Sound system tips and techniques?

[Lucille]

I am trying to fix up my little house one room at a time. I am going to put in a modest sound system in the living room, I have an older receiver that has Prologic One and surround sound and the capability for 7 speakers and a subwoofer.
I am thinking to put in the system and in the future upgrade my receiver but for now, I would be interested in hearing how y'all set up your systems and any tips and techniques y'all might have for installation and speaker placement.
How are your systems set up?

 

[SIRS]

it depends on the size of your speakers to really determine placement ,but for me i tend to try and keepthe front atleast 6 feet away from eachother with the center speaker some where above if possible the tv..and the rear if small speakers same distant away from eachother but jus about head height behind you if you can or in the corners near ceiling ..for the sub i tend to hide it since it is normally so bulky,but still keeping it some place behind me maybe behind your couch if possible without knowing your actual living room set up and speakers it kinda hard .hope this help

 

[WebSlave]

Actually I got back into audio a while back so I went through the same thing you are, I guess.

Speaker placement depends on a lot of things. Size of the room, dimensions, type of flooring, amount of wall space taken up with sound deflecting accessories, and personal preference in what sounds good to you. With any front directing speaker, figure on line of sight positioning. In other words, from where you sit to listen to the music, you need to be able to turn your head and actually see the speakers from all directions. Some styles of speakers can actually bounce the sound from the walls at angles to help with this problem, but the best effect is direct line of sight. You will probably note that many installations of the side and back speakers are mounted on the walls with brackets. That is the reason why it is done this way. When you get comfy in your sofa or recliner, it is pretty much impossible to have all floor standing surround speakers have a direct path for the sound waves to your ears.

A subwoofer can be really tricky to position. You can experience this quite a bit simply by putting it in one position then walk around the room and listen to the differences in sound based on YOU moving around. Generally, putting a subwoofer on the corner of a room gives it the most oomph. In some cases, it may be too much, so you can adjust it from there. Closer to the walls means more reflected energy in the low frequencies. The subwoofer may sound better of worse by being elevated off of the floor via spikes. The thing you DON'T want to have happen is for the subwoofer to actually move when driven at moderate volumes. That is wasted energy that won't be coming out of the driver. Volumes have been written about the pros and cons of disconnecting the speaker from the flooring to try to reduce resonances. Normally your subwoofer will have some sort of resonance that can either be beneficial or irritating as hell, depending on where that resonance is located. A resonance at 20 Hz works well. One at 50 Hz does not. One really good trick about setting up a subwoofer is to have it working in such a way that you can't tell where it is located just by listening. Often adding a secondary subwoofer can greatly help in getting the most from the lower frequencies in a non directional effect.

Audio preferences and selections is almost a religion to some people. But the most important criteria to you will be what pleases your ears the most. Expensive doesn't necessarily mean they will be better. Everyone hears things differently and personal preferences should be your guide. Unfortunately, test driving a bunch of different systems in your own home environment is just not all that feasible to do. What you may hear in an audio store may have no relationship at all as to what it will sound like when you get it home.

 

[Lucille]

Audio preferences and selections is almost a religion to some people. .

Well said. In my newness, I have already committed the ultimate heresy by buying Bose according to some sound boards. But others swear by Bose. Before saying yea or nay, however, I will completely set it all up and decide for myself. I certainly am not at the point in my life where I can discern many differences, but it is all a learning curve and I can always get different speakers or perhaps these will do fine, I will wait and see.

I may replace my receiver, or I was thinking of having two complete sound systems as many new receivers have no phonograph input and I love my old records; perhaps using the old receiver for my phonograph and getting a new one, perhaps a Denon or Onkyo for the main system.