Front L&R speaker distance/position?

[SpiceWeasel]

Finally setting up my cinema system after moving house, with a new cantilever tv stand to fit all my equipment on. But I have a few questions hopefully someone can help me with.
The THX website states that the front L/R speakers should be at 45deg from your listening position....clicky, angled directly towards the listening position. My problem though is that there is not enough room to get 45deg, will having a reduced angle ruin the sound/performance?

My viewing distance is 9ft from my 42" Pany plasma, so to get 45deg and spacing correct I would need 4.5ft between the front left speaker and the center of my tv. My problem though is that I have just under 5ft from the center of the screen to the left side wall ( looking towards the tv ).
If I place my Mission M33i floorstander at 4.5ft distance I will be almost touching the side wall and it would be positioned right in the corner of the room. Add in the 45deg angle and I would imagine all I will hear is alot of boomy bass. The M33i speakers go down to 44Hz and the low end is suprisingly powerfull, a recipe for disaster. I don't even have a sub, although I would like to get one when funds allow.

How close to the side wall can I position the speaker to avoid overblown boomy bass?
Should the front L/R speakers be angled directly towards the viewing position?
Any idea what distance they should be from the back wall? Is 30cm about right? Obviously I will need to experiment but a good starting point would really help.

Other speakers are Mission M3C2i and M3DSi via a Denon 2105 amp, Chord Carnival Silver Plus speaker cables with fronts bi-wired.
The room is aprox 10ft wide by 20ft long if thats any help, due to the room layout the tv can't move to any other location.

Thanks, lot's of questions there

EDIT: I did have a look through the video section but couldn't see one on cinema speaker setup, unless I missed it which is more than likely.

 

[Anonymous]

Guides, such as the THX one you are using, are just there to recommend. You have to shift things around and get the best sound to your ears. With the front speakers I'd aim to get close to the recommended angle but leave space in between the speaker and wall. I'm sure a bit of width is not worth ruining your low frequencies with booming effects

 

[Anonymous]

SpiceWeasel:

Finally setting up my cinema system after moving house, with a new cantilever tv stand to fit all my equipment on. But I have a few questions hopefully someone can help me with.
The THX website states that the front L/R speakers should be at 45deg from your listening position....clicky, angled directly towards the listening position. My problem though is that there is not enough room to get 45deg, will having a reduced angle ruin the sound/performance?

My viewing distance is 9ft from my 42" Pany plasma, so to get 45deg and spacing correct I would need 4.5ft between the front left speaker and the center of my tv. My problem though is that I have just under 5ft from the center of the screen to the left side wall ( looking towards the tv ).
If I place my Mission M33i floorstander at 4.5ft distance I will be almost touching the side wall and it would be positioned right in the corner of the room. Add in the 45deg angle and I would imagine all I will hear is alot of boomy bass. The M33i speakers go down to 44Hz and the low end is suprisingly powerfull, a recipe for disaster. I don't even have a sub, although I would like to get one when funds allow.

How close to the side wall can I position the speaker to avoid overblown boomy bass?
Should the front L/R speakers be angled directly towards the viewing position?
Any idea what distance they should be from the back wall? Is 30cm about right? Obviously I will need to experiment but a good starting point would really help.

Other speakers are Mission M3C2i and M3DSi via a Denon 2105 amp, Chord Carnival Silver Plus speaker cables with fronts bi-wired.
The room is aprox 10ft wide by 20ft long if thats any help, due to the room layout the tv can't move to any other location.

Thanks, lot's of questions there

EDIT: I did have a look through the video section but couldn't see one on cinema speaker setup, unless I missed it which is more than likely.

The front L and R speakers and seating position should form an equal sided triangle but if that isn't possible then the distance between L and R shouldn't be less than 3/4 of the distance from seating position to either the L or R speaker. Before i built my cinema room my system was in the lounge so i had to work with what i had. Distance from seating to L speaker was 4.2m, distance from L to R speaker using the 3/4 rule ended up being 3.15m. The angle works out to be more like 30 degrees. The centre speaker must be the same distance from seating position as the L and R speakers, this means that the L and R speakers positions are slightly infront of the centre. The 3 speakers form an arc. By doing this your L and R speakers are moved away from the back wall, make distance from side walls no less than 300mm.

 

[Anonymous]

Charl:SpiceWeasel:

Finally setting up my cinema system after moving house, with a new cantilever tv stand to fit all my equipment on. But I have a few questions hopefully someone can help me with.
The THX website states that the front L/R speakers should be at 45deg from your listening position....clicky, angled directly towards the listening position. My problem though is that there is not enough room to get 45deg, will having a reduced angle ruin the sound/performance?

My viewing distance is 9ft from my 42" Pany plasma, so to get 45deg and spacing correct I would need 4.5ft between the front left speaker and the center of my tv. My problem though is that I have just under 5ft from the center of the screen to the left side wall ( looking towards the tv ).
If I place my Mission M33i floorstander at 4.5ft distance I will be almost touching the side wall and it would be positioned right in the corner of the room. Add in the 45deg angle and I would imagine all I will hear is alot of boomy bass. The M33i speakers go down to 44Hz and the low end is suprisingly powerfull, a recipe for disaster. I don't even have a sub, although I would like to get one when funds allow.

How close to the side wall can I position the speaker to avoid overblown boomy bass?
Should the front L/R speakers be angled directly towards the viewing position?
Any idea what distance they should be from the back wall? Is 30cm about right? Obviously I will need to experiment but a good starting point would really help.

Other speakers are Mission M3C2i and M3DSi via a Denon 2105 amp, Chord Carnival Silver Plus speaker cables with fronts bi-wired.
The room is aprox 10ft wide by 20ft long if thats any help, due to the room layout the tv can't move to any other location.

Thanks, lot's of questions there

EDIT: I did have a look through the video section but couldn't see one on cinema speaker setup, unless I missed it which is more than likely.

The front L and R speakers and seating position should form an equal sided triangle but if that isn't possible then the distance between L and R shouldn't be less than 3/4 of the distance from seating position to either the L or R speaker. Before i built my cinema room my system was in the lounge so i had to work with what i had. Distance from seating to L speaker was 4.2m, distance from L to R speaker using the 3/4 rule ended up being 3.15m. The angle works out to be more like 30 degrees. The centre speaker must be the same distance from seating position as the L and R speakers, this means that the L and R speakers positions are slightly infront of the centre. The 3 speakers form an arc. By doing this your L and R speakers are moved away from the back wall, make distance from side walls no less than 300mm.

I had the same problem when trying to set up mine

Try the dolby speaker guide

http://www.dolby.com/consumer/home_entertainment/speaker-setup-guide/index.html

the angle is 30deg which might suit you better than THX 45deg

Speaker layout should be in a circle to suit your room which means the fronts are in an arc and the centre leaft and right would be at the same distance.

The imaginary circle does not have to be contained within the room boundery

I set up using the dolby guide and found it better than all the speakers in the same plane.

 

[SpiceWeasel]

Thanks for the help guys,have a virtual

on me.

I set it up on the weekend and strangely enough ended up with a very similar setup to the Dolby guide Lesmor linked to, although my front L/R speakers are inline with the center like the THX setup. Due to room layout I can't have the front speakers in front of the center but I think this should be ok as surely the mic auto setup on my amp will compensate for the distances anyway. I checked the distances after with a tape measue and the auto setup was bang on.

Front L/R speakers are about 2ft from the side wall to avoid bass boom, so they are around 3ft ish to the middle of the center speaker and not quite pointing straight at the listening position.
After positioning the speakers and using the mic auto setup I tested the system by finally watching The Dark Knight on BluRay(excellent film btw).
Im no expert but it sounded pretty damm good to me, although it sounded like the rears needed to be moved back a small amount. Rears are bipole and are just slightly past 90deg, looks like that Dolby guide confirms what I was thinking by having the rears at 100-110deg's.

I am going to try tweaking the front L/R speaker positions by playing some music in stereo and see if I can improve things any more. I'll post some pictures when I have finished tweaking and had a chance to tidy up all the boxes.

It's amazing what effect the room acoustics can have on the sound quality though, my system sounds much better in the bigger room than it did at the old house

 

[Anonymous]

SpiceWeasel:

Thanks for the help guys,have a virtual

on me.

I set it up on the weekend and strangely enough ended up with a very similar setup to the Dolby guide Lesmor linked to, although my front L/R speakers are inline with the center like the THX setup. Due to room layout I can't have the front speakers in front of the center but I think this should be ok as surely the mic auto setup on my amp will compensate for the distances anyway. I checked the distances after with a tape measue and the auto setup was bang on.

Front L/R speakers are about 2ft from the side wall to avoid bass boom, so they are around 3ft ish to the middle of the center speaker and not quite pointing straight at the listening position.
After positioning the speakers and using the mic auto setup I tested the system by finally watching The Dark Knight on BluRay(excellent film btw).
Im no expert but it sounded pretty damm good to me, although it sounded like the rears needed to be moved back a small amount. Rears are bipole and are just slightly past 90deg, looks like that Dolby guide confirms what I was thinking by having the rears at 100-110deg's.

I am going to try tweaking the front L/R speaker positions by playing some music in stereo and see if I can improve things any more. I'll post some pictures when I have finished tweaking and had a chance to tidy up all the boxes.

It's amazing what effect the room acoustics can have on the sound quality though, my system sounds much better in the bigger room than it did at the old house

Glad you came right, having the system set up properly makes for more enjoyment.

Having the front 3 speakers in an arc would be the ideal situation but fortunately the amp will compensate for this with the different distances you measured.

The surround sound speakers should be between 90 and 110 degrees from seating position and if you ever add surround back speakers they should be between 135 and 150 degrees and in line with your fronts. My surrounds are 1.8m off the floor on the walls. My seating position is 2.4m from the rear wall. I found that anything less than this and you wouldn't need surround back speakers.

 

[Anonymous]

Charl:My seating position is 2.4m from the rear wall. I found that anything less than this and you wouldn't need surround back speakers.

I agree Totally with this part charl !

 

[Anonymous]

marco_1:

Charl:My seating position is 2.4m from the rear wall. I found that anything less than this and you wouldn't need surround back speakers.

I agree Totally with this part charl !

 

[SpiceWeasel]

I think I would need a bigger room if I ever wanted to go for a 7.1 set up. It would be nice if you had the money to have a proper dedicated cinema room, one day....... I hope

My other jobs on my list is to shorten my speaker cables for the front 3 as they are way to long. I should be able to use just 1 L/R speaker cable cut in half for both speakers. I still need to find a way of raising my rears without wall mounting, rented house so I can't really start drilling holes in the walls. Im thinking about getting a chippy (carpenter) friend of mine to make up some rear speaker stands, should hopefully be able to do this pretty cheap if I go for cheap materials, nothing fancy as long as it does the job.
My center speaker also needs angiling upwards, Im thinking of using a few squash balls cut in half with a big dollap of blutak at the front.

I still need to recalibrate my plasma as well as the new room is much brighter as it has a white celing with magnolia walls. The settings are to bright at the moment but a few minutes with DVE should fix that.

What I really need is a proper BluRay player with multi outs so I can get HD sound, use a PS3 at the mo...... need to start saving. Maybe a projector and a sub and a................

Now where did I put that winning lotto ticket.

 

[Anonymous]

SpiceWeasel:

I think I would need a bigger room if I ever wanted to go for a 7.1 set up. It would be nice if you had the money to have a proper dedicated cinema room, one day....... I hope

My other jobs on my list is to shorten my speaker cables for the front 3 as they are way to long. I should be able to use just 1 L/R speaker cable cut in half for both speakers. I still need to find a way of raising my rears without wall mounting, rented house so I can't really start drilling holes in the walls. Im thinking about getting a chippy (carpenter) friend of mine to make up some rear speaker stands, should hopefully be able to do this pretty cheap if I go for cheap materials, nothing fancy as long as it does the job.
My center speaker also needs angiling upwards, Im thinking of using a few squash balls cut in half with a big dollap of blutak at the front.

I still need to recalibrate my plasma as well as the new room is much brighter as it has a white celing with magnolia walls. The settings are to bright at the moment but a few minutes with DVE should fix that.

What I really need is a proper BluRay player with multi outs so I can get HD sound, use a PS3 at the mo...... need to start saving. Maybe a projector and a sub and a................

Now where did I put that winning lotto ticket.

I'm a building contractor so i built my cinema room, hi fi room and entertainment area relatively cheap. I was able to build the cinema room to the recommended size.