# Surround Speaker Type and Placement



## HTB2015 (Nov 24, 2010)

Two small questions guys. 

1) I am building a set of TriTrix (L/C/R) speakers with my BIL. For cosmetic reasons they want in-wall surrounds. Hence the question, can anyone suggest a good in-wall surround speaker (just rear left and right)? Preferably ones that compliment the Tritrix TLs, but I know that the surrounds don't necessarily have to match perfectly so any suggestions would be appreciated.

2) Placement. the wall to the right of the seating is only a little longer than 13 inches. Any ideas? I assume they would not do well on the wall behind the seating...


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## dougc (Dec 19, 2009)

I would use the ones that match, the Tritrx MT, (link).

The walls to the side would be my choice of placement


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## HTB2015 (Nov 24, 2010)

dougc said:


> I would use the ones that match, the Tritrx MT, (link). The walls to the side would be my choice of placement


Yes, those would definitely be my choice as well but as it stands we are limited to in wall speakers only.


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## eclipse911t (Jan 8, 2013)

I like these in walls. Bang for the buck and decent FQ response. 

http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-me825w-8-micro-edge-2-way-in-wall-speaker-pair--300-439

The room drawing however looks like you need in ceilings for sure, which is very unfortunate. 

If you can bring the couch forward 6-12" you may be able to get away with low in walls directly behind the couch.


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## HTB2015 (Nov 24, 2010)

eclipse911t said:


> I like these in walls. Bang for the buck and decent FQ response. http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-me825w-8-micro-edge-2-way-in-wall-speaker-pair--300-439 The room drawing however looks like you need in ceilings for sure, which is very unfortunate. If you can bring the couch forward 6-12" you may be able to get away with low in walls directly behind the couch.


Thanks for the suggestion. Ceilings would be very unfortunate...I wonder if it would be better to leave it 3.1 instead of having surrounds?


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## rambocommando (Aug 28, 2014)

Ideally for surrounds, You would want 5-6 feet behind the listening area, so if possible move the couch out away from the wall a little. 
Also, any bipole or dipole speaker is going to give you the best sound dispersion, which you will need for surrounds in such a tight space.


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## Phillips (Aug 12, 2011)

Just a note with the listenening position on the back wall you will generally have bass problems


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## HTB2015 (Nov 24, 2010)

rambocommando said:


> Ideally for surrounds, You would want 5-6 feet behind the listening area, so if possible move the couch out away from the wall a little. Also, any bipole or dipole speaker is going to give you the best sound dispersion, which you will need for surrounds in such a tight space.


when you say 'tight space' do you mean regarding the surround sound area or overall room size? Also, are dipole and bipole interchangeable or is one better than the other?


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## HTB2015 (Nov 24, 2010)

Phillips said:


> Just a note with the listenening position on the back wall you will generally have bass problems


Ok, I plan on starting a thread for the sub build so more on that in the DIY sub section...
thanks


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## rambocommando (Aug 28, 2014)

I was referring to the listening position relative to the surround placements. 

Here's an image with the surround placements, as you can see, the rears should be at a 150 degree angle from the center of the screen.

Bipole and Dipole are very similar, they have two sets of woofers/tweeters. The difference is that Bipole speakers, both sets are in phase (both sets of drivers are pushing/pulling at the same time) , and in Dipole the sets are out of phase (one side is pushing, the other is pulling). The result is that dipole speakers can give you better bass response, and they can give your more of a "surround" feeling as it will be more difficult for the listener to pinpoint where the sound is coming from. Bipole will have less bass response, but will be more "direct" sounding while still giving you that "surround" feeling. 

Also note that some surrounds will have a shared woofer, and separate tweeters, so that the bass/phase issue doesn't come into play. Something like the Klipsch R-5650-S II


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Something to keep in mind is that the 150 degree recommendation is for the rear surrounds in a 7.1 setup, with side surrounds at 90 degrees. In 5.1 you'd place them around 110 degrees. Roughly 6 feet off the floor, or around 3 feet above seated ear level. I would agree however that 5 or 6 feet behind in either setup is good. As mentioned above, bass near walls can be problematic. This is because basswaves are long and tend to collect at walls where they reflected back into the room. Fwiw, my preference is for direct radiators over bi/dipoles. I prefer the accuracy they offer, and they tend to be better for music. To me at least. ...just a couple cents!


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## HTB2015 (Nov 24, 2010)

willis7469 said:


> Something to keep in mind is that the 150 degree recommendation is for the rear surrounds in a 7.1 setup, with side surrounds at 90 degrees. In 5.1 you'd place them around 110 degrees. Roughly 6 feet off the floor, or around 3 feet above seated ear level. I would agree however that 5 or 6 feet behind in either setup is good. As mentioned above, bass near walls can be problematic. This is because basswaves are long and tend to collect at walls where they reflected back into the room. Fwiw, my preference is for direct radiators over bi/dipoles. I prefer the accuracy they offer, and they tend to be better for music. To me at least. ...just a couple cents!


Thanks for your two cents. It's helpful. I thought all speakers are supposed to be at ear level?


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Traditionally, you do want your LCR at ear height, and tweeters within about a foot vertically from each other. This usually coincides with the off screen horizontal plane of the display. This helps cohesion with sounds that pan from side to side off of the screens edges. Surround channels are largely used with ambient sounds, and is part of the reason bi/dipole speakers work for this. Having them up a little higher helps create a better sense of space. For example, in a rainstorm, or gymnasium setting, the height helps create a larger more realistic sense of space. With the rear speakers at ear height, the effect is lessened to a great degree, and the speakers usually make their positions known. That said, rear speakers up higher and angled right can also do pinpoint sounds, and intimate spaces as well as bigger ambient sound fields.


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## eclipse911t (Jan 8, 2013)

willis7469 said:


> Something to keep in mind is that the 150 degree recommendation is for the rear surrounds in a 7.1 setup, with side surrounds at 90 degrees. In 5.1 you'd place them around 110 degrees. Roughly 6 feet off the floor, or around 3 feet above seated ear level. I would agree however that 5 or 6 feet behind in either setup is good. As mentioned above, bass near walls can be problematic. This is because basswaves are long and tend to collect at walls where they reflected back into the room. Fwiw, my preference is for direct radiators over bi/dipoles. I prefer the accuracy they offer, and they tend to be better for music. To me at least. ...just a couple cents!


+1


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## HTB2015 (Nov 24, 2010)

willis7469 said:


> Traditionally, you do want your LCR at ear height, and tweeters within about a foot vertically from each other. This usually coincides with the off screen horizontal plane of the display. This helps cohesion with sounds that pan from side to side off of the screens edges. Surround channels are largely used with ambient sounds, and is part of the reason bi/dipole speakers work for this. Having them up a little higher helps create a better sense of space. For example, in a rainstorm, or gymnasium setting, the height helps create a larger more realistic sense of space. With the rear speakers at ear height, the effect is lessened to a great degree, and the speakers usually make their positions known. That said, rear speakers up higher and angled right can also do pinpoint sounds, and intimate spaces as well as bigger ambient sound fields.


Thanks, that makes sense. So traditionally it's no more than a foot...do you agree with 6' off the ground? Or should it be less? Or we could probably mess around with different heights before we install.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

HTB2015 said:


> Thanks, that makes sense. So traditionally it's no more than a foot...do you agree with 6' off the ground? Or should it be less? Or we could probably mess around with different heights before we install.


Yeah, the 1' thing is for the front 3 to build a solid soundstage. For the rears/surrounds, they have a different job, and carry (mostly) different content so they need to be placed differently. 6' is just a good place to start. I've found that the wider the room, the more height you would use.(to a point) Higher speakers in a narrow room(and mostly all in ceiling speakers), are easy to localize. In your BIL's space I can't really tell what's going on with rest of the space, and I don't remember seeing dimensions, so experimenting would be great, before they're mounted, and much more difficult to relocate if needs be. Fwiw, my room is 16' wide, and my tweeters are at 6' high,18" behind the couch/LP, and angled down, and forward. In my bedroom which is only 12' wide, the tweeters are about 5.5' off the floor, and I get about the same sound dispersion. I imagine it like from ear to speaker at LP being, say, 35 or 40 degrees, if you widen, or narrow the room, the speaker would follow the same 35 or 40 degree line, therefore raising or lowering it's height accordingly. I haven't seen that last bit printed anywhere, but I've found it to work pretty well.


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## Phillips (Aug 12, 2011)

HTB2015 said:


> Ok, I plan on starting a thread for the sub build so more on that in the DIY sub section...
> thanks


Bass covers from 0-250hz


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## eclipse911t (Jan 8, 2013)

Phillips said:


> Bass covers from 0-250hz


Right. AND the negative room interactions that will result in sitting to close to the rear wall will not be impacted by your subwoofer design.


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## HTB2015 (Nov 24, 2010)

eclipse911t said:


> Right. AND the negative room interactions that will result in sitting to close to the rear wall will not be impacted by your subwoofer design.


How much of a positive effect could I get with wall treatments? Or would it be a huge noticeable difference if we used room correction hardware like anthem?


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## eclipse911t (Jan 8, 2013)

Wall treatments need to be very thick to effect lower frequencies, so considering I'm suspecting you are thinking less than 6" thick when you say wall treatments, the answer is little to none. Get up to 12" and you have a pretty good fighting chance. However, even then you'd get better results moving the listening position away from the boundary.


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## HTB2015 (Nov 24, 2010)

eclipse911t said:


> Wall treatments need to be very thick to effect lower frequencies, so considering I'm suspecting you are thinking less than 6" thick when you say wall treatments, the answer is little to none. Get up to 12" and you have a pretty good fighting chance. However, even then you'd get better results moving the listening position away from the boundary.


Gotcha. We are decreasing the screen size to 110" so I think moving the seating off the wall is the best option.


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## rambocommando (Aug 28, 2014)

That's going to give you the best audio for sure. Also for bass management aka "bass traps", There are corner standing insulation solutions that can help with reducing the boomy-ness of your room, while not taking up a ton of usable space.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

+1 for bass traps
+1 for moving off the wall
Wall treatments are normally used for higher frequency absorption/diffusion. This helps to further solidify the soundstage. And corner traps are for bass(as stated above). Bass usually is best treated in corners because bass waves collect there the most due to the room boundaries present. Kind of like why placing a sub in a corner can give up to 12db(6db per boundary) (the floor doesn't count but will show 6db higher than quasi anechoic). This can introduce other issues however. 
Look at our fine sponsor GIK acoustics.


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## RTS100x5 (Sep 12, 2009)

These Polk's are very dynamic, great tweeter high end for smooth frequency response and a very flush to wall grill...about 1/8 th inch... I use them in most of my in wall designs and they sound fantastic ...

http://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-Rectangular-Performance-In-Wall/dp/B008SDTRIC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409827763&sr=8-1&keywords=polk+ls265


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