Advice on basement media room layout....

drylightn

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Hi all! New to the forums and looking for some advice on speaker/TV placement in the basement of our new house. See attached photos. As you can guess, this room is a little weird due to the two openings of staircase and hallways going back further in the basement. The measurement of the main room with the couch TV is about 22 feet by 13 feet, the current TV is a 75 inch flatscreen (shown in photo). Not looking to spend a ton completely renovating the basement just yet (i.e. tearing out the bookshelves on the far wall), so trying to figure out what can be done for a 7.1 setup given the space. I have the speakers: 4 surround speakers, one center channel, and one subwoofer that are nice Klipsch speakers. Still need to buy two front speakers, however, but have held off due to room constraints/questions.

Couple of general notes in no particular order:
  1. The couch and TV can be moved, and the couch is modular by square sections.
  2. Main worry is just what the minimum distance someone on the couch needs to be away from the rear speakers. I can scoot the couch forward, but I don't know whether there will be enough room (or at least enough room where the girlfriend doesn't bludgeon me to death with a satellite speaker for ruining her design aesthetic or claim she's going to go blind from being too close to the TV).
  3. Can face the TV a different direction, but not sure if it really helps anything because the couch has to go somewhere, and it will be weird if TV isn't up against a wall.
  4. Can potentially hang speakers from the drop ceiling, but not sure if it will hold the weight, or what options are there.
  5. TV will need cabinetry of some kind to fit receiver, consoles, etc inside of
  6. the window wall and the non bookshelves wall are up against foundation/brick walls, can't really mount speakers in the wall there. (The one smaller alcove is an old fireplace that was gutted out, hence the recessed shelves.)
Anyway, open to any and all suggestions at this point, even (god forbid) having to just suck it up and go soundbar/subwoofer only. I haven't had a dedicated room for this in a while, so I'm a bit out of the loop on what's possible.
thanks!
Chad
 

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Rotate tv and couch 90 degrees for the large flat wall and ensure proper speaker placement. Seating parallel to tv for most optimal audio
 
Rotate tv and couch 90 degrees for the large flat wall and ensure proper speaker placement. Seating parallel to tv for most optimal audio
Thanks, thought about that too, but will have to work hard to make the GF happy with new couch direction. :) I'll try to set it up and show her. Are there any issues sound wise with somehow mounting the surround speakers on the ceiling and pointing them down at the couch/sitting position? The ceiling is pretty low, about 7 feet and 1/4 from floor to ceiling, so the current speakers would hang down a few inches, making them about 7 feet from the floor.
 
I wouldn't do that myself as ideally they be closer to ear level. After all it's surround sound not above you sound.

It will also impact the possibility of dolby atmos if you wanted to do so as there's also speakers on the ceiling in addition to ear level surrounds.
 
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claim she's going to go blind from being too close to the TV).
If it's any help, this idea comes from tube TV days, those used to give off mild xrays, especially when driven hard, max contrast and high brightness. The glass was leaded to minimise the effect but sitting very close to a tube turned up to max for long periods wasn't a very clever idea.

Plasma had a smaller version of the same effect but LCD and OLED doesn't have anything like that going on you can sit as close is comfortable without "going blind".
 

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