CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Rattanee · Joined: 18 Jan 2015 Posts: 193

Hey guys,

I'm finally getting around to getting my theater watchable, and am now trying to decide on speaker placement. I don't plan on anything fancy, just a good old fashioned 5.1 setup. Now I have the left, right and the rear left and right placed properly, however I am having trouble with placing the center speaker.
I have limited room, so acoustically transparent screens are out of the question. My problem is the fact that I have a low ceiling, and am pretty much using the entire height of the wall for the screen. I have been considering different options, and found that I would either like to place the center speaker on the floor, at some distance from the screen so that the entire screen remains obstruction free, or, I could ceiling mount the center speaker pretty close to the projector so that it stays out of the way of the emitted light. Both options would end up with the center not being in-line with the two front speakers, and displaced up or down. I am thinking that either solution would work well with adequate volume differences to compensate for the difference in distance, but would like to have some input from more experienced folks.

Also, is there a decent audio decoder around that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and can do all the current mainstream formats both via coax and optical ?

Thanks for any help in advance guys!

draganm · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 8990 Location: Colorado

assume your using a big square 4"3 screen? can you post a pic?

One thing that made huge difference for me was angling the CC. Even though my screen is 16:9 widescreen, and the speaker is well up off the floor on a custom built stand, re-building the stand with the CC pointed up towards the listening position( approx. 10 degree angle), made a huge difference for both the front and back rows.