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I am trying to put together my first system of any sort (stereo/HT). After a couple of posts in the general asylum, I have decided to separate stereo and HT.I am looking at bookshelf or smaller speakers based on my room characteristics.
My room is 24x12x10 (actually includes both kitchen and family room with no dividing wall). My listening/viewing would be in the family portion of the room which essentially is 12x12x10 with no wall on one side.
I have a problem with the front speaker placement. Based on several speaker placement theories, the best option seems to be stand mounted monitors in front. But I have a young dog and kids who are likely to topple the speakers. My only other option would be to mount the speakers on the ceiling.
Is the ceiling placement even worth considering? I am not looking at spending more than $1.5K for the 5.1 speaker set as I will have a separate stereo system for dedicated music listening. My priorities with this system are background listening, filling the room with diffuse sound.
Should I even consider going the mini-monitor route (paradigm atoms, B&W 302s, etc.) or is a 5.1 package (Def Tech 100.6, Polk RM7500, B&W LM-1 set etc.) the best option?
Follow Ups:
I have a similar layout at my house with the kitchen extending into the family room. With kids and a dog I would wall mount all four speakers. If you bolt steel stands down you will probably pay more for stitches and vet bills than your speakers cost.
In the price range you are talking about, putting them out on stands isn't going to make your wife notice the difference one bit.You must have a wall in the front that you can mount the bookshelfs/mini monitors on. Even brick can be drilled into relatively easily. Check out the mounts at pinpoint-mktg.com several can be directed a full 180 degrees and up to 20 degrees down. You can paint any mounts that are not available in white with your house wall touch up paint to match your walls. Speakers under 10lbs don't need stud mounting and can go right into drywall. Anything above that you are pushing it.
You can even shop a little on white speakers for the front (Polk makes some) others too. You can then either use dipoles on the side walls at the side/rear of listening area (they come with wall mounts)as they are designed for. They don't have to be directed at the listening area to be effective. Most available in white. Dipoles will give you a better difuse sound. Or use whatever direct bookshelf speakers you want mounted on the side walls a few feet rear of the listening area with wall mounts directed in and down towards the listening area.
If you want some bang in the system hide an inexpensive subwoofer someplace.
One bit of advise in all this is pull your carpet up from the walls and lay your wiring for everything down with masking tape between the pad and the tack strip (cut it 1/2" with utility knife if you have to) and pay someone $50 or $75 to kick the carpet back into place and run the (white) wire up the wall. Radioshack has 16 gauge wire for the rears in white to run up the walls to the rear speakers. For the fronts if you want heavier wire paint it. They wanted a fortune to run the wires thru the walls at my house.This is very meat and potatoes do it yourself. If you can afford a professional anyplace in this please use one.
RobWall mounting is going to be very difficult as there is not much of rear wall space to mount them. I have a TV nook on one side (with no wall above it) and I have a fireplace with tile surrounding it on the right. The only strip of wall (8" wide x 5ft across) is above the TV nook on the left. If I wall mount the speakers, the speakers will not be aligned.
The other option may be to mount the left speaker on top of the TV nook extending forward and the right speaker above the tile. This will get the speakers aligned with good separation. But with this, the tweeter height will be above my listening position.
This setup may look like this (L1 R1 being the speakers )-<------- open space -5ft-------> | <--------- wall 5ft---------| |
| | |
_L1____________________________|____________R1______________| shelves | | | |
| wall | | 2ft |
| ____________________________| <---------- Tile ----------> | |
| | |
| | TV nook |
| |
| |
| |Is there any way to accomplish the wall mounting in this situation?
.... are you sure it is best to go for different systems? If you want first class audio for CDs etc surely you want top audio on DVD etc? With 6 channel audio around the corner I'd look to build the one good system. It can be done.Either way, it sounds like wall mounted mini monitors + sub would suit you best. I'd forget about ceiling units, you need the main stereo pair directed to the listening position be it audio only or HT.
John
Hi John..One of the main reasons I decided to go with 2 systems was that my family room (where the HT will be) is not the most optimum for speaker placement. Secondly, my wife is more likely to watch TV than I am, so it made perfect sense to move my music listening to another room.
So out of my $10K budget, Id' like to get something with $2.5K (for speakers/receiver/DVD) for the HT and spend the rest slowly on the stereo.
I agree that mini-monitors is the way to go, but it is going to be very difficult to wall mount them as there is not much of rear wall space to mount them. I have a TV nook on one side (with no wall above it) and I have a fireplace with tile surrounding it on the right with no place to mount the right speaker. This is the reason I was looking at small satellites.
I am not sure of the various wall-mounts available which look asthetically pleasing as well. Don't the wall mount require to be mounted on wall studs? That is a big problem with my rear wall.
Have you thought of suspending mini monitors by fine wires from the ceiling? If the speakers did not go very low in the spectrum then the free standing nature should not be such a problem. You would then be free to place the sub in a position where it gave the most satisfying bass.Aesthetically however this might be difficult to achieve with wires hanging down to them, which all leads back to your earlier idea of putting them up on stands - probably the best option. I suggest you try a stand made up from a hollow pipe which allows the wires to be threaded up inside out of the way of mischievious small hands. The base could be a flat piece of iron, screwed to the floor to prevent the stand being tipped over. Painted up black (or appropriate colour to match the decor) it could be reasonaly attractive. If you go ahead with this idea I suggest you make the top part easily removable so you can fit different platforms should you decide to later change speakers. Such a stand should not be too expensive or difficult to fabricate. Your wife might enjoy the process of helping you design it.
Let us know your final solution.
John
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