How do you set up your 5.1?

Unromantic__Me · 29 Jun 2006 at 12:48

Like many of you im sure...My desk is situated in the corner of my room, against a wall....this creates a problem with surround sound in that, because my room is fairly large, it would mean my too back speakers woulod have to be situated....right in the middle of my floor...on stands, not convenient to say the least...but with all this in mind, I really do want a set up that can at least attempt to make the most of the 5.1.....

So how do you guys gets around this problem...any pictures of your set up to get around this would be awesome too

pinkacidbootson · 29 Jun 2006 at 12:57

I have all 3 front speakers on the desk. The surround speakers are both next to my chair, 1 foot away from the sides of the chair. They are about 6 inches from the edge of the desk (both speakers are on tall speaker stands, at the same level as my head when sitting down).

squiffy · 29 Jun 2006 at 13:28

7.1 proper Home Theatre system, floorstanders left and right, wall mounted dipole side speakers, bipole wall mounted rears, vertical tube subwoofer. Going to have to sort out centre speaker positioning somehow (75cm wide, 11kg!) can't fit that onto a LCD TV.

Can't you just buy a reel of speaker cable for the rear speakers?

jbloggs · 29 Jun 2006 at 14:04

Unromantic__Me:

I have a set of Logitech Z680 5:1 speakers, as the room that my computer is in is only 10 X 10 feet, I have the 4 satellite and front middle speaker all wall mounted (using the brackets that came with them at around head level when sitting), and the subwoofer 1 foot out from the wall. All speakers are connected to the amp by good quality speaker cable. I have found that this set up give a very good surround sound experience.

Unfortunately with the size of your room I don't have any suggestions as how to get the speakers situated so you get the best from surround sound.

Unromantic__Me · 29 Jun 2006 at 18:45

jbloggs said:
Unromantic__Me:

I have a set of Logitech Z680 5:1 speakers, as the room that my computer is in is only 10 X 10 feet, I have the 4 satellite and front middle speaker all wall mounted (using the brackets that came with them at around head level when sitting), and the subwoofer 1 foot out from the wall. All speakers are connected to the amp by good quality speaker cable. I have found that this set up give a very good surround sound experience.

Unfortunately with the size of your room I don't have any suggestions as how to get the speakers situated so you get the best from surround sound.

Its not very often I want a smaller room, but this is one of those times...wall mounted z680s sound dreamy...I cant move my desk either as its all wall mounted...the only other option is some surround sound headphones...but not really what I want to resort to

Minstadave · 29 Jun 2006 at 22:59

I'm pretty cramped space wise so currently have my front and rears speakers on the respective corners of my desk, meaning my rear speakers are actually to the sides of me, not ideal, but still pretty immersive.

Shakey_Jake33 · 30 Jun 2006 at 07:28

My setup is in my bedroom, so I re-arranged the room so that my bed is directly behind me, so I had something to attack the 2 rear satallites to. Something similar might be an idea, re-arranging things so you have something behind you to attach the speakers to, maybe turning your desk around so your back is to the wall, and attach them to the wall.
Failing that, use tripods, though they get in the way.

Real problem for me is the sub. I have the Z-5500's, and you probably know how big the sub is.... I can't really put it on the floor, I'm pushing my luck as it is, my neighbours are being really tolerant of me, any more vibrations would be taking the mick a bit.... so I have to have it on the desk. Takes up half my desk, means my second monitor can only be so big (got a 26" 16:6 screen and a 19" 5:4.... would like the latter to be a 30" 16:10 but just have no room because of the sub).
On top of that, the sub comes with a paranoia-inducing warning that stuff must be 2 foot from the sub because of the magnets!

Unromantic__Me · 30 Jun 2006 at 12:30

Shakey_Jake33 said:
My setup is in my bedroom, so I re-arranged the room so that my bed is directly behind me, so I had something to attack the 2 rear satallites to. Something similar might be an idea, re-arranging things so you have something behind you to attach the speakers to, maybe turning your desk around so your back is to the wall, and attach them to the wall.
Failing that, use tripods, though they get in the way.

Real problem for me is the sub. I have the Z-5500's, and you probably know how big the sub is.... I can't really put it on the floor, I'm pushing my luck as it is, my neighbours are being really tolerant of me, any more vibrations would be taking the mick a bit.... so I have to have it on the desk. Takes up half my desk, means my second monitor can only be so big (got a 26" 16:6 screen and a 19" 5:4.... would like the latter to be a 30" 16:10 but just have no room because of the sub).
On top of that, the sub comes with a paranoia-inducing warning that stuff must be 2 foot from the sub because of the magnets!

I know what you mean with neighbours and placement of the sub, mine is on the desk too...I did quite a lot of reading on the 2 foot away magnet thing, and the overal opinion seemed to be not to worry, Ill try dig up some of the googling I did on it for you, try and ease your mind a lil

As for the moving of my room, I would do, if my desk wasnt wall mounting, I had it custom made...I should have thought of that before buying the 5.1s really, is my own fault

Mr Jones · 30 Jun 2006 at 14:50

I've got a Corner workstation, so it's a bum trying to set a 5.1 system "properly" especially when I've got a window on my left, so can't stick speakers on the wall.

I set it as:

Front left:Centre:Front Right above my monitor.

The Rear left and right is on either side of my workstation.

Shakey_Jake33 · 30 Jun 2006 at 18:58

Unromantic__Me said:
I know what you mean with neighbours and placement of the sub, mine is on the desk too...I did quite a lot of reading on the 2 foot away magnet thing, and the overal opinion seemed to be not to worry, Ill try dig up some of the googling I did on it for you, try and ease your mind a lil

As for the moving of my room, I would do, if my desk wasnt wall mounting, I had it custom made...I should have thought of that before buying the 5.1s really, is my own fault

Well one of my HDD's in my machine is dying... it's probably nothing to do with the sub, it's a 4 year old WD 40GB drive and it's the oldest drive in my machine, so it's probably just on it's way out (all my other HDD's work fine)... but y'know... first thing I thought about was the sub. I have my 26" widescreen LCD HDTV right next to the sub and it works fine, so it can;t be THAT bad.

As for the latter... I know what you mean mate, I wanted 5.1 so bad I bought the gear and thought about the rest later! That said, it's well worth it when couple these up with the X-Fi.