Youth Room Speaker Placement Advice

[tootallll]

We purchased a surround sound A/V system for our youth room and I am seeking advice on speaker placement. The room specs are 28'x37', drywall, carpet, acoustic tile 10' ceiling. This room will be used mainly for movie and instructional DVD playback, gaming, occasional conferencing, and eventually (could be a year or two) as an overflow room with video streaming.

Equipment:
Marantz SR5003P AV Receiver
3x Tannoy Di6 2-Way Surface Mount Speaker
2x Tannoy Di5 2-Way Surface Mount Speaker
2x Tannoy TS8 Single 8" Active Sub Cabinet
LG 60PS60 60" 1080p Plasma TV

The attachment below shows speaker placement as stated in the SR5003P user manual...but it is for 7.1 surround and we will be utilizing 5.1 surround. I assume placement of the 3 Tannoy Di6 on the front wall will be two Di6 speakers in the room corners facing towards the middle of the room, and the other Di6 directly above the plasma display (approximately 84" high). Where would you suggest placement of the two Di5 rear speakers be? Should we get a second set of Di5 speakers and utilize 7.1 surround?

Thanks!
Mike

[kbob]

generally speaking, true surround sound is most effective only in the sweet spot in the middle. Adding two more speakers for 7.1 sound would likely exacerbate that issue to some degree.

pushing the existing 4th and 5th speakers out to the corners of the room opposite where the fronts are should be sufficient-that's how I run my Yamaha 5.1 setup.

Note that some diagrams occasionally show a 5.1 setup with the rear speakers away from the corners, roughly 1/3 in from each corner and aimed straight towards the front of the room.

Once you get everything placed though, try the walk around test to see how widely dispersed your surround effects are using the setups described. Shy of doing some modeling using specialized time delay measurement tools...some of which are built into some of the amps nowadays...

[pdc]

Originally Posted by tootallll

We purchased a surround sound A/V system for our youth room and I am seeking advice on speaker placement. The room specs are 28'x37', drywall, carpet, acoustic tile 10' ceiling. This room will be used mainly for movie and instructional DVD playback, gaming, occasional conferencing, and eventually (could be a year or two) as an overflow room with video streaming.

Equipment:
Marantz SR5003P AV Receiver
3x Tannoy Di6 2-Way Surface Mount Speaker
2x Tannoy Di5 2-Way Surface Mount Speaker
2x Tannoy TS8 Single 8" Active Sub Cabinet
LG 60PS60 60" 1080p Plasma TV

The attachment below shows speaker placement as stated in the SR5003P user manual...but it is for 7.1 surround and we will be utilizing 5.1 surround. I assume placement of the 3 Tannoy Di6 on the front wall will be two Di6 speakers in the room corners facing towards the middle of the room, and the other Di6 directly above the plasma display (approximately 84" high). Where would you suggest placement of the two Di5 rear speakers be? Should we get a second set of Di5 speakers and utilize 7.1 surround?

Thanks!
Mike

I also work for an audiophile and custom home theater shop. If your center channel is 0 degrees (straight ahead), your surrounds would need to be 100 to 110 degrees at ear level. This is the Dolby standard, which is most generally the base standard for mixing engineers. The problem you may have with a room that large and a crowd that big, is that few will actually get the true effect. Past 12' it is hard to maintain imaging. I think that you will be adding an additional multichannel amplifier in time.

It is the policy here not to self promote, so I would recommend that you forget doing the calibration yourself. Buy a theater calibration DVD and use it. You can place the speakers precisely and then set the DSP accordingly, if your receiver has delay compensation, etc.

[tootallll]

PDC,

I'm not familiar with theater calibration which DVD's do recommend? The receiver comes with a speaker optimization/equalization program called Audyssey...is this what you are referring to when you speak of delay compensation? Recommended power for the larger Di6 speakers is 120 W @ 6 ohm...the receiver is rated 90 W x 7 @8 ohm, shouldn't that be enough power?
Thanks!
Mike

[kbob]

That's kind of what I meant by only in the middle...

Wherever you use the modeling program (the point at which you measure results) will be the "sweet spot", while other areas will receive somewhat less of the effect.

I widened my home's sound field by widening out the speaker placement, and decreasing the angle-essentially I was pointing them nearly straight ahead. But then, at the time, I was using Polk 5Jr+'s for front speakers, which had incredible imaging even off axis.

For what you're trying to do, you want as wide a field as you can get, though individual perfection may suffer as a result.

[pdc]

Originally Posted by tootallll

PDC,

I'm not familiar with theater calibration which DVD's do recommend? The receiver comes with a speaker optimization/equalization program called Audyssey...is this what you are referring to when you speak of delay compensation? Recommended power for the larger Di6 speakers is 120 W @ 6 ohm...the receiver is rated 90 W x 7 @8 ohm, shouldn't that be enough power?
Thanks!
Mike

If you have a large group in a room that has a high noise floor, you may find yourself wishing for more power and larger speakers. You may not. I could be wrong. But generally, when I have designed surround systems for youth rooms, we are using PA speakers and/or large format studio monitors.

As long as you keep the ratios right, you should be close enough with Adyssey. Don't allow it to over process.