How do you set up your 4.1 or 5.1 speakers?

[Xernex]

I have recently been contemplating ditching my old 2.1 set up and going for either some 4.1's or 5.1s but then I realised, how would I set them up? My room (where the computer is) is set up with the computer in the right hand corner and realised the left, right (centre if i go 5.1) and rear right(because I?m against the wall) are no problem, but on the rear left there is nothing but air, my next wall is like a few meters away. Think of it from a birds eye perspective using the description above and u should get my point.

So the question is how do those of you with a 4.1 and 5.1 set up handle this? Do you all have your computer perfectly situated in the middle of the room? Due to space restrictions, I really can?t move my desk, due to my bed and draws, so it?s stuck this way. I'd love to have my room set up like my dad has his big sound system set up in the other room (he?s an audiophile, u know $4000 dollar speakers, $3000 amp, DTS/Dolby digital rdy and the room is perfectly situated for 5.1) unfortunately I don?t know how I could do this for my setup?

Also what do u do about the wires? I know in the case of my dad he has drilled small holes in the walls and runs the cables through the cavities, running up to each of the rear speakers but I don?t think he?d let me do that in my room .

How do u stop yourself tripping over them or preventing them getting in the way?

 

[Pink0]

hang rear speakers on your ceiling.

 

[Gaunt]

Another possibility is floor stands. They can get in the way, but they will get the job done. I lucked out with the placement of my desk, and my speakers sit on a large shelf opposite my desk.

 

[Adrian Tung]

My Creative DTT3500 speakers come with 3-foot tall stands for the rear speakers. I have my desk facing away from the wall, so the rear speakers fit in nicely behind me. The center speaker gets put on top of my monitor.

Before my DTT3500, I had 4.1 speakers and I hung the two rear speakers on the wall behind me.


atwl

 

[Gaunt]

Ya, for some reason the new creative kits don't come with stands though... I bought the Inspire 5500's a couple months ago, and although they are very nice speakers, I was surprised that there were no stands... although not terribly surprised, since I had looked into it before I bought them.

 

[Smilin]

I use these Klipsch floor stands

I let the wires hang on the floor. Never tripped over em yet. The computer chair is kinda the center of the known universe in that room and it just sits in the open surrounded by speakers.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Here are some pics of my little setup in my on-campus apartment. I don't have much space to work with, so the sound field is way too small. In fact, the speakers would sound a lot better if the sound field were 3-4x larger. (I know this to be true as I loanded my old BA4800s to a friend with a much larger room.) These speakers are Boston BA7800s running off a SB Audigy.

Note: My room has poor light, and I didn't use the flash, so sorry if the pics are too dark (the shutter speed was also way low).

Front speakers (close)
Rear speakers (close)
Front speakers (slant)
Rear speakers (slant)
Subwoofer
Entire setup

 

[Bovinicus]

I would try to get something that allows you to hang you speakers from the celing. I have a 4.1 setup, and that is my plan. I have not implemented it, but I have similar space constraints to you, so the celing is the only viable option for proper positional audio.

 

[alkemyst]

yeah ceiling is good with the proper brackets or floor stands

as long as the cable are ran nicely it looks good.

I had similar problems with setting up my home theatre in my last apartment as both the corners wouldn't allow floor stands and the ceiling mounts had to be 'tight'.

it was a Klipsch Quartet, PSB setup.

 

[boyRacer]

I bought 2 pair of speaker stands and put them on all 4 corners of my room... i had to rearrange my room just because of that... and i had to drill a hole through my close wall to get speaker wire into one of my rear speakers... it's kinda hidden though so it doesn't really matter. Once you go surround... there's no going back.

 

[Xernex]

Some interesting ideas, I was thinking of having some sort of stand but, well it wouldn?t really work, its hard to explain, if I had a digital camera I could take a photo and show u, but it wouldn?t work. Surprisingly enough my dad said he would let me put the holes in the walls to feed to wires, the only problem now is that left rear speaker

 

[m1ke101]

sorry for invading your thread but this seemed like an appropriate place to ask, i have a set of klipsch 4.1's. and i'm wondering where the best place to put the sub ( where to get the most bass). would under my desk be a good place?

 

[Pink0]

the sub is non-directional. It doesn't matter where it is in relation to other speakers.

 

[HouRman]

My home theater is an audiophile dedicated 4.1 setup, you can see the layout at my site. There are drawings with labeled "bed" and component positions.

Surrounds can be setup 2-3 feet above the listeners ear level for ambient effects, it's what dolby recommends. My surrounds are about 3 feet above head level and maybe 1 foot back, wall mounted. As you'll see there are bookshelf surrounds that are also in my room and are on floor stands I made. Their tweeters are ear level and the layout is designed for personal 5.1 (With each speaker equal distance from the listener). Either works fine IMO while the higher surrounds provide better ambience for rain and environmental surrounds when the lower surrounds provide a more accurate surround for pinpointing locations in a 360 deg soundfield.

Though most subwoofer frequencies are "generally" non-directional, the crossover point and slope usually indicates that they do however play directional sound as well. Even if the sound is non-directional, their position in a room has a huge impact on sound. Corner placement is the ideal placement for maximizing SPL and is recommended by many subwoofer manufacturers. This even works with PC multimedia subs since I've testing with my 4.1 altec lansing speakers. The drawback of corner placement is that it energizes standing waves within the room the most which takes electronic equalization, or bass traps/HH resonators to fix (For a smoother response at least). Think of a subwoofer as a pressure generator that radiates spherical waves. When placed in a corner this maximizes SPL (or sound level) while placed against a wall will increase SPL more than having it away from any walls. Putting a subwoofer under a desk or inside a cabinet can cause problems because sound may resonate inside the chamber and could cause "boomy" sound. (In other words exaggerated, non-tight sound in certain frequencies). I should also mention that when placed in a corner the sub's efficiency will noticeably increase and you may begin to start noticing where the sound's coming from despite the manual saying it is non-directional. So my answer would be to play with position, just don't go to the extreme measures I've gone through at my site.

I'm not picky about wires so they're just resting on the floor. If interior design was my concern I'd probably use inwall UL speaker wire or use adhesive backed flatwire to run up the walls. If you trip over them then just put a rug or carpet on them, you can also extend the surround wires a fair amount by splicing/soldering with no decrease in sound quality.

Good luck

 

[SithSolo1]

Sorry I'm late this topic but couldn't you just hang them from the ceiling with string? As long as they are facing the correct way it doesn't matter where they are. As far as i know you could even hang them upside down.

 

[techfuzz]

I think you have a couple of options. The first is to buy a 5.1 set of speakers and use the tripod stands. Secondly, have you thought about getting a new computer desk? Maybe something of the "V" corner variety where the monitor sits in the middle in the corner. I have a setup similar to that in my apartment even though my computer isn't even in the corner, but the desk works quite well for that purpose. Third, don't worry about the rear's all that much. They don't put out that much sound anyways. They're used mostly for effects anyways. Most of your sound comes from the center channel speaker anyways.

That same reason holds true for audiophile setups as well. Lots of people think incorrectly that they should buy huge front left/right $3000 speakers and they totally waste their money. 90%+ of the sound in a true 5.1 setup comes from the center channel speaker and most people never pay enough attention to its quality in the first place.

techfuzz