Best possible speaker arrangement for this room?

[Shawn]

I want to put surround sound in the living room but the way we have things arranged is kind of weird. Basically the sofa is up against the wall on the right side of the room and the tv is in the left corner.

Here are some pics
Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3
Diagram


I don't want to rearrange things because the way we have it set up now makes the most efficient use of space, but it's not a good arrangement for surround sound.

I am probably going to get these cheap satellite speakers and mount them to the ceiling. Sound quality isn't that important, as long as it sounds better than those crappy TV speakers and there is some feeling of surround sound. Here are some ideas I was thinking about:

One
Two
Three
Four

Any input would be appreciated.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

wow, that's a tough one. it looks like it's good to live in, but the room is the opposite of what one would want for HT, or just tv and music. are you sure you're not moving the furniture?

 

[boomerang]

You absolutely want the center channel in the same location as the TV. Your dialog will come from there and when people's voices are coming from a different location, it will be very weird.

Pick one of your layouts with the center channel at the TV and that will be the best you can do.

 

[Tiamat]

please dont take this the wrong way, but as long as you watch TV from your coffee table, setup #4 is optimal, the rest of them never would work well in any situation.

The couch being against the wall is very limiting to acoustics (bass tends to accumulate at room boundaries such as walls and have the tendency to be muddy at those locations), and you have to watch TV with your neck turned the whole time (with the rear wall reflections of the mid and higher frequencies always nailing your right ear leading to an annoying effect).

The best you can do is scrap the surround sound (i understand this is of high priority to you) and go with 3.1 setup with center anchoring the dialog to the screen and the front L/R to the sides of the TV; the bass being redirected to a subwoofer.

Unfortunately, in a slender rectangular room, corner setups just do not work out for surround sound.

If you were to pull out your couch and use it to divide the room up (so that its back is the dining room set) your acoustics would be much more favorable (the couch position would be close to the 62% of the long dimension allowing for the least build up of bass modes) and this would allow for an opportunity to wall mount the surround speakers to the sides of the couch (also pretty optimal for 5.1 surround. With the TV centered on the short wall next to your exit, your neck will not be strained at all, and you can watch TV easily. The center channel would be centered on the TV and the FR/FL situated as normal around the TV. The FR might be crammed up a little bit as it will be close to the door, but this concession would be much much less damaging than your corner setup. In my humble opinion, this is the best arrangement for your room in terms of surround sound, or any sound in general.

I hope this helps.

P.S. Of course, you could mount the F/R satellite speaker onto the door to allow for ideal separation from the TV based on something close to an equilateral triangle with your main listening position.

 

[Shawn]

I think maybe I'll just go for a 3.0 setup and get 3 nicer tower or bookshelf speakers instead.

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: Shawn
I think maybe I'll just go for a 3.0 setup and get 3 nicer tower or bookshelf speakers instead.

If you feel curious, do try to experiment with the setup I mentioned as it would yield great improvements. If its impossible, then you may want to hang a nice tapestry (thick) on the wall behind your couch so that the reflections off of that wall don't annoy your right ears as much. A better route would be to get some 1" or 2" fiberglass panels wrapped in cloth and hang them on that wall.

Good luck!

 

[biggestmuff]

Good grief, Shawn. Move that furniture around. Put the TV on the front wall, then swing the sofa out into the room.

 

[Tiamat]

I just MS painted the idea i had...

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/jonomega/setup.JPG

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: Tiamat
I just MS painted the idea i had...

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/jonomega/setup.JPG

That won't work. That would only leave about 6in between the wall and the end tables on both sides. There would be no room to walk. Even without the end tables, arranged like that it would make the room feel pretty small.

 

[Shawn]

The room is only about 12.5ft wide and the sofa is 7.5ft. The only way to rearrange things would be to put the tv in front of the sofa but it would look like crap. I didn't really draw things to scale. The TV comes out about 3ft. It's not a rectangle, its more triangular. It's a rear projection CRT.

edit: this would be closer to scale.

 

[Tiamat]

oh, i didnt think your sofa was so large.



If you have to keep the sofa, then I can't really recommend a satisfactory setup. The compromise to your sound is centered around your sofa. If that is a compromise you are willing to accept (or forced to accept), then you have the best you can get, and surround sound is not going to be a reality (just a waste of money).

Due to your off-axis listening and viewing position, you will definitely want a center channel speaker to anchor the dialog to the screen.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Go with a decent 3.1 setup. That's going to sound better than a cheap souround setup regardless of speaker locations. I have a 7.1 setup in my basement, my buddy has a 3.1 with TV as center channel setup. His speakers are nicer than mine (his JBL's vs. my Onkyo HTiB) and my ears can tell it even with 4 less speakers, so surround isn't the be all end all.

 

[cheesehead]

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian
Go with a decent 3.1 setup. That's going to sound better than a cheap souround setup regardless of speaker locations. I have a 7.1 setup in my basement, my buddy has a 3.1 with TV as center channel setup. His speakers are nicer than mine (his JBL's vs. my Onkyo HTiB) and my ears can tell it even with 4 less speakers, so surround isn't the be all end all.

Forget 3.1. Heck, forget the sub. Just go get a good pair of stereo speakers.

You can get a nice pair of Monitor Audio MTMs that should provide more than adequate bass for under $300 on eBay.