High versus Low speaker positioning

[jsteinhauer]

Is there a general consensus whether positioning your right and left surround speakers high or low produces superior results, especially when your receiver is supposed to take that position into account? I am working on relocating our home theater equipment to the other end of our basement, which involves taking down and repairing some walls. I am nearing a point where I need to decide where to position the left surround speaker on the wall. My take is that the advantage to a low position is that the sound comes from the level of the viewer, but the disadvantage is that the speakers are in a location that they could be run into by human traffic that may be in the area.

[rpneuss]

Originally Posted by jsteinhauer

Is there a general consensus whether positioning your right and left surround speakers high or low produces superior results, especially when your receiver is supposed to take that position into account? I am working on relocating our home theater equipment to the other end of our basement, which involves taking down and repairing some walls. I am nearing a point where I need to decide where to position the left surround speaker on the wall. My take is that the advantage to a low position is that the sound comes from the level of the viewer, but the disadvantage is that the speakers are in a location that they could be run into by human traffic that may be in the area.

From everything i've read, it's best to have the speakers about the level of your ears where you will be sitting, so halfway up a normal wall would be about right probably. I, however, have kids that like to mess with stuff so I put mine up high and out of the way. It doesn't sound as good as when I had them at ear level, but it still cuts it. You have to weigh the pros and cons I guess. I feel your dilemma..

[quetzalcoatl]

Originally Posted by rpneuss

From everything i've read, it's best to have the speakers about the level of your ears where you will be sitting, so halfway up a normal wall would be about right probably. I, however, have kids that like to mess with stuff so I put mine up high and out of the way. It doesn't sound as good as when I had them at ear level, but it still cuts it. You have to weigh the pros and cons I guess. I feel your dilemma..

And one of the hardest parts about speaker placement is that most audiophiles will tell you to see all your speakers at the same height.
I agree that at or near ear level is the best.

[rpneuss]

Originally Posted by quetzalcoatl

And one of the hardest parts about speaker placement is that most audiophiles will tell you to see all your speakers at the same height.
I agree that at or near ear level is the best.

Of course there are special designed rooms that will be different because they have different acoustics, but for the most part I think we agree. I have my center channel below my tv(on a stand) and my rears above and behind. Mine is all screwed up, lol...

[jsteinhauer]

I'm going to be putting the rears on floorstands, about 10 feet behind the viewing area, so they will be at listening level. The rear wall is about thirty feet back. I'll probably go ahead and try the right and left surrounds a little lower than they currently are, just to see if I notice the difference. They are currently at ceiling height (room requires it). But in the new location, the left will have to be on a shelf and the right mounted on the wall, which is not ideal in itself. The wall is easy to fix, if it doesn't work out, but the shelf will have to be drilled for the wire, and wood is not so easy to fix as sheetrock.

[Sir Terrence]

Originally Posted by jsteinhauer

Is there a general consensus whether positioning your right and left surround speakers high or low produces superior results, especially when your receiver is supposed to take that position into account? I am working on relocating our home theater equipment to the other end of our basement, which involves taking down and repairing some walls. I am nearing a point where I need to decide where to position the left surround speaker on the wall. My take is that the advantage to a low position is that the sound comes from the level of the viewer, but the disadvantage is that the speakers are in a location that they could be run into by human traffic that may be in the area.

There are good reason to keep the surround speakers above the head. In digital setups(as opposed to Dolby surround) we program our delays in our receivers for equal time arrival for all speakers. With all signals arriving to our ears together, there is a phenom that is know as direction confusion. This HRTF(head related transfer function) effect will make the surround signal appear to come from the front rather than the rear. That is because the signals path to the ear becomes more direct with all of the speakers at the same plane. This effect is worse with rear mounted speakers, but side mounted can also cause this effect along with the stereo in the head effect.

Once you raise the speakers above the head, you break the direct path for the surrounds, decrease the direct to reflection ratio which allows the front spreakers to take precedence(they become more direct and the rear speakers become more reflection) which reduces or eleminates the HRTF or arrival confusion. Also elevating the speaker really increases its coverage pattern because it does not have to deal with reflection and obsorbtion from the bodies of the viewers.