speaker placement and seating arrangements for four speakers

Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

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Hey everyone,
I'm experimenting with different speaker setups in my living room (which is of average size..probably about 14'x14') Recently I've been using two pairs of speakers at the same time--a pair of Polk R50s, and a pair of Realistic Minimus 7s for side "surrounds" (even though it's not "true" surround sound, I figured I'd try it out and see how it sounded). Both pairs of speakers are being powered by a Sansui 5000, and it does a fine job driving all four speakers. Anyway, I have the R50s placed about 10 feet in front of the couch, with about 10 feet of space between them, and they're facing directly towards the couch. I have the Minimus 7s on either side of the couch, about 6 inches away from either edge of the couch, and at about ear level, slightly behind the listener's head, and aimed towards the listener's ear(I would put them further apart, but there's no room with the current room configuration).
Here's my issue: when you sit directly in the middle of the couch (and I mean right in the middle--so that you're at a perfectly equal distance from both of the Minimus 7s, and from both of the R50s), the whole setup sounds pretty good both with music and with movies--everything works in harmony, the sound is rich and balanced, and I like it. Unfortunately, if you move to the left or the right on the couch even a little bit, whichever one of the Minimus 7s you're closer to becomes dominant and tends to drown out the other one, so it sounds like all of the sound is coming from the speaker you're closest to. Is there any way to deal with this, so that you can sit at various positions on the couch and still feel like sound is coming equally from all directions? I've been thinking of building some stands for the Minimus 7s, but I wanted some input from all of you before I do. Obviously I'm aware of the fact that because of the receiver and speakers, this setup isn't really surround sound, but I'm just interested in experimenting and making the most of the equipment I already have. Thanks for the feedback!

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Topic - speaker placement and seating arrangements for four speakers - vega33 20:00:38 02/21/07 (1)

If I can't maybe Wendy can - Flyingsod 18:27:16 02/22/07 (0)

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