Help me finish this...

Hey everbody, finally upgrading after about 12yrs. of Sony, Cerwin Vega AT15 (college dorm rockers!) and cheapie Bose 101 rears with no center channel. Pretty animated system, but better than nothing! Purchased a Definitive Technology 2500, really found out what I was missing, along with Supercube II, BP2x's and UIW BPA inwalls for rears. Now for my delimma, My listening room is 20X14 medium sized rectangle with "couch against the long wall." The couch is 5 inches out from the wall, could I run 7.1? Could I also put L and R rears in the ceiling inline with seating position and maybe put some BP 1.2's at ear level or at both ends of the couch, or up higher? No matter what I do it will be a wide set-up, just want to excercise all my options before deciding on not doing 7.1.
Guys, be brutally honest with me I can take it!

When I read your couch is "against the long wall", that tells me you've got about 13 feet in front of you or so...If you are willing to move your couch out 4 feet or so you could probably pull off a 7.1. Your front speakers should be a few feet out from the front wall, so let's say 3, this leaves 9 feet in front of you and 3 behind you (allowing for depth of speakers). To tell you the truth, I'm not 100% convinced the cost/benefit of adding a 6th and 7th speaker is there for you. You'd probably want the couch close to the center of the room to make it worthwhile.

My room has the TV along the shorter wall, so it runs quite deep. Without 7.1 there is a noticeable gap in the rear most of the time unless rear imaging was designed into the soundtrack. 7.1 fills this in nicely in my room and allowed me to move the side surrounds forward for a more immersive effect. But I have a good 10 feet behind me...I don't think the benefit would be there in my room if I was closer to the back wall.

You might be better off considering bipolar/dipolar surrounds instead. Or with the money you save upgrade another piece to higher quality? Just my opinion.

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Originally Posted by JLB

Hey everbody, finally upgrading after about 12yrs. of Sony, Cerwin Vega AT15 (college dorm rockers!) and cheapie Bose 101 rears with no center channel. Pretty animated system, but better than nothing! Purchased a Definitive Technology 2500, really found out what I was missing, along with Supercube II, BP2x's and UIW BPA inwalls for rears. Now for my delimma, My listening room is 20X14 medium sized rectangle with "couch against the long wall." The couch is 5 inches out from the wall, could I run 7.1? Could I also put L and R rears in the ceiling inline with seating position and maybe put some BP 1.2's at ear level or at both ends of the couch, or up higher? No matter what I do it will be a wide set-up, just want to excercise all my options before deciding on not doing 7.1.
Guys, be brutally honest with me I can take it!

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And even then your pushing it a bit. I run a 7.1 system, and although my room is 22 ft deep, the only way that I could do it is by putting the rear speakers in the wall. I DON'T reccomend that you put any speakers in the ceiling. The sound will be disjointed, and effects will not go off like you expect. In you case a good 5.1 system is just the ticket.

Also; If your head is less than a foot from a wall your going to want to add some sound damping to that wall. It will make a big difference on how things sound.