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How high the rears?

What's the current thinking about mounting rear speakers? Near the ceiling, above ear level, at ear level. Our media room is 14' X 19'. The LR speakers are about 8' apart and 4' from the wall behind them. We sit pretty much at the apex of the equalateral triangle. I'm thinking the rears might be spaced about 6-7' apart.

My wife likes the looks of the ultra thin KEF T301s and I find their sound clean and open, so that's what we're getting. The tweeter will not match the T33 tweeters of the five KEF Reference speakers, but I assume matched voicing is not as important for the rear speakers.

db
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meiwan
399 posts
 
I believe 6 feet off the floor is about right. You're right, voice matching for rears is not that important. Even with DD and DTS rears still mainly serve as sound effects speakers.

Ideally, the rears are placed further apart than the main LR speakers. I've got my mains about 8 feet apart in a 15X13 room, with the rears in the back corners (so 14' apart), about 6 feet up, angled in 45 degrees. With the sofa on the rear wall, that keeps the rears well away from our ears, allowing for good ambient sound.
audiofreakgeek
115 posts
 

Sorry John but Toni Grimmani and Lucas Sound disagree!

The rears should always be placed close to the ceiling and never at the ear level. Rears are supposed to be diffusive even in a direct radiating system. The idea of surround sound is to mimic what you hear in reality, as you move further and further away from a sound source you loose exact placement and instead hear the sound as emanating from a destination location. Most surround sound effects are trying to duplicate spacial cues to mimic the reverb times of large spaces to pull you into the movie, or to recreate pans from side to side or front to back.

If you can pin point where the sound is coming from you are defeating the concept. Direction not location is what we are aiming for. In fact most professional theater designer still prefer di-poles radiators for the side locations whenever possible.
zmanastronomy's avatar
zmanastronomy
738 posts
 
I guess you learn something every day.
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dbphd OP
1,616 posts
 
Chad,

I just measured the distance from our ears to the rear wall, and it's about 80".

db
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
Db,
I would still place ot high on wall but thats just me (well me audiofreakgeek) :)
Vocal and mains you want to hear it ofcourse anchored in its proper place relative to your ears as its intended to be directional and easy to hear the steering of the sound.
But surrounds are material driven in a way that it works best where its above and not near the ears........like life itself IMO. There are no "right" answers as rooms and personal taste often make the choice for you but there you have my take on it all,,,,,,,,,,,I just happen to be right lol.
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