Room Layout - Advice

Hi

My room layout is below, and when I had the floor put in I wasn't thinking about home cinema. I've wired for sterero (under the boards) either side of the firelplace, and it can't be moved.

My TV has to go in the corner, but now if I want to set up a home cinema setup my options appear spannered (according to my mates!). I can't move it into the bay below the TV in the diagram as it's a nice window

Is my potential setup (with a Denon DHT 500 probably...) a waste of time & money?

And Question 2...if it would be crazy to go 5.1 would a Yamaha YSP be a runner, bearing in mind the sound beams would hit the fireplace as it sticks out 40cm?

[mattym]

i would agree with your mates, unless you can mount a flat screen on the fireplace

you are not getting the full stereo effect the way the layout is at the moment, you need the speakers to be either side of the screen and the front and behind you at the rear, you will get the best from it that way

[spooney]

Your layout is against any rules (no offence).
The fronts must be left and right the center. Just imagine a sound effect moving from left to right. In your setup it would start at the left, jump over to the center and then back to the right speaker or just a scene where people talk to each other and the atmosperic sound does not fit at all because it will be silent at the right and all the surrounding sound comes from the left.

You may consider a sound processing system like Yamaha or Bose or the like.
If you have not had a true 5.1 system in your room they will sound great.

Thanks for the feedback - would the follwoing be any better? It's a bit spannered - the quality of the cable for the left rear is much higher than that for the right rear but thats the only physical difference asides from speaker position.

Would this be an OK 5.1 setup? Bearing in mind couches can be moved for viewing.



thanks

[spooney]

Looks much better but as you mentioned you must move the couch between the two rears.
Hopefully your recevier will allow enough fine tuning (e.g. setting the value for the distance of the rears individually)

If the sub will work back there is difficult to tell. Usually a sub will be in the area of the fronts (between left/right and center to start with) but usually this depends on the room (as usual ).
This is something you have to test in any case. Most likely you have to change phase to 180°, if the bass sounds a bit weak compared to the default setting.

One note: Maybe the fact your room is not the standard rectangle can give you an advantage in terms of reflections.

I wish you good luck and maybe send us a note how it went