Moving my HT to a new room; speaker placement?

[Jeremiah]

Hi all,

I will be moving my home theater system to a new room in the coming weeks, and since I will have more space, I am looking at a revised placement for my 7.1 system. For the fronts, I will be mounting them to speaker stands. I was going to do this for the side and rear surrounds as well, but I have been reading that the optimal placement would be 2-3 feet above the listener. That would mean that I would have to mount them on the wall instead. However, before I settle on speaker mounts, I would like to know what the consensus is here regarding surround placement. Is placing them at ear level on stands acceptable, or should I go with wall mounted?

Thanks!

[crazyBLUE]

Originally Posted by Jeremiah

Hi all,

I will be moving my home theater system to a new room in the coming weeks, and since I will have more space, I am looking at a revised placement for my 7.1 system. For the fronts, I will be mounting them to speaker stands. I was going to do this for the side and rear surrounds as well, but I have been reading that the optimal placement would be 2-3 feet above the listener. That would mean that I would have to mount them on the wall instead. However, before I settle on speaker mounts, I would like to know what the consensus is here regarding surround placement. Is placing them at ear level on stands acceptable, or should I go with wall mounted?

Thanks!

You should mount the surrounds so the tweeter is at least 2 feet above your ears. I have had mine in many configurations & that is the way it sounds best.

Just my 2 cnts.

[sonic_debauchery]

Here is a set up for you to take a look at. Should answer your question??

[Jeremiah]

Originally Posted by sonic_debauchery

Here is a set up for you to take a look at. Should answer your question??

The problem is that the maximum height that most stands that I've seen go up to is around 43 inches. That doesn't seem tall enough to elevate the surrounds above ear level.

[sonic_debauchery]

The 2-3 feet above the listening position is a guide line only. If say for instance onkyo is putting what you see in the diagram I sent you, then this is an acceptable configuration. With room correction the sound will be good.

[Jeremiah]

Here is a page out of the manual for my HTIB, the Onkyo HT-S6200:



So, I guess I will go with their recommendation for 2-3 feet above ear level.

You've been a great help so far. However, I now have a new question. The room that I will be setting up in has a rather large unavoidable doorless arch- about 70 inches wide, not counting the trim. It is the wall on which the rear surrounds will be placed. How far do you recommend the rear surrounds be placed from each other? is a distance of 80 inches or so too far? If so, then I have no choice but to put the rears on stands as well and have a speaker on a stand in the middle of the archway.