Yet another speaker placement advice thread, upgrading from 5.1

[AdsterUK]

I'd like to add to my current 5.1 setup, but only if its going to make a tangible difference. I've no idea whether to consider Atmos, or rear speakers or something else entirely.

The diagram below is a "rough" idea of the size of the room and current layout (I think its a bit stretched vertically compared to the real room). The ceiling is about 13 foot high and has quite detailed Edwardian mouldings on it so its pretty much off limits, other than that I'm pretty open to putting speakers wherever they will work best. My amp is a Denon X2400h and the speakers & sub are a Wharfdale DX2 5.1 set.

Any advice is much appreciated.

 

[kenshingintoki]

it looks great. you can do both atmos and rears. I'd bring seating forward, bring surrounds in line with sofa, then put the rears where your current surrounds are and ceiling mount some atmos modules above seating area.

 

[DodgeTheViper]

I'd like to add to my current 5.1 setup, but only if its going to make a tangible difference. I've no idea whether to consider Atmos, or rear speakers or something else entirely.

The diagram below is a "rough" idea of the size of the room and current layout (I think its a bit stretched vertically compared to the real room). The ceiling is about 13 foot high and has quite detailed Edwardian mouldings on it so its pretty much off limits, other than that I'm pretty open to putting speakers wherever they will work best. My amp is a Denon X2400h and the speakers & sub are a Wharfdale DX2 5.1 set.

Any advice is much appreciated.
View attachment 1515856

With that current diagram I would move the Surround speakers further up the side walls so in line with the rear of the sofa. If you wanted to run more than 5.1, so 7.1, then I would move the sofa further forward if possible. If you did that, you could probably accommodate Surrounds and Surround Backs.

 

[Mr Wolf]

That's a similar size/shape to my 5.7x5.4m room in which I've been running 7.2 for many years.

You'll find that due to the fairly large width of the room that surround backs channels will really help fill in the hole behind you. That looks like a bay window area at the back in which case you might want to use speaker stands. If you could pull the sofa forward to ensure that there's at least 1m between your ears and the back speakers that would be good.

I appreciate that you were probably buying to a budget but a more general observation about your system is that you are using small, inefficient speakers with a modestly powered AVR to fill a large room. This is not a recipe for good sound. Your 84dB main speakers require 4x the amplifier power than my 90dB speakers do to generate the same SPL output (and I'm using a more powerful AVR).

You might therefore want to consider replacing your mains with better speakers and re-purposing your current ones as surround channels as they require much less power.

 

[AdsterUK]

it looks great. you can do both atmos and rears. I'd bring seating forward, bring surrounds in line with sofa, then put the rears where your current surrounds are and ceiling mount some atmos modules above seating area.

Cheers, The problem I have is that I'm limited to 7 channels by the amp and the ceiling is off limits.

With that current diagram I would move the Surround speakers further up the side walls so in line with the rear of the sofa. If you wanted to run more than 5.1, so 7.1, then I would move the sofa further forward if possible. If you did that, you could probably accommodate Surrounds and Surround Backs.

This was my initial thought too, I just wondered if I'd gain more by having some height speakers rather than rears.

That's a similar size/shape to my 5.7x5.4m room in which I've been running 7.2 for many years.

You'll find that due to the fairly large width of the room that surround backs channels will really help fill in the hole behind you. That looks like a bay window area at the back in which case you might want to use speaker stands. If you could pull the sofa forward to ensure that there's at least 1m between your ears and the back speakers that would be good.

I appreciate that you were probably buying to a budget but a more general observation about your system is that you are using small, inefficient speakers with a modestly powered AVR to fill a large room. This is not a recipe for good sound. Your 84dB main speakers require 4x the amplifier power than my 90dB speakers do to generate the same SPL output (and I'm using a more powerful AVR).

You might therefore want to consider replacing your mains with better speakers and re-purposing your current ones as surround channels as they require much less power.

You are right about the system, I bought it for my last house which had substantially smaller rooms. It'll probably be another couple of years before I'm ready to upgrade the whole setup but I hadn't considered replacing the main speakers rather than buying new surround ones. Will it make a lot of difference? I tend to listen to it at modest volumes (neighbours), so its more about extra immersion than more volume, I didnt fully follow the technical aspect of what you described.

Everyone has suggested rears as the first step, does that mean theres less to be gained by mounting speakers high on the walls instead?

Cheers guys

 

[Mr Wolf]

You are right about the system, I bought it for my last house which had substantially smaller rooms. It'll probably be another couple of years before I'm ready to upgrade the whole setup but I hadn't considered replacing the main speakers rather than buying new surround ones. Will it make a lot of difference? I tend to listen to it at modest volumes (neighbours), so its more about extra immersion than more volume, I didnt fully follow the technical aspect of what you described.

It would make a mahoosive difference to the sound quality of your system. Far more in fact than adding a pair of back channel speakers. The great thing here is that your current L/R speakers match your surrounds so would integrate perfectly as back channel speakers.

Your current main speakers have 3" mid/bass drivers and are only rated to play down to 120Hz. That's far too high for main speaker duties. IMO, in a large room you ideally want your mains to be rated down to at least 60Hz which normally requires at least 5" drivers.

Re. your mains' 84dB sensitivity rating, it means they produce 84dB of sound pressure (aka SPL) at 1 metre when fed 1 watt of power. Doubling power adds 3dB so 2W adds 3dB, 4W adds 6dB, 8W adds 12dB - you get the idea. In short, for every 3dB your speakers lack in sensitivity compared to different one, they require twice as many watts of power from your AVR to achieve the same level of sound.