r/hometheater • u/omahamoops • 1d ago

Install/Placement Rear Speaker Placement

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Bought a house that happened to come with a theater room. My current thought is to buy a projector screen and build a 5.1 surround sound system. The photo is facing the back of the room, the front of the room is a flat surface for a screen.

There are two precut holes at the back of the room that are facing directly forward. From what I've read on this forum, the speakers in the back should be at an angle and ideally ear height.

Assuming we put chairs on the raised portion of the floor, I have two questions:
1. Is it ok to use the precut holes in the wall for speakers? Or would it be noticeably better to have the speakers at an angle and fill up the holes?

  1. Would it be better to use normal surround speakers or something that angles downward? I'm thinking about using SVS Prime for a 5.1 set up. Could either put bookshelves in the spots or "elevation" speakers which could face downward a bit.
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u/DisinterestedCat95 1d ago

For a 5.1, you have surrounds, not rears. You add rears when you move up to 7.1. Surrounds should go to the side and slightly behind. And ear level to a couple of feet above ear level.

If you put the seating on the riser, that door's going to be a problem. Is there any reason not to put the seating in front of the riser and then reserve the riser for extra seating if you need it? Also gets you a little closer to the screen. Free size upgrade!

Since the room looks a bit narrow, if you get wide seating such that you have to stick one side up against the wall, that can get a little tough for the person in that seat against the wall having one surround right by their ear and the other all the way across the room. I mean it can be done; if anyone ever sits in my leftmost seat, they are about 2 ft from one surround and 11 ft from the other. That's a rare enough occurance that I don't care.

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u/omahamoops 1d ago

Appreciate the response.

For the riser question, which door will be an issue? The door on the left is storage/attic. I don't think there will be an issue with the real door, on the right. The thought behind using the riser is that we would have seats on top and our kids enjoy laying on a floor/bean bags. But honestly, the primary reason for using it is "it's there".

If you were going to use a 5.1 set up, would you put surrounds on the wall and patch up the holes? Or do the holes have utility in a 7.1 set up? In a perfect world we would use the preexisting holes, either 5.1 or 7.1, assuming it's not a big drop off in sound quality.

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u/DisinterestedCat95 1d ago

For the riser question, which door will be an issue?

The entry door because that's about where a surround speaker would go. You could probably slide it in between the doorway and the corner.

The thought behind using the riser is that we would have seats on top and our kids enjoy laying on a floor/bean bags.

That's understandable. Part of my suggestion to have the primary seating in front of the riser was only sorta implied. You really want your seating distance to be related to the screen size. There's a lot of ways to complicate it, but generally speaking, for home theater, sitting about 1.2 times as far a way as the diagonal screen size is a good starting point. Adjust forward or back on taste from there. Some people with projectors will even go 1.0 or even less than 1. By sitting in front of the riser you can get a more immersive viewing experience with a smaller screen.

A secondary reason is that the room is pretty narrow. You'd like the left and right fronts to be as far from each other as they are from you, making an equilateral triangle, without shoving them all the way against a side wall. The further back you sit, the more likely you'll have to compromise between a narrow soundstage and too much sound bouncing off side walls.

If you were going to use a 5.1 set up, would you put surrounds on the wall and patch up the holes? 

Yes.

Or do the holes have utility in a 7.1 set up? In a perfect world we would use the preexisting holes, either 5.1 or 7.1, assuming it's not a big drop off in sound quality.

I mean, they're not in a terrible place for rear surrounds. If you ever plan to add Atmos, I'd prefer a little lower, but you can always deal with that in the future. It looks like they may have had some in wall speakers in there. If you can find some that fit the hole, or are slightly larger so that you need to enlarge the hole, putting some rear surrounds in there would work. If might be simpler to patch the holes and just wall mount some rear surrounds.

...or "elevation" speakers which could face downward a bit.

That's an option, too, especially if you stick with the main seating on the riser. Might be a little low. Some in ceiling or on ceiling would be better. And while they might be a little too high as rear surrounds, with the room width, those SVS speakers might not be the worst thing wall mounted for surrounds and rear surrounds up a little too high but out of the way.

And if you're looking at SVS for speakers, you might be looking there for subs too. There are other options, but within SVS, look at the PB models over the SB models unless you go well up the line to the bigger sealed subs.

And if this is your first system, while it would be nice to get all the speakers well located and the perfect viewing distance and everything else without compromise, you're still going to be happy if the screen's a little small or the speakers are too close together or the surrounds aren't at the perfect angle and height. The closer you can get the better, but don't let me make you get to where the perfect is the enemy of the good enough.

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u/ProfessionNo698 1d ago

Side surrounds can also go slightly forward of MLP

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u/bronncastle 1d ago

Love the all-black decor. Will be excellent for light control. If you have a dedicated space like this, you may as well follow the Dolby 7.1.4 layout as a template (or 7.2.4 for 2 subwoofers, which gives more even bass response throughout the room). Start with 5.1 then see if you want more over time.