Originally posted by: roguerower
I should have put dimensions on there.
My room is about 10' x 15' and with my pc and books there isn't a whole lot of room left over for a 5.1 system so I had to make do with what i had. Therefore I don't think I'll be able to perform the crawl method. I'm not an audio guru, just a student who likes listening to his music and watching a movie while relaxing.
I've mentioned the basics. You have to choose whether or not you will use that advice, but, quite frankly, they are the basics. With out them, you will simply be doing this blind and it will be near impossible to get optimal sound quality in your setup. The compromises you made are very severe to sound quality. Without addressing them, you will not be able to expect anything quality.
The main difference between an audio enthusiast and a layman as yourself is that an audio enthusiast has taken the small step beyond the layman and has gone through the thought-experiments relating to how waves reflect and behave in the room. It doesn't take an advanced degree to have a better feel of what possibly could be good or bad. It only takes novice-level knowledge about what stereo is, what multichannel is, and how to account for how sound reflects into itself off of room boundaries to begin to grasp how proper setup makes for a decent sound environment. This level of knowledge can be obtained within a very short period of time (a couple hours) by perusing sites like
Dolby,
RealTraps, and others. I just wanted you to understand that there isn't, in fact, a huge chasm of knowledge separating the enthusiast from the layman and that you too, can understand the merits of proper setup very quickly. Now, beyond this first step, there are many steps which require successive increases in complexity, but you don't have to worry about that for your 10x15 bedroom unless you are willing to compromise all else for sound (rather than the other way around).
My advice right away is to eliminate your surround and center speakers first off so that you can properly setup the stereo sound field, that is, they form an equilaterial triangle with your favored listening position such that the two speakers and your head form the apexes of the triangle. This cannot be compromised in such a wide manner that you have, otherwise they will have holes in the front center stage regardless of whether you have a center speaker or not. You can play with the separation of the speakers to be outside of the normal equilaterial triangle so as much as they are still considered in front of you and not to your sides more than in front of you.
Next, optimize the location of your subwoofer. This isn't tough to do and it takes, literally, 10 minutes. You will know immediately where the bass sounds muddy, boomy, tight, natural. For the surround speakers, if you cannot follow the guidelines as shown in Dolby's interactive setup guide as I linked above, don't bother with them -- they will just serve to confuse the soundstage rather than enhance it. Finally, the center speaker should be directly in front of you when you are at your favored seating location.
I hope this helps. All it takes is ~ 3 hrs of your time to read up and understand the basics, learn about proper setup, and implement the changes. I started off as a student who liked listening to his music and watching a movie while relaxing and one day asked "how do i optimize how my system sounds in my small room".
Facebook
Twitter