DVD Home theatre advice..

[Bubblegum Bandit]

i think the sub placement does matter, a lot. If you put it way over by the wood stove it's not going to give you the same feeling if it were in a more central location....

Due to the way that low end frequencies travel, at least according to every publication I've read on the home theater industry, sub placement within the room doesn't matter....now obviously you don't want to put it upstairs or something like that. The farther away from you the sub is, yes it will need more power, but for placement's sake, you can put it anywhere you want.

 

I'll ask my buddy on the rear speaker placement, but I think as long as they are the same distance from the listeners you are fine. Every decent receiver that I have had, had a setup button where you can set the volume proportion for the back speakers....therefore if they are 2' or 5' away, you just use that to adjust for distance. I subscribe to Audio Video Interiors and I've seen many of professional home theaters with in ceiling speakers for rear speakers in there.....so somehow it has to work.

[All Kill3r]

its a big assumption that he is going to have a sub with enough power for the placement to not matter. In my case, Zap's case, Penty's case sure it doesn't matter as much. I could put mine in another room... with an 80w powered sub placement is key.

[Zap]

You should be good with the rears in that position. Usually you either want them behind you or directly to the side of you but in your case with that room set up where you have it marked should be fine.

 

For the front you want them to be at least 6' apart or more. I would actually place the center channel right on top of the tv. That way when you hear the voice it will seem to come more from the picture rather than having it so high above the tv. The actual main speakers I would put on stands if you can on either side of the tv keeping the distance at least 6' apart. I'm not sure from that picture if you can do that or not. You could always have a couple friends hold the speakers up there and see the difference in sound up there vs. lower placement. After you get the placement where you want them make sure to do white noise test across the speakers and get them all the same sound level so that when you do play a 5.1 movie that you will truly hear the sound moving across the speakers smoothly.

 

For the sub. Moving it closer to the corners of the room will do more bass and moving it away from teh walls will remove bass. Just going to have to play with it to see where you need it to fill that room.

 

Marantz is what I used to use. I mistakenly gave my receiver to my ex in a fit of blind love. Damn her anyways - haha.

 

Penty is right that NST super zeros are a good low budget speaker system. Energy Take Five's are nice for low budget too.

[linch]

Well... I scrapped the idea of getting the DAVBC150, mainly because the speakers have a proprietary hookup. I went with another Sony system that has a powered Sub, and more video and audio hookups, so I should be fine with both the tv,dvd, and xbox. Now I just have to pick out a dvd player, which wont be hard.

 

Bean.. I dont think it will matter if the speaks are that high if I have them on a 45 degree angle down toward the seating area?

 

Zap... Great point on the center speaker, I never really thought about that, and I'll have to rethink where I put it. Is it really a good thing to put the speak on the TV?

[Penty]

Home theater speakers are suppoesed to be shielded, at least the center one. It should say on the box.

[Zap]

All center channel speakers should be shielded so that you can place them on your television. Actually most speakers if designed for home theater are probably all shielded. As Penty said just double check to make sure they are and no worries. I've had my center speaker on my tv forever and never had problem. Especially with a big tv like you are getting there is plenty of room for the center channel on top of it.

 

DVD players are easy to get. Make sure to get one that does progressive scan though since you are getting a HDTV. That way you can make good use of the nice tv you bought. They really shouldn't cost much more than a normal DVD player.

[soul .gc]

I would not place the center and fronts up high like that, even if they are angled down. I tried it in the past and you do notice a difference. Put the center on top of the TVand the frnts n the sides at the same height, or close to it, as you sit. That is how I have gotten the best results.

 

As far as cables, you should be fine with anything decent, do not spend the ridiculous money on Monster brand though, you will not notice 1 bit of difference.

 

is that with a powered sub ? If i wanted my glass wouldn't just vibrate, it would fall off the table. Seperate amps and subs are the way to go.

 

I could do the same, but that would ruin the movie experience. Separate amps and subs are not the way to go when staying under $500-600.

[linch]

ok...I have everything and installed and working great!! I'm really loving this! Now I have to do a couple cosmetic things. I want to hide the wires. I was thinking for the front ones they can run in corner of the wall fine, and all I would need to do is paint over the wires. The rear speakers are a little harder. The easiest way I was thinking of hiding them is to make a small vertical gap (about 1/5 a inch) up the drywall, and then fill it over. Question about that... will Paint or Drywall compound damage the speaker wire at all?

 

[appalachian_fox]

Provided the speaker has a good jacket on it, a latex paint or drywall compound shouldn't damage the speaker wire, but be careful applying any drywall compound so you don't damage the cable with whatever you're spreading with. If you have access to your attic / crawlspace / basement, I'd actually pop a few small holes in the wall (one at the receiver and one at each speaker, wide enough for the wire) and snake the cable through the wall and over- or underspaces. Still looks clean, don't have to mess with spackling which never looks as good as you expect it to anyway, and when you want to remove the cables (upgrade, move out) you can simply rip them out of the wall and spackle over the holes.

 

If you really want to go fancy-pants, you can buy wall plates with speaker terminals, but that's fancy-pants.

[soul .gc]

It looks like you are in the basement with drywalled ceilings, gonna be hard to do as Fox suggests, even though that way always looks the best. Did you end up mounting the fronts up high? Post some more pics of the final setup please.

[linch]

I did place the front ones high, the center one I left on top of the TV. The receiver had a setting to specify if the speaks are placed high or low, so I don't think its that big of a deal, and I've tested it out for 3 days with them up there. Sounds great. Soul is right, I cant go through the ceiling, etc.

 

The mounts I bought for the sony speakers only go about 45 degre angle, so what I think I'm going to do take a small piece of wood, cut it on a 45 angle, so the rear speakers will be able to point directly towards sitting area.

 

BTW, from what I read, the rear speakers are typically the same distance away as the front ones? Correct? ie. My front speakers are 10 feet away, so I put the rear ones 10 feet away as well. (although I know the receiver does have settings for the distance of the speakers).

 

[soul .gc]

I would go through the wall for the fronts. Go to Home Depot and get a cable fishing spool and use that to run the wires up the wall. Just cut a small hole up top and one at the bottom and fish them up. Then you have to patch the wall but it looks good when done.

 

The rears I am not sure sorry. I would say run them under the carpet but it looks like very thin carpet so they may leave bumps. You may be better off just running them around the base molding to the back of the room. Once there I would use small cable covers on the wall to run up to the speakers themselves since it looks like your rear wall is against concrete. Just run a strip from the floor to the speaker and they usually come with a mounting technique (sticky tape/staples) and it looks much better than the wires themselves running up the wall.

[linch]

actually for the winter I'm just going to run the rear cable wire under a area rug, then come spring I'm going to be putting some flooring down, so I'll likely run it under that.