How to best mount my surround speakers

[Calania]

Hello, I recently got a pair of good KEF speakers and am trying to find the optimal place to place the surround speakers in my room. The surround speakers are currently mounted on the back wall as shown in the following picture



However I feel that they are maybe too far away from me so I have been thinking if it would be better to wall mount them them like this (measured from the middle of the sofa)



However even though the angle is better I am a bit worried since the right soround will be almost 3 meters away from me.

I know that non of theses setups are really optimal and that it would property be better place them on stands but I would like to avoid that if possible.

What do you guys think? Is one of theses setups better than the other?

 

[Calania]

Don't know if it's only for me but it seems to be a problem with the pictures not loading. Here are a direct link

 

[gibbsy]

Welcome to the Forum.

I can see your drawings. Not too far off the positions of my KEF speakers, although not as far as the three metre one. Your AV amp's, which you don't mention, room calibration will adjust the levels needed for the audio to be balanced and calibrated at 75dB at your first measuring point. That first point is the most important so it has to be in the right place and height.

Your amp may have to work a little harder but the surrounds are not firing all the time in a 5.1. sound track. Hopefully you have a sub that will take any frequencies below 80hz away from the amp thus relieving some of the power needed.

You need to give more information about your set up including the actual KEF speakers and what AV amp will be driving them. For your information I have the old KEF R Series all round and driving them with, currently, a Denon AVC X6500.

 

[gpke]

Personally I don't like having a speaker as close as 1.3m. Even if the AVR does balance it properly, my attention seems drawn to it too often. I like speakers to be as far away as possible really. Ideally surrounds would be the same distance as your mains, but not really possible in smaller rooms.

So I would probably prefer the first setup where they are more like rear surrounds than true surrounds. You should probably tell your AVR they are rear surrounds rather than surrounds.

But, quite honestly, you should just try it. Rig up some piles of boxes or whatever you have to do, re-calibrate your AVR and see if you like it.