds coming from the rear the brain is not picky about the height. Another suggestion someone gave me is to mount the rear surrounds on the floor behind the couch facing up, but this is not practical for me because they would interfere with the floor length drapes behind my sectional. My room is 14'x18', but my entertainment center is mounted on the 18' wall. My sectional can only go in one position, so that's the best I could do. Do you know of any inexpensive DVD players that decode Dolby 7.1? My old DVD changer only decodes 5.1 |
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New member Username: Clintonj747Issaquah, WA US Post Number: 2 Registered: Mar-05 | Jerry, I just picked up the Samsung DVD-HD850 from Best Buy for $79.99. Picture is great and it has the optical out which should do the trick for you. Thanks for the great feedback, much appreciated! |
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Bronze Member Username: DxjnortoSaint George, Utah USA Post Number: 16 Registered: Feb-05 | Thanks Clint, That's a good buy on your DVD-HD850. My Panasonic DVD changer is showing its age. For crying out loud it's three years old! That's like fifty in DVD years. I was figuring out this whole DTS-ES and Dolby EX thing last night. I could get 3.3.1 out of it on Return of the King, but when I tried it with The Two Towers, the picture got jerky. I tried it several times with the same result. I can't think what the difference would be, unless there was some improvement in the disk encoding technology from one year to the next. Maybe someone will see this and know the answer. |
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