Hello,

I was hoping you could help me in configuring my setup. Here are the details that might be helpful:

My Equipment: Onkyo TX-SR706 Receiver, Home Theater PC with a Blu-ray drive, Outputting Uncompressed 8 channel LPCM over HDMI to my receiver. I also have a SVS SB12 Plus Sub that I plan to keep.

My use: 70% movies, 30% music. Within music I play lot of Flamenco, Acoustic Guitar, New Age/Fusion

My Room: I live in a 1BR urban Washington DC apartment with shared walls. My HT is installed in my living room, which is 25 feet by 12 feet.  However the living room is not fully enclosed and has lot of openings. Distance between wall that TV is stacked against and wall that my couch is stacked against is 12 feet. I sit about 8 feet away from the front of my speakers/ TV. Considering the shared walls situation, while watching moving I can't go to theater level and keep it moderately loud (85 - 90 db)

What am I looking at:
Considering 1 BR apartment, space is a premium. While theoretically I could accommodate 5T/6T, it you thought I could get 95% of the output with a smaller setup, I would prefer that.

  Front: 

  Center: Seems 5C is clear-cut

  Surround:  My surround at 180 degrees to my ear, at ear height, pointed towards me. Also they will be only 3 -4 feet away from ears. This is not an ideal set-up but only option I have. 

 
Look forward to your inputs.

I've got a VERY similar set-up to you (1Bdr, Urban, with concrete walls/floor/ceiling).  I'm running 5B's, 5C, and 4B's with a 12D.  VERY happy with the setup and how it performs.

You play more music than me, so you may want to go 4T's instead of the 5B's, but I do play some music on mine, and they sound really great.

EDIT:  Here's a link to pics if you want to see what they look like:  CLICK ME!

Good luck!

PJ,

Thanks for reply. Your setup looks quite clean. Budget for me is not really a constraint. It is space which I care little bit more about. So I could go for 4T, 5B or 6B depending on what gurus recommend. I do have to add that most of my music is either high quality MP3 (320 kbps, though still lossy) or FLAC.

Also I am having difficulty figuring out what is the best placement for surrounds considering my couch stacks up against the wall and there are no sidewalls. I am considering following two options:

a) Place the surrounds on stand. In this case they will be at ear height, 180 degrees to my ears and about 3-4 feet to the left and right of my ears

b) Place the surrounds on back wall: I can flush mount the speakers so that instead of facing towards front of the room, they face each other. In this setup they could be 3-4 feet above my ears, 180 degrees to the ears (in reality maybe 5 degrees behind ears because they are on back wall) and will be facing each other.

 Looking for inputs from everyone. Also are bipoles/dipoles a better option in this case or should I go for bookshelves.