Home theater rear surround placement issue (movie, bluray, books, drum)

[spankys bbq]

I'm in the process of doing about 75 things around the house, and one of the things I do a little here and there on is my theater room. Due to space and furniture plans I am using in wall speakers for the front left and right and in-ceiling speakers for the rear surround. I'm only running 5.1 by choice. I'm no audiophile/videophile, so it will suffice.

In mapping out my speaker placements tonight I discovered a problem. The area where I want to place the rear surround speakers prohibits me from installing them in line with the front speakers and they will have to be closer together.

For reference, I am running an LG projector shooting to 100" and a Denon receiver with an XBox and cable box currently hooked up. I'll be adding BluRay later, and hopefully my old NES. I plan to have cabinets and shelves built that will make bookshelf speakers difficult and unsightly.

For nice easy numbers, the wall with the projector is 14' across and the rear wall is 10' across. From the seated position the right wall is straight all the way back but the left wall turns in at close to a 45 degree angle just at the seating position. This is obviously not ideal and forces me to mount the surrounds closer together than the front speakers. I have the front speakers 52" off the floor and 12.5' from the edges of the screen. I wanted to keep the surrounds in line with the fronts for whatever reason.

Does anyone have any thoughts on having rear surrounds closer together than the fronts? I want to make this setup sound as good as possible given budget constraints. I guess I'm just wondering what to expect. I could mount them in such a way to reflect the sound off of the walls if that would help. I'm sure it would be more of a project than I think, but that's what winter is for.

I plan to use Polk RC85i for the fronts and Polk RC60i for the rears. I don't have a center channel picked out yet. I chose these speakers for cost mainly. Other brands I looked at would have me spending way too much money.

Thoughts?

Thanks.

[JaxRhapsody]

I don't think it will be that big of a deal, especially if they are directional. The room is alreaey screwy for a surround sound system as it is, get more wire, and stick them in the corners, just don't have them facing the back wall, it will sound worse. It would be nice to see the room layout, and speakers to be used.

[victimofGM]

Have you considered mounting the rear speakers on the walls to the left & right of the seated position? In my home, I have a living room that is open to the kitchen to the rear of the seated position. Mounting the rear speakers in the kitchen is impractical. The mounting instructions offered two options for the rear speakers and one of the options was mounting them to the left and right of the seated position facing the listeners. My system is over ten years old which means I had to manually calibrate the speakers and distance. Tape measure used to measure the distance between the main listening position to each speaker and manually input each distance. Also had to go by my ear to adjust speaker tone levels. Most of today's quality systems have a microphone you hold at your seated position to allow the system to automatically calibrate for you. Too many never bother with the calibration. Doing the basic calibration greatly improves movie listening. I did the calibration by ear because I have partial hearing loss and noise sensitivity. Certain frequencies are painful to my good ear. My bad ear is really bad due to scar tissue developing after having my ear drum removed and a new one made in it's place. I increased the volume from the left rear speaker and toned down the right rear speaker to balance based upon my hearing. The front speakers and subwoofer were calibrated according to instructions since they hit both of my ears at the same time. When setting up you system, don't forget wall coverings for noise damping. Decorative fabric covered frames, drapes, carpet, and even cheap egg crate foam on walls will help deaden the impact/echo of sharp sounds to improve the quality of sound.

[spankys bbq]

The walls are not an option because of windows, and I really don't like how they would look. The Denon amp I am using has the microphone calibration feature. It's pretty easy to use. My wife says it makes spaceship sounds while it's doing the calibrating.

[victimofGM]

Originally Posted by spankys bbq

The walls are not an option because of windows, and I really don't like how they would look. The Denon amp I am using has the microphone calibration feature. It's pretty easy to use. My wife says it makes spaceship sounds while it's doing the calibrating.

What about the ceiling?

[spankys bbq]

I have placed a couple templates on the ceiling to work on placement. I think I have them where I want them. Now I need to get the time to start fishing wire and cutting holes. I also need to get another spool of wire. Then it's on to crawling around on insulation and joists. Yay! lol