BlackPanther Posted August 20, 2009 Share Posted August 20, 2009 A topic a while back asking about making songs in surround sound brought up something about majority of people not having their surround sound systems properly set up. I'm curious to know what makes a surround sound system properly set up as I have one and I would like to know if mine is set up correctly lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoozer Posted August 20, 2009 Share Posted August 20, 2009 http://www.yamaha-europe.com/yamaha_europe/layoutarchiv/FeaturesPictures/20_proaudio/speakers/msp_studio_monitors/10_big.jpg shows a correct setup. Just make sure the speakers all have an equal distance from the cone to your ear. If a speaker is too close, its sound will be louder and the soundwaves will have less distance to travel - so the wavefront will hit your eardrums earlier than the rest of the speakers, which ruins the experience or causes weird effects. For instance, if the peak of a waveform at the left crosses with a dip on the right, the sound may cancel itself out. You can test this pretty well with low-frequency sinewaves. Also, make sure the cone of each satellite speaker is at ear level. The sub doesn't matter so much since we humans aren't great in determining the position of low frequencies. Some surround sets allow you to compensate for this by introducing a slight delay per speaker, in case your room is shaped wrong. Simply draw a floor plan of your room. Where exactly did you put the speakers? What shape does your room have? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rig1015 Posted August 25, 2009 Share Posted August 25, 2009 5.1, 6.1, 7.1? There is a catch to the concept "setting up you surround sound system." Are you fitting the speakers to the room or fitting the room to the speakers? Are they consumer level surround or full range near fields and a sub? I could go on with technical questions but that sucks. When studio mix down into 5.1, 6.1, 7.1, whatever; they are mixing for the theaters not for your house. Theaters have arrays to handle the surround sound (L Rear and R Rear) and are main mixed for even field saturation / no hot spots (the audience is a big area not one seat). So it really doesn't matter how you set your house up but the pros will tell you something like this: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackPanther Posted August 30, 2009 Author Share Posted August 30, 2009 I meant to respond sooner but school and work has been double teamin me . But here are a few pictures. I guess I'm fittin the speakers to the room. It's a sound system from Yamaha I'm not entirely sure if they're consumer grade or not it's actually my roommates system. But yeah there are the pictures and a crude diagram of a birds eye view of my setup and arrows showin which way the speakers are pointing. If that isn't a good setup, anyone got any ideas on how I could arrange those speakers to get a good sound? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rig1015 Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 That looks fine. Remember you're not building this system for In-Studio Work, it is for home, for personal enjoyment so 100% is not the goal... more like +80%. Looking at your map, you should have a decent field with that setup, and your hot spots are about where the listener is... are you placing speakers low, high, or at ear level (the best)? Also, depending on what sort of Dolby Decoder Receiver your system has, some of the more high end receivers can allow you to adjust the overall dB being emitted from each speaker. This can help if your satellites (rear speakers) are too loud and all your getting, when watching, is surround audio imagining and not the mains or dialogue. Hope your room shakes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackPanther Posted September 1, 2009 Author Share Posted September 1, 2009 The front ones are low on the base where the tv sits and the rear ones sit high on the wall a little behind us. And that center one is on top of the tv. I know what you're talkin about with the db settings and stuff I never tried it with this reciever though, guess I should find out lol. But if this setup is fine, guess I won't mess with it that much. Thanks for the help guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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