Thread: Noob alert - time to buy real equipment.

So I have a concern. I read a lot of setup how-to's saying that the front surround speakers should all be at about ear level, and the rear speakers should be a few feet above (ideally).

Well if I put my speakers where the boxes are at in the ceiling, all 4 surround speakers are going to be 8 feet off the ground or so. My center will sit on a shelf right below my TV, probably about chest level to someone sitting and watching TV. Am I overthinking it, or don't worry about it?

Probably get some pics up this weekend before/after my first step.

Originally Posted by meStevo

So I have a concern. I read a lot of setup how-to's saying that the front surround speakers should all be at about ear level, and the rear speakers should be a few feet above (ideally).

Well if I put my speakers where the boxes are at in the ceiling, all 4 surround speakers are going to be 8 feet off the ground or so. My center will sit on a shelf right below my TV, probably about chest level to someone sitting and watching TV. Am I overthinking it, or don't worry about it?

Probably get some pics up this weekend before/after my first step.

When you say "all 4 surround", do you mean the surrounds and the front main speakers? If that is the case, you will notice a significant dip in the soundstage when something pans across the left-center-right. If the front mains need to be high, it would be better to place the center speaker above the TV if possible.

Well I was planning on 5.1, not 7.1, so I'd have 4 speakers (2 front, 2 back) on the ceiling where the prewiring is, and then the center in front of the TV like we had at our old house which worked well in a slightly smaller non-tile room, which makes a difference im sure. I'll take a couple pictures tonight/tomorrow and post them, I wonder if I'd be better off getting a couple of standing speakers for the front two? From diagrams I've seen though the location of the front 2 surround speakers is way too forward for 7.1 though.

You'd recommend I at least get a bracket and put the speaker on the wall behind the TV though right (yellow on attached professional-quality sketch)? My concern there is it would need to be well above the viewers head or most of the sound is going to just hit the back of the TV in the media nook thing and cause other undesired effects. The TV could be moved back a little on it's stand, but it's still got a foot+ of clearance.

I could explore mounting it on the wall if I got a receiver with the appropriate connections and was able to eliminate so much going to the TV. In a month or two we'll have our homeowners stimulus thingy... I could probably even swing buying a newer HDMI 360 so that the VGA one can be moved elsewhere.

Anyways, I'm still learning, as soon as this weekend I'll have a center and the L/R speakers connected to what you see in the diagram. The sub is sitting in the bottom of the component box, forgot to add it.

Here's my actual living room, though now that I look at it I could have cleaned a little before my photo

Note how far off to the right the front right spot is. Center will go where a stack of 360 games currently sits, or in front of the TV on the lip there if it wont obstruct/look ugly sitting there.

Depending on how things go this weekend with getting 3 speakers and the sub setup, it could lead me to rethinking the whole media nook area and mounting the TV on the wall and have the components below it or something.

If I was doing it, I would not use the ceiling mounts for the front, but would place them to the sides of the screen. It looks like you have room to place them on top of the media rack and to the right of the screen.

I'll let others weigh in on this, but IMHO, you would be happier by going lower.

That wouldn't be hard to do, I already have stands I used for my rear speakers in my last house (around here... somewhere.... still unpacking...).

Would also solve the problem of the right front speaker being way off to the right.

So I finally opened the prewired wall thingy behind the TV, and there are the 4 yellow cables that serve as conduit basically for the prewired speaker slots in the ceiling, but there's also a gray cable with like 5 colors wires in it. I don't even see any other place this comes out, kinda odd. Guess it could be a phone wire? But then I'd need to create another jack if I were to use it, no matter what it is.

Just odd and didnt expect to see it.

Originally Posted by meStevo

So I finally opened the prewired wall thingy behind the TV, and there are the 4 yellow cables that serve as conduit basically for the prewired speaker slots in the ceiling, but there's also a gray cable with like 5 colors wires in it. I don't even see any other place this comes out, kinda odd. Guess it could be a phone wire? But then I'd need to create another jack if I were to use it, no matter what it is.

Just odd and didnt expect to see it.

Older phone lines are usually solid red, green, yellow and black, IIRC. Newer lines are striped. I have no idea what four yellows and a gray could be. What gauge wire is it? Is it like phone wire or more like speaker wire?

Originally Posted by meStevo

So I finally opened the prewired wall thingy behind the TV, and there are the 4 yellow cables that serve as conduit basically for the prewired speaker slots in the ceiling, but there's also a gray cable with like 5 colors wires in it. I don't even see any other place this comes out, kinda odd. Guess it could be a phone wire? But then I'd need to create another jack if I were to use it, no matter what it is.

Just odd and didnt expect to see it.

Originally Posted by raoul5788

Older phone lines are usually solid red, green, yellow and black, IIRC. Newer lines are striped. I have no idea what four yellows and a gray could be. What gauge wire is it? Is it like phone wire or more like speaker wire?

No, he said the odd one had 5 colored wires. 4 wires would be phone, as Raoul said. 4 twisted pairs or 8 wires for the typical RJ-45 data line. 5 wires could be an RS-232 run, or it could be phone with a shield.