# Room Size and 7.1



## the_diyr

Ok yall probably are getting to know me a little around here.. And I have come to notice that it is probably going to be a long process until i am happy with my HT setup.. So I went back to basics last night .. I stayed up measuring every inch of my den and since I live in a mobile home this is going to be tough.. My den is 14 foot wide x 15.3 foot long.. the ceiling is vaulted ceiling is 8ft on the sides and 11.5 foot at the peak.. I guess my biggest problem is having to much furniture in such a small room.. I have a pioneer vsx-516BK reciever, Yamaha 100 watt 10 inch powered sub , (2) St-828 Fisher speakers for the front , RSVIDEO Infinity center channel , Dish network DVR, Hitachi 50 inch RPTV , 2-Cheap Magnovox surrounds left and right surround..2 pioneer surrounds rear surrounds and one rear 8 inch altec lansing 50watt powered sub.. I am planning on replacing the magnovox surrounds with better speakers very soon as they are the type that have the 3 inch woofer with that stupid little flat brass tweeter thing in them ,I am also working on replacing all the drivers in the fisher st-828's as well as a crossover upgrade.. The pioneer rear surrounds have 5 inch woofers and cone tweeters and they sound ok for what they are. The RSVIDEO is getting new surrounds for the 5.25 inch drivers.. 

I have been reading for the past week on setup for the surround systems and I have found a few thing wrong with my design thus far..

1) My front stage L and R are not at a good height in relation to the center channel .
2) my subs are in adjacent corners of the room
3) my surrounds are in the center / sides of the room in front of the listener
4)my rear surrounds ar right behind the recliners on stands at 5 foot tall 
5)My A/V reciever , dvd player, and HD DVR box sit on top of the left front speaker
6) My computer ( Home Built ) 512 graphics card (DVI )(s-video ) 4 gig ram, duo core processor , 2- ( 1TB harddrives and DVD Burner is sitting by my chair hooked to a 22 inch acer monitoras well as hooked the RPTV thru the s-video instead of DVI to HDMI..

I guess the other thing is most of my time is spent wondereing where to start..I will try to get a drawing together today of what I have and how I hope it will all come together,,


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## the_diyr




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## tonyvdb

For your speaker placement have a look here at the Dolby website. Having your side surrounds in front of the listening position is incorrect and will not give you very realistic sound.


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## the_diyr

Ok I think thats great but because of the walls and the way my set up is .. If I put the surrounds to each side of the recliners and the rear surrounds behind the recliners they will only be about 2.5 feet from each other on the left and the right. I also noticed that there is only 1 couch in the middle of the room .. Unfourtantly I have 2 couches on either side and 2 recliners right at the back wall.. Also I disagree about putting the sub in the corner as a bad idea.. My 10 inch yamaha sub is in the corner when I put it in the front to the side of the tv I have no bass at all . I also read somewhere that some people are putting the rear surround left and right channels together and to the rear center of the listening area.. I did like the website though very informative.


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## tonyvdb

Move the rear surrounds closer together, they can be around 4 feet apart. this will still give you much better sound.


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## the_diyr

So I should take my side surrounds and move the to the listening position which is the recliners and then mov the rear surrounds closer together


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## tonyvdb

yes, thats the best compromise.


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## the_diyr

I will get it done .. Just one more ? for now would it be better to put the pioneer ( much better speakers ) on the surround and the the cheaper magnovox on the rear surround.. Or does it matter ?


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## tonyvdb

yes, most movie soundtracks are only 5.1 so the rear channels are just matrixed from the 4th and 5th channels. The side surrounds will get used much more dynamically than the rears.


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## the_diyr

Wow it sounds better.. I mounte the magnovox as the rears at about 2 feet above ear level behind the recliners about 5 feet apart .. and the pioneers are at ear level at the sides ear level on the shelfs beside each recliner and wow it sounds great.. Thanks .. Now I just have to get my RSVIDEO front center channel back together and finish putting my fishers back together and I am good for now.. I will probably replace the magnovox very soon


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## eugovector

I bet it sounds much better. Be sure to reset your distances in your AVR and balance levels.


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## the_diyr

Thanks for the help ..Just set the distances and levels .. Ran the test tone to make sur everything was right and it's sounding really good.. I also moved my rear 8 inch powered sub more into the rear center position, and straightend out my 10 inch yamaha powered sub up in the front left corner and wow it's getting better.. Once again guys THANKS FOR THE ADVICE .. Big improvement


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## the_diyr

When I set the speaker distances from a center rear spot in the back of the room I am 13 ft away from the fronts I am 13 feet away from the center I am 13.5 feet away from the front sub Now it gets tricky . (my recliner is only 3 feet away from the right surround and 5 feet away from the right rear surround but I am 12 feet away from the left surround and 10 feet away from the left rear surround ) Now My Wifes recliner is the same way with right and left surround and rear surround .) So I just set both of them as though we were sitting in the center of the room..) Sounds Ok but I cant here the surrounds very good... My speaker levels are all set to 10 ( Highest setting ) ????


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## eugovector

the_diyr said:


> When I set the speaker distances from a center rear spot in the back of the room I am 13 ft away from the fronts I am 13 feet away from the center I am 13.5 feet away from the front sub Now it gets tricky . (my recliner is only 3 feet away from the right surround and 5 feet away from the right rear surround but I am 12 feet away from the left surround and 10 feet away from the left rear surround ) Now My Wifes recliner is the same way with right and left surround and rear surround .) So I just set both of them as though we were sitting in the center of the room..) Sounds Ok but I cant here the surrounds very good... My speaker levels are all set to 10 ( Highest setting ) ????


Are you using a sound level meter to set the levels?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## the_diyr

I could .. I did it mostly by ear but I can borrow one .. I have a good buddy of mine that should have one from back in the day when he was building his home theater room.. I will call and see if he has one.. I did find out that someone had gone into my speaker set up and had changed my front speakers to small,and my surrounds to large .. So I switched that back and it made a big difference.. My wife loves to push all them pretty buttons...


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## the_diyr

Found the problem the front fishers were playing really loud when I did the volume sweep this is due to the crossovers in these speakers being totally screwed up .. I have new crossovers coming for these so that problem will be solved.. So for now I had to drop the level on the front L,R - 3db.. Or on 7 instead of 10 according to the pioneer vsx-516.. On another note I couldn't get my wife to be quiet long enough to use the extech type 2 meter that I just borrowed.. So I am going to wait until Football comes on and give it a shot .. My wife gets real quiet when football is on


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## eugovector

You should start all the levels at 0, do a run with a meter (the only way to do it accurately), and then adjust everything around the speaker whose output falls in the middle of the output range. Turn up our main volume until that speaker measures 85dB (if that's too loud to get away with, do 75dB instead, or send the family outside for a while) and remeasure and adjust. In other words, if you're measurements look like this, make these adjustments:

L = 82 = +3
C = 85 = 0
R = 82 = +3
Rs = 87 = -2
Rb = 84 = +1
Lb = 84 = +1
Ls = 87 = -2

In the end, you should have one or more speakers at 0, and a few minus a few dBs, and a few plus a few dBs.


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## the_diyr

Worked on it and everything is pretty close my center is a little higher and Left and Right are alittle lower .. Others about the same as you predicted.. Nice sound .. My wife is even impressed.. I got in trouble for picking an old 4:3 60 RPTV for free off of craiglist today though.. Coolant fluid had leaked all over the boards but I did manage to salvage a nice 60" 4:3 frenel lens ( SCREEN ) It was a Mistabitsy VS-60603


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## the_diyr

I built some real nice metal stands for my front fisher st-828's yesterday they are made form old metal chairs it lifts them up about 16 inches and gets them where the mids and tweets are just at listening level instead of them sitting on the floor.. also I am debating on moving all of my A/V equipment over to a shelf next to my recliner this way it will take all of the A/V equipment off of the top of the speakers and away from the veiwing area . I guess the bad thing about doing this is having to run a 30 foot HDMI cable as well as a couple of 30 foot long compnent video cables I will have to work on this idea. Also since my Reciever has no HDMI just 1 HDMI on the TV itself I was thinking about running one long HDMI cable and then buying a HDMI splitter unit where it will give me about 3 more HDMI ports .. This is going to be a all day job ..


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## tonyvdb

Glad to see things working good for you John, Enjoy your system.


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## the_diyr

Thanks Tony... Hey I looked at your webpage .. I noticed you have a WII , I bought my daughter one last year for Christmas.. Talk about fun and a workout all at the same time .. We played boxing for hours until my arm was about to fall off.. I really Like the older stereo rack unit .. Nice work..


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## tonyvdb

Yes, the wii is huge fun even though the graphics are not as good as the PS3 or 360 its far more enjoyable. I recently hooked it up the the screen in our basement and played Mario cart with the kids. just simply fun family entertainment!


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## the_diyr

Here are a few pics.. I am currently working on a metal stand for my equipment to get it off of the speakers also I put both my subs up front . the one on the left is a 10 inch yamaha 100 watt and the one on the right is a 75 watt altec.. Also I am using a screwy center channel config until my surrounds come in for my infintiy RSVIDEO..


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## the_diyr

Hook Ups today .. Still waiting on my new surrounds for the rsvideo and waiting on my crossovers
[img=http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1933/gotitallhookeduplikeso.th.jpg]


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## tcarcio

I saw the pic of the sub box. What was the internal volume of that box and what driver did you use? Do you have a build thread for that anywhere? OK, enough questions. Your set up looks nice, glad to see you dialing it in and enjoying it.:T


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## the_diyr

The left sub is a yamaha 10 inch powered sub that I bought 2 years ago on sale for about 100.00 the floor firing sub box is an altec lansin that I picked up at goodwill for $2.00 .. The 8 inch sub was in great shap but the amp was blown so I had a amp from a realistic sub that I put in it . It is 75 watt so I set both sub to about the same volume,, I still have a ton of work to do .. Build better speaker stands , new Mids and tweets for the Fisher Speakers , Build a Rack for my equipment.. Just a never ending story.. Thanks for the comp...


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## tcarcio

Sorry , my bad. In that link you posted if you scroll down there is a sub box that I realize now is someone elses.:doh:


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## the_diyr

[img=http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/407/omgk.jpg]

A little more of what I am doing.. I never can get surround sound out of my computer .. but the stereo sound sounds a lot better .. Plus with my sound card I can use a program that came with it to set the room sounds up.

Also my graphics card was hooked to the tv with s video from the graphics card for a while and picture quality sucked but then I got a HDMI to DVI cable and the picture quality is much better .. Probably going to buy a pci-e ( HD graphics card with HDMI out ) 69.00 on ebay for a 512mb card


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## the_diyr

Ok i am putting this here because it is driving me mad.. When I play a non digital audio source, or an album my pioneer 7.1 system has so much bass it drives me nuts.. Also the fac t that my wife is into old movies that are not surround and not HD.. and the sound is awful... But surround sound sounds great for 5.1 movies.. Do I have to constantly change settings on the pioneer everytime my wife bust out into watching old movies and countless hours of joyce meyer and other nut female preachers ... They all sind awful in stereo... So I tried hooking up the red and white rca as well as the optical as well as the HDMI.. It does sound a liitle better but I think the A/V reciever is having a problem trying to decode older movies and audio formats .. Then again at 43 years old I may be going deaf.


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## eugovector

I have to think it's related to how your AVR is handling the LFE or lack thereof. Is the excess bass coming from your mains, sub, or both?


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## the_diyr

Coming mainly from the sub .. I turned the subwoofer to 80hz instead of 100hz .. I may have been getting a little subwoofer distortion.. I am going to go thru it again with the spl meter again tommorrow.. I may just have to adjust it a little to get a happy medium between the digital audio and the analog audio...


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## eugovector

If your AVR is set to send LFE to both the sub and mains, you might make sure that is properly attenuated or off all together. Let us know what you find out with the SPL meter.


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## the_diyr

Well it is time to save up money .. The Fisher's are not cutting the mustard.. I guess I will try a full range build for the front .. I got everything set right again and it sounds OK but not just like I want it.. So Give me a week and I will start my full range build .. I found some nice 1x6 oak planks on craiglist so I my go pick some up.. I am thinking about using a 5.25 driver.. ???


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