# seating position in room size



## BIGFISH1 (Nov 29, 2010)

hi guy's,

I have a room in studs for a theatre. the size is 13' wide X 17' long. I have a 120" screen and would like two rows of seating due to size of my family. I have been told i can only go with 5.1 sound due to the rear row having to be located right at the back wall in order to have the first row at 11feet from the screen which is alittle close. the money seat would be at the back wall. 
Which do you think would be better, the above idea,or put a smaller chair style seating in the back row on a 8" high and 48"s deep riser and put the money seats at 14 feet from the screen. this way i could do 7.1 sound. the back seating would not be perfect sound but the front would be better.
any idea's of what i should do, i am wanting to get building the room and are starting to think it was less stress building the house than this room!

thanks in advance

paul.


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## bpape (Sep 14, 2006)

To be 100% honest, you need a smaller screen. That's an awful lot for a 13x17 room and you're seeing the results - which are the screen size driving suboptimal seating locations.

Bryan


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## BIGFISH1 (Nov 29, 2010)

i was given the screen new in a box and was trying to use it, but you are correct tht I simply need to go down to smaller size. I feel i should build the room and use the screen that suits the seating position instead of trying to work around the screen.
Would you have an idea of the screen size that would suit my needs?

thanks again

paul.


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## bpape (Sep 14, 2006)

That depends on a few things:

- Your preference as to how close to sit when in a movie theater
- Resolution of your projector
- Tolerance of speakers to be close to boundaries

THX minimum is 36 degrees included viewing angle.

Optimal front row seating position is usually between 62 and 66% of the room length from front wall to seated head position.

Bryan


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## MatrixDweller (Jul 24, 2007)

I suppose you can't rotate the axis of the room and have the screen on the 17' wall and have one big row of seats sitting 11' back with 2' behind you? That might accommodate 7.1 but there would still be a sweet spot in the center seat(s).


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## sga2 (Nov 14, 2009)

Do you have a projector yet? I'd suggest you project onto the screen you have and play with different sizes to see what suits your taste. You might find you love the 120" image even though it is larger than conventional wisdom would dictate.

We have a 130" diagonal 2.35:1 screen with the "money seat" at 10ft from the screen. Yeah, it's big. But it is only a problem with substandard video quality (anything standard definition and unfortunately even some BluRay) for which I just zoom in to smaller effective screen size when needed. None of us (me, wife, son, friends) have complained about the size being too big. In fact, before I selected the screen size, I asked my wife and son to sit down at the "money seat" and tested different image sizes (projected onto white primered wall) with clips from LOTR. We tried sizes ranging from ~100" to the widest I could zoom out (~140" I think). All 3 of us like the 120-130" range for 2.35:1 format movies. When we watch 16:9 material, we zoom in to fit the screen height which gives us an effective ~103" screen.

Regards,
sga2


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