4x 5B
1x 5C
1x 10D

Hi, my new speakers haven't arrived, but I'm already thinking of where to place them.  Maybe the forumfolk here would like to help lend their wisdom?  I'm mostly unsure about how to place the rears.  But I could be all wrong about the other bits too, so let me know what you think...

So, I think the front's aren't too difficult, place the 5C center where the old one is now, mount a 5B on the right wall, put another 5B in the armoir shelf, trying to keep them more or less in the same line as each other so sounds pan nicely across all 3.   I'm thinking I want to space the 5B's apart for a good stereo effect.  When I place them on the mantle everything seems monophonic.

The back of the room is difficult for placing the 5B rear channels.   As you can see I have some space constraints due to some bookshelves and an arcade cabinet that we have no other place for and can't get rid of.

The 10D subwoofer I was thinking could go to the left of the fireplace, to keep the wiring short and easy and so the bass is out in the open to avoid being muffled...   It could also go on top the armoir (rattle hazard??), or between the two green couches in the corner with the bookcases...  My wife is also keen on removing the fireplace (a good location for the sub? hahaha, ok let's not dwell on that info we may not be doing that...)

The couch along the rear wall can pull out 3-4 feet away from the wall to provide distance between the 5B rears and the listener...

Ideas? 

• My most pressing question is --> how to place the rears?  
  
• Secondarily, see anything else worth commenting on?
  

Room is 15 wide x 17 deep.   The left side of the room (wall with the arcade) has a wide sliding glass door.

 thanks...

Front of room:

(during listening, the right armoir door would be closed... while the left would be open to allow access to the stereo equipment and for the left/front 5B)

 Back of room (air conditioner is the BACK):

 I'll mainly use these for movies.  But music should sound good too...

Wow, that is a tough room.  the backs are easy, place them on the sidewalls a little behind the couch and a little above your seated ears.  Now for the sub.  The 10D is pretty heavy and although on top of the cabinet is an interesting idea, it may be a bit dangerous.  From playing around with mine I feel the best place for a sub when used with small fronts, like yours and my 5Bs, is in the same plane as the fronts.  In your case that is going to be difficult.  One more observation, I have found the 5B is pretty sensitive to boundry effects, placing one in the cabinet may give you some difficulty depending on how much room there is around it.  Without trying to dis your current speaks, regardless of where you end up placing things you will be pleased!

Cheers

>> the backs are easy, place them on the sidewalls a little behind the couch and a little above your seated ears.

maybe I'm not understanding you, but on the rear, there's no room on the side walls since

a.) there's an arcade cab to the left (putting the left rear on the side wall in front of the arcade cab would interfere with the use of the arcade... )  and
b.) there's a bookcase to the right (though there is a place between the book cases where it might fit, but wouldn't the sound reflect off the bookcase in a bad way?)

or...  maybe you mean I should attach the 5B rears to 1.) the side of the arcade and 2.) the side of the bookshelf?  just the same, I could attach to the back wall, same difference. :)

>> the best place for a sub ... is in the same plane as the fronts.
>> In your case that is going to be difficult. 

For the sub to be "in the plane" with the front 3 speakers, wouldn't that be easy?, just put the sub next to the armoir on the floor to the left of the fireplace (that way the 4 front speakers 5B,5C,5B,10D lie on a "plane" whose normal vector is pointing out at us).

>> on top of the cabinet is an interesting idea, it may be a bit dangerous. 

What kind of danger do you see placing the sub on top of the armoir?   I figured if it rattled then I'd just move it down, and if not, then it may be good.   but I suppose the vibration could hurt the Tivo or DVD player which have moving parts...  I'm not keen on having it up there, but it would be convenient (and it'd be "in the plane" so that's nice)...

>> Without trying to dis your current speaks, 

don't worry, my cambridge soundworks speakers are pretty poor soundwise.  definitely a downgrade from the large advents i used to own (but better wife factor).  hah. :) 

How about turning the arcade 90 degrees so the speaker would not be in the playing area.  It porbably wold not be a problem to have the side speakers mounted up high enough so they would be above head height, just have them agled down to the listening area.  Does the bookcase come forward beyond seating position on the sofa?  It is hard to see in the picture, if it does that is a problem with trying to mount on the side.  You may have to put them in the back where you originally indicated.  I am no expert on placement as I don't have my surrounds or center yet, just the fronts and sub, just going by what the manuals say. 

As far as the sub, I just have the 8D and it is pretty heavy so the 10 will be more so.  If the armoir is sturdy and you don't live in an earthquake prone area on top would porbably work.  In fact i never thought of doing somthing like that but it does sound intresting.  As far a vibrations goes.  The sub it self is very free of mecanical vibration because of the opposing drivers so only acoustic induced vibration would probably be a concern.  Placing it between the fireplace and the armoir might work as long as it has enough clearance on the armoir side and of course you don't use the fireplace!

Looks like some curcuitry on that white board?

Cheers

>> Looks like some circuitry on that white board?

yes. :)  I was working out a problem with a power supply in a Commodore 64 SID chip based synthesizer i was building.  turns out it was a bad power brick... oops.

>> How about turning the arcade 90 degrees

That's  an interesting idea. i'll investigate it.  though i suspect it'll place the speaker in front of the listening position.
 

>> as long as it has enough clearance on the armoir side and of course you don't use the fireplace!

the clearance may be an issue.  with dual woofers it'll be difficult for sure. :(
we're actually talking about ripping out the fireplace.   maybe put the sub in there!    but again, with duel woofers that might not be good to have one pointed outside the room...   wish the woofers were on two adjacent corners instead of opposite. :)
 

>> If the armoir is sturdy and you don't live in an earthquake prone area on top would porbably work.

it's a tank, very sturdy. and no earthquakes here.

and... considering the dual woofers, the top of the armoir would be perfect to give them the space they need on either side.  hmm. 
this is sounding like a plan.
the only showstopper would be 1.) armoir rattle, or 2.) if somehow the bass was distorted up there, muffled or overemphasized...

This brings up a good question, how should the 10D be oriented?   subs to left/right direction, or subs to back/front direction? 

subatomic:

 

>> Looks like some circuitry on that white board?

yes. :)  I was working out a problem with a power supply in a Commodore 64 SID chip based synthesizer i was building.  turns out it was a bad power brick... oops.

 

>> How about turning the arcade 90 degrees

That's  an interesting idea. i'll investigate it.  though i suspect it'll place the speaker in front of the listening position.
 

>> as long as it has enough clearance on the armoir side and of course you don't use the fireplace!

the clearance may be an issue.  with dual woofers it'll be difficult for sure. :(
we're actually talking about ripping out the fireplace.   maybe put the sub in there!    but again, with duel woofers that might not be good to have one pointed outside the room...   wish the woofers were on two adjacent corners instead of opposite. :)
 

>> If the armoir is sturdy and you don't live in an earthquake prone area on top would porbably work.

it's a tank, very sturdy. and no earthquakes here.

and... considering the dual woofers, the top of the armoir would be perfect to give them the space they need on either side.  hmm. 
this is sounding like a plan.
the only showstopper would be 1.) armoir rattle, or 2.) if somehow the bass was distorted up there, muffled or overemphasized...

This brings up a good question, how should the 10D be oriented?   subs to left/right direction, or subs to back/front direction? 

The drivers should go left and right so the remote will work, line of sight to the ir window, and or the back panel does not show in the room.

Cheers

Just to add a bit...

You could also mount your surrounds on that rear wall. I'm assuming that the couch in the middle of your bottom picture is your main listening area, so you could mount your surrounds keeping that positioning in mind.  I would lean towards having them between the big cabinet thing and your arcade game. Usually you might toe then in a bit towards that couch, but if you want to keep the lazy boy chair on the left in the picture, it may be a better idea to have the speakers pointed straight. This seems like it would give you pretty good dispersion in most of those seated areas.

 As for your sub, it may very well sound ok on top of that cabinet. It would "excite" your room a bit differently, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it will sound bad. I think it would probably give you a very similar response to just having your sub in the corner on the ground. Honestly I would try all of your available positions. Listen for the clarity and definition of the bass, and how deep it plays. Listen for good coverage in your main listening position. Since your placement options are limited, I bet that one of those options will sound better then the others, and that's where I'd stick the 10D.

Hope this helped a bit in adding to what Russ had to say. Lot's of good ideas there too...
 

Oops...

If it wasn't already painfully obvious, the above was me ^^^^^^^^

I made a new account to do some web testing and forgot which account I was signed in under... 

amadeus916@yahoo.com:

Just to add a bit...

You could also mount your surrounds on that rear wall. I'm assuming that the couch in the middle of your bottom picture is your main listening area, so you could mount your surrounds keeping that positioning in mind.  I would lean towards having them between the big cabinet thing and your arcade game. Usually you might toe then in a bit towards that couch, but if you want to keep the lazy boy chair on the left in the picture, it may be a better idea to have the speakers pointed straight. This seems like it would give you pretty good dispersion in most of those seated areas.

 As for your sub, it may very well sound ok on top of that cabinet. It would "excite" your room a bit differently, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it will sound bad. I think it would probably give you a very similar response to just having your sub in the corner on the ground. Honestly I would try all of your available positions. Listen for the clarity and definition of the bass, and how deep it plays. Listen for good coverage in your main listening position. Since your placement options are limited, I bet that one of those options will sound better then the others, and that's where I'd stick the 10D.

Hope this helped a bit in adding to what Russ had to say. Lot's of good ideas there too...
 

amadeus916:

Oops...

If it wasn't already painfully obvious, the above was me ^^^^^^^^

I made a new account to do some web testing and forgot which account I was signed in under...

 

All of the above was indeed me. Man I have too many accounts. I'm feeling a bit schizo this morning... 

haha.  thanks!

yeah, so in the "rear" picture, the left seat (hard to see) is a 2 seat loveseat.  the center seat behind the coffee table is the 3 person couch (the money seat) and is oriented towards the TV screen, best seat in the house..., and the red 1 person seat on the right side...   was thinking the rears need to go behind the center couch.

thanks for the advice!  i will try it all when these come in...    

what techniques do you guys use to position speakers when all you have are wall mounts?   i.e. maybe use some temporary floor mounts?  I have some old stands I'm not using... 

in the "Rear" picture above.

how high up on the wood-paneled wall would you put the rear speakers?

If on the ceiling I can put them wider out so they're not in our ears when sitting on the couch... 

I guess I'm worried about one speaker or the other sounding too loud being closer to one person's head than the other...  
... not an issue when sitting in the center of the couch, but for sure an issue when 2-3 people are on the couch...  
i'm hoping that by placing them higher they will sound more evenly distributed to our ears...
And that by placing them wider, the stereo field would be more apparent.

w00t my speakers arrived (minus the sub, that's backordered).

cant wait to get home to play with all this... 

ok, i have it all set up, and have been listening for a couple weeks now.   the sub made a huge difference.  the 5B's didn't have much bass (crossover set at 80db in the yamaha rxv1700 with the EQ flat)...   with the 10D music and movies sound pretty solid now.

one thing I noticed is that the 5B's have a port on the back.  and above, you see in my picture that my right-front 5B speaker has no wall behind it since it's mounted in the beginning of a hallway essentially.

should I put a surface behind the 5B to allow the ported sound to reflect into the room?  or is it ok for the bass to become lost down the hallway?     was thinking maybe i could mount a black piece of plywood there or something...

The left-front 5B in the armoir has a lot of bass in comparison...

by the way, I ended up with the sub on top the armoir.  the ceiling was a bit saggy, and I had to reinforce it with some plywood across the top, so now it's solid.   sounds pretty good.  i'm able to take the system pretty loudly (uncomfortable loud) and it still sounds great! 

Glad you are enjoying your speakers thus far!

As for your plywood suggestion, it is very hard to tell. Next to your speakers, your placement in your room/interaction with your room is going to be the next largest factor in how your speakers sound. I really think that the differences are so vast due to the extreme differences in placement that you have in your system...i.e one speaker is in an enclosed cabinet while the other is in a wide open space. I would think that the plywood might be an eyesore more then anything else, but hey, it's not my room and it is hard for me to pictrue such.

Again glad you are enjoying your setup. If you need any help fine tuning your system just give us a shout. Happy to help...

p.s - Hey I posted under the right account this time!!!! Woot!