5.1 Surround Speaker Placement

[D4L3K]

I'd like to know what sounds best as searching for proper placement guides online has many different results. Speakers turned towards central seating, speakers facing forward instead. Subwoofer to left or right of TV, or in the corner or behind the sofa. Rear speakers behind sofa or to the left and right of it. It's confusing.
Also having speaker delay set to 10 or 20ms?

I recently bought all 5 of the Klipsch RF 42 series surround speakers. It's a definite improvement though I still feel I'm not getting truly desired results. I'm thinking the layout. Mines your average couch facing TV, square room. I have the front L & R speakers facing forward on each side of the TV stand, which is just a tad wider than the HDTV itself.
The sub I have in the right corner. The center speaker facing up towards me under the TV (top shelf of stand)
The rear speakers are behind couch close to each end.

What's best?

Also I've noticed that sound varies from each TV channel. That's frustrating too.
What channels work best?
I calibrated my HDTV using the Disney WOW bluray. But the perfect settings for the bluray player does not match the standard tv channels. I lose the perfect image even though settings are the same.

I sit for hours trying to adjust the sound and image.
I have Panasonic equipment. 3D HDTV and player. The Klipsch speakers are plugged into the Panasonic bluray player.

Everyone just give me simple, ear pleasing answers.

[bobbydrugar]

Wish I didn't have to be the one to break it to ya, but there is no simple ear pleasing answer to your question. Truth be told there is probably just as much if not more calibration that goes into reproducing Sound then Video. For instance Different Receivers, Amps, (Some would say cables/Crossconnects), Rooms, Speakers, Sources (Blu-ray players/TV stations, CD Players etc) All play a role in the Audio Reproduction. This is why so many people rave about Room Correction Utilities like YPAO and MCAAC, and Audessy. They help simplify the process by calculating some of the settings for you.

However the short answer to this is since you have the disney WOW disk it has Audio Calibration Tools on the Disk but you may need an SPL meter (Sound Preasure Meter) for best results with that disk. This can help you level match speakers, if you use the test tones for frequency response you can probably get the EQ of the Frequencies close etc.

Shorter answer is experiment with speaker positions, settings, Sub placement etc until you get what sounds good to you. You will want to select Source material you are familiar with (A Blu-ray Movie/ 5.1 Music disk or heck even a DVD with good 5.1 track) when doing your testing.

As for different ch sounding different well there is not much you can do about that but just fixing the basic Sonic Qualities of your system should help even that out a little bit.

Hope that helps
T

[D4L3K]

Thanks yeah I've tried with different results.
Should the front two speakers be turned towards the center of the couch? Or just face forward, and should they be close to the TV, or a distance away?

Pandora Radio's epic movie soundtrack channel sounds great. As does the Nature Sounds channel.

I'll check into the SPL.

[bobbydrugar]

I would start with your front speakers being about 2 to 3 times as far apart as the screen is wide. or about as far apart as the distance from the speakers to your listening position on the couch if possible. I would start with the speakers facing straight forward and then slowly begin angeling them in little by little to find the sweet spot.

T

[ivanpino]

Try to place speakers as semetricle as possible. That helps out with consistancy.