PLAY GAME
Member
If you are half way through a 5.1 in an open plan room with a vaulted ceiling, stop trying to get the two surrounds into different planes. That is the mistake hiding inside every option list I see for rooms like this.
The setup in question: slanted ceiling running at about 25 degrees all the way up to the second storey, non-flat back wall, GoldenEar SuperSat 3 surrounds on hand to timbre match a 50/60C front three. The four ideas on the table were in-ceiling with aimable woofers, wall mounting both SuperSats, one of each, or stands by the couch. The right side is the problem because a notch by the doorway leaves the corner seat in a dead zone.
One on the wall and one in the ceiling is the option I would rule out first, even though it looks like the practical compromise. Surrounds work by being roughly symmetrical in level, arrival time and radiation pattern, and an AVR with per-speaker gain and distance only fixes the first two. The one you can hear as wrong is the third. Two identical speakers both slightly badly placed will beat one perfectly placed and one in the ceiling every time.
So either both go on side walls at ear level, or both go in the ceiling. Given the back wall is unusable, I would put them on the side walls at roughly 100 degrees from the seat, slightly forward of where the manual tells you, which pulls the image away from the corner seat's ear and reduces the dead zone. Vinyl wrapping them white is a fine idea.
What is the distance from the main seat to each side wall? That decides whether side placement is even viable before any of the mounting hardware matters.
The setup in question: slanted ceiling running at about 25 degrees all the way up to the second storey, non-flat back wall, GoldenEar SuperSat 3 surrounds on hand to timbre match a 50/60C front three. The four ideas on the table were in-ceiling with aimable woofers, wall mounting both SuperSats, one of each, or stands by the couch. The right side is the problem because a notch by the doorway leaves the corner seat in a dead zone.
One on the wall and one in the ceiling is the option I would rule out first, even though it looks like the practical compromise. Surrounds work by being roughly symmetrical in level, arrival time and radiation pattern, and an AVR with per-speaker gain and distance only fixes the first two. The one you can hear as wrong is the third. Two identical speakers both slightly badly placed will beat one perfectly placed and one in the ceiling every time.
So either both go on side walls at ear level, or both go in the ceiling. Given the back wall is unusable, I would put them on the side walls at roughly 100 degrees from the seat, slightly forward of where the manual tells you, which pulls the image away from the corner seat's ear and reduces the dead zone. Vinyl wrapping them white is a fine idea.
What is the distance from the main seat to each side wall? That decides whether side placement is even viable before any of the mounting hardware matters.
