Making my Room 5.1 Surround Sound friendly (on a budget)

[rox1co]

Speakers: Logitech Z-5300
Sound: Laptop / TV / DVD Player

my room: 4 walls, flat ceiling, 2 doors, 1 window

ideas? so far i have 2 things i wanna do

1) corner walls and have them near my ceiling (~1 Feet)
2) long pole with 2 bases (1 as the stand, other for speaker base)

i wanna know, how far should i place them near the wall? if i do the ceiling one, is that enough clearance or is that too close? is there something i could purchase to make the sound like i'm in a movie theater?

i love movies so i'll be using it a lot along with my regular tv, thanks.

 

[NanoStuff]

There are very effective and relatively inexpensive methods of room treatment. Involves framing fiberglass with a decent offset from the wall. Even so, Z-5300s likely wouldn't justify the cost and effort required. Then there is another relatively inexpensive method of improving sound by using an SPL and neutralizing frequency response. But yet again even the cheapest decent one at $50 might not be a justified cost on such a basic surround system. But then again you can always take care of the room problem now for upgrading the speakers in the future, that's up to you.

The cheapest (free!) method of improving sound would be to position the subwoofer around the room in a process of elimination to get the most neutral sound out of it; but without an SPL meter that's a terribly difficult task, particularly if you don't already have an ear for flat response. The speakers should not be placed near the ceiling, and depending on how far away the wall is, probably not close to the wall either. In most cases, the best place to put a speaker would be as close to you as possible within comfort.