TV & Speaker placement in an awkward shaped room?

[admin_exported]

Hi All - bit of a noob around these parts but a long time hi-fi fan so I hope you can help

I'm about to move house and coincidentally the Gale monitirs and cambridge amp I have in the front room are on their very last legs, time for an upgrade I think. I'm looking at the famous B&W 685 theatre speaker package and some sort of all singing all dancing AV receiver.

Now the hard part. The room is a damn awkward shape.

I hope you can make out from the pctre where everyting is at the moment.

Now I want to put the TV in front of the ( non functional, in fact disconnected) gas fire, but I've been told that looks stupid and isn't acceptable. Nor is boxing the ugly thing in (I hate fireplaces, we invented central heating for a reason).

Has anyone got any ideas on the layout of the room that would be compatible with a surround system?

Is it possible to buy some big hydraulic arm to mount the TV on, above the fireplace, that means it can be pulled out and down in front of th fireplace, into the correct viewing position?

Thank you all *so* much for ay help - this is causing huge ructions in the house, I have said that every other decision is unimportant to me, I just want a decent surround kit but this doesn't seem to be sinking in... honestly I woldn't care if there weren't any chairs...

Thanks!

 

[Big Aura]

As far as I am aware there are no bracket that go up and down (screens, especially plasma, weigh too much), but there are some on an extendable arm. I bought one of those and fixed it to the wall, at the level of the mantlepiece, and then extended it out and hung the screen on it. The effect is that the screen obscures the mantlepiece, with the bottom part of the screen about 20cm below the mantlepiece. I have used the fireplace (also not in use) to house the amp, DVD player, freesat and centre speaker. It's not ideal (ideally, I would have removed the fireplace surround entirely), but it works well enough.

 

[D.J.KRIME]

Right if that room was mine here is what I would do.

1) Have the gas fire removed and any mantle that may be there, hollow out the rear fire chamber and re-plaster, insert glass shelves to accomadete your amp etc.

2) Mount you TV above the new appature where you fireplace used to be, now all your cables are completly hiden going up the rear of the old fire chamber to you now screen and centre speaker which can be neatly mounted below the TV.

3) Run speaker cable under floor/carpets to both front and rear speakers which can be positioned near to each corner of the room.

Job Done

 

[Tom Moreno]

Tetsugaku,

I feel for you! I tried to get my wife to sign over complete veto power to living room setup for optimal surround sound in a pre-nup. Fortunately she is appeasing me at the moment.

If it were me I would go with DJ Krime's idea. Putting components and your centre channel speaker inside the cavity left from the fireplace would be tidy and could be very svelte-looking if the building work is done nicely. The other option is putting the TV in front of the window. If the fairer of you objects to that, try making her have to decide which is the lesser of the two evils. That worked for me in one place we lived in.

Tom

 

[Sorreltiger]

I think you're very wise not to go for the obvious, but IMHO incorrect solution of putting the TV above the fireplace. ÿI once stayed in a place where the TV was up there and I soon developed neck-ache!

If you can't block the window, I reckon the fireplace redesign - with TV at eye level - could look very smart.ÿ

 

[Big Aura]

That's what I've done. I couldn't remove the fireplace (as is a rented property) but as the screen sits out and over-hang the mantle it's a good 30cm+ lower than it would be, if flush-mounted to the wall and ON the mantle.

The extendable arm bracket was a god-send. Bought it from the Plasma Centre for about £70.

 

[Anonymous]

How about one of those cantilever swivel brackets mounted on the wall on the right hand side of the fireplace? Or instead of wall mounting buy an AV rack with an integrated TV mounting bracket and put it in the same corner?ÿ

 

[D.J.KRIME]

This is why I sujested on completly removing any traces of the fireplace and wall mounting the Tv above the hole left by the old fire place NOT where the mantle would have been as IMHO thats too high but the top of the hole after removing the fire is consideribly lower.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with DJKrime for the best option. However maybe you could put sofa 1 in front of the fireplace and sofa 2 where sofa 1 was. Then have the telly etc on the opposite wall. You would have to reroute your cables though.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for all the replies - makes me feel better to know I'm not on my own! The lady friend swore blind I was the only one in the world to care about this until I showed her this thread...

Unfortunately removal isn't an option - it's a rental so we're stuck with what we've got.

However - after looking at all your ideas I've got the plan to whack a bit of painted MDF over the gap between the 'pillars' of the fireplace, black painted it will blend with the bottom of the fire (slate) and won't distract. On top of that it won't look daft with a telly in front of it!

I was wondering if I'd need to cut a vent hole into it for ventilation?

Anyway - thank you so much for all of your help, it made a real difference in how things panned out