How best to position my set up, with many constraints

[Tom Tom]

Hey,

So I have included 4 pictures, a crude layout of how the room is now, and 2 pics from when the house was for sale before we moved in and one of my set up in the previous house (TV mounted on orange walls)

In my bad layout the numbers are
1 - Speakers
2 - TV and Hifi Kit on a stand (at the moment)
3 - Fire place
4 - Sofa
5 - DVD/Bluray shelves

I have just bought a Sub woofer and am getting a "centre" speaker (it's basically the same speaker that I have on the wall as my dad was getting rid of his.

I am not sure how best to proceed, but I am thinking as I have a 1 year old who is now loving the sound of the Xbox turning on and off.

The TV on the wall with the bracket I had in the old house. It was a swing arm so can fold back if needed but mostly sits on an angle to allow viewing from any position in the room.

I want to get shelves to put the Hifi kit behind the TV and out of the way of little hands.
(Kit includes Xbox 360, PS3, Onkyo Amp, Raspberry Pi, Freesat and Sky boxes and an unused Wii)

The reason it is all in that corner is that is where all the TV leads and Sat leads come in.

You should see where the window is in the pictures (that I forgot on my bad diagram)

Granted now-a-days I will not be able to set this up for optimal listening and frankly as I have not been able to upgrade my kit in years while it was good in the 90's it is very out of date now.

I think I want to ask where best to put the Sub and the centre speaker, should I try to mount the centre on a speaker stand below/behind the TV?

Thanks
Tom

 

[dante01]

You say that you've purchased a centre speaker, but do you actually have an AV receiver with the ability to power it separately? A centre speaker ordinarily requires you to use a multichannel AV receiver with its own independant centre speaker connections and amplification. You also mention a sub and again this would suggest you've an AV receiver? Are you wanting a surround sound setup?

You really need to locate the TV centrally along a wall in order to correctly locate speakers around and in association with it. It would be a pointless exercise otherwise because the audio from the speakers wouldn't correctly tie in with the action on the screen if you place the TV in a corner and the speakers off axis to it.

 

[Tom Tom]

I have the Onkyo 505 7.1 surround amp (was a 30th Birthday present from my sister)

 

[twoeyedbob]

yea you've really got to move your speakers...
no point trying to create a soundstage with your tv a way off to one side.
Pretty common question on here when tv's are in a corner..

 

[dante01]

Would you be willing to locate the TV central to the wall with the window in it? This is to my mind the only location that will allow you to approximate the location of speakers needed for surround sound and stereo imaging in relation to a conventional left and right stereo speaker configuration. The TV would need to be located on a bench or you'd need to use a cantilever stand.

 

[Tom Tom]

Thanks for the advice.

It is not the brightest room and with only the one window, blocking it with the TV is a bit of a no go too. Also the other problem is the 1 year old, trying to put things out of her reach!

I know it's not a perfect room, but I also don't get the option to do too much. Because of the way the room lies there is a door on the wall between the speaker and the sofa so I can't move the sofa and have it set as a wide room.

Thanks anyway.

 

[Ghostrider]

I had a very similar problem (house layout could be virtually identical) and resolved it by taking drastic action.

I ended up blocking in the doorway between the living and dining rooms and putting the TV on the new wall opposite the window -

It's not as extreme as it sounds as the new wall can be taken down by removing 7 screws and there is access to the dining room via the kitchen.

Originally we had the sofa where the Radio is now (2nd image) and the TV in the opposite corner (near the twiggy looking things. We were effectively living in 1/2 the room.

Making the changes that we did opened up the full room and made it much more usable when we have company with the added benefit of allowing me to get the TV out of the corner and onto the wall and also to achieve a virtually ideal 5.1 audio setup.