Dedicated Room, In wall 5.1 Speaker Placement Issue - Advice required

[darrenxh]

Hello all

Please see pictures below. I am going to install already purchased Speakercraft in-wall speakers (and subwoofer) into the room as below. My issue is the room shape is challenging the integrity of 5.1. I cannot get a perfect placement of the back right speaker due to shape of room and need to have in-wall.

Can people help with the best answer to this issue - I am faced with not having a balanced system and maybe having to have the back speakers placed high in the room.

Other issue I should raise is the walls on the left and right are both brick whereas the top and bottom are wood/board (hence the in-wall needs to got at top or bottom ideally - or I'll have to fit some lintels into brick walls.

Speakers for reference are: MT8 ONE [Pair] from SpeakerPoint

 

[AV Online]

As this is a dedicated room is there any possibility of moving the sofa forward into the room? Only Where-ever you end up placing the surrounds it seems like the rear left may be uncomfortably close? Are in-ceilings 100% ruled out?

 

[darrenxh]

In ceiling is ruled out given roof construction gives no void. But I could go for high placed rear speakers with tweeters pointed down. This would actually work out in terms of placement.????

 

[AV Online]

Rears placed high up are a pretty common compromise and can sound just fine, the issue is that with your current sofa placement they will be firing over your head. Not sure about the speakercraft model you're looking at there but you only get about 15 degrees of tilt with many in-walls. Moving the sofa forward into the room would be beneficial if at all possible.

 

[darrenxh]

Ok good advice. The tilt is actual in any direction or angle - so I was told to basically point these at the back wall to 'bounce' the sound etc

But I can equally point the tweeters straight at the viewing position.

 

[Member 524863]

Hi there,

I wouldnt advise bouncing the sound off the back walls as this will give you more reflected sound than direct sound resulting in coloration (slight distortion) of the sound wavefront coming from the speakers.

You should aim to receive more direct sound from the speakers to the viewing/listening position rather than the sound after the room has added it's characteristics to it. In regards to your rear speaker placement could you angle them out and try to aim for a 120 degree angle from the front of the listening position with the face of the speaker pointing to the just behind the ears see link for ITU spec on 5.1

http://www.audioholics.com:8080/images/10_2_fig001.jpg

If this isn't possible you may just have to make a compromise by placing it slightly further behind the listening position. As AV online said placing speakers high will cause them to fire over your head, again resulting in less direct sound, if you can angle them down by roughly 45 degrees and move the sofa a little further forward you will notice little difference to if they were positioned at ear level when sitting at the listening position.

To help balance the system you may want to get if possible an AV reciever with some form of room correction and balancing capability. Ive had experience using the Onkyo range of recievers there TX-sr605 and 608 units feature Audyssey 2EQ™ to Correct Room Acoustic Problems and to Calibrate Speakers and I've been quite impressed with their results on a number of occasions see the link below for some info.

Home Theater Room Equalization and Audio Calibration - Audyssey | MultEQ, MultEQ XT, MultEQ XT32, 2EQ

Hope this is helpful

 

[darrenxh]

Great advice. And the onkyo r608 is the unit I am going for. I will read up on this capability