Speaker placement

Hi!

Given that a majority of the AV receivers today come with 7.1 surround sound, what would be alternate ways of placing speakers in a common 'living room' , which may not allow you to place teh LR surrounds to the left/right of the listening point ? and stands are not an option ?

a) Can i mount the LR surrounds *and* the LR back surrounds together, angled away to simulate a bipolar speaker ?

b) Has anyone used the front 'presence' speakers ? How much of a difference do they make ?

c) Advantages of toe-ing in a speaker vs front firing.

Hi,

If as you its not an option then its not compulsory to have an 7.1 set-up as there's no actual 7.1 software available (Absoutly no in DVD ),even the New formats like Blue-Ray has had how many true 7.1 releases ?? so you can skip all the extra exercise that you've mentioned !!

As with the Front presence speakers goes,Not many manufacturers support this feature,The most prominent being YAMAHA.The advantages are very very limited as its only supposed enhance the front ambiance ( To what extent ?? god knows) I've heard the YAMAHA's with this kind of set-up for movies its some what ok but music its a BIG NO NO (atleast to me) !!

The advantages of the towing in is actually dependent on various factors ! for Ex. if the listening position is low with respect to the tweeter height then towing in might help you perceive better treble and very slight overall sound ! but the same if the seating is already to the same height then towing in might take away the said enhancement !! If its a rear ported towers then its even more worse,as when you tow in the front the back goes down and the ports come very close to ground and may cause unwanted problems !!


Regards.

This is very dependant on speaker design and room interactions. Most benefit from toe-in, some don't. This is something you have to experiment with. Generally, IMO, toe-in makes the sound more accurate with a more precise image but at the cost of soundstage and depth.
Start with your speakers toed-in such that if you were to draw a line outwards from the tweeters, the lines would converge about 3' behind your listening position and then play around with it.

with a center speaker..the slassical setup is Toed in such that all three speakers form a 110 degree arc to the listening position.

each speaker is different and that depends on its characteristics at axis (center of the drivers) vs the off axis reponse. some recommend an angle.

But most HT speakers can be taken as best at Axis hence toed in to point.