# Could use some help system planning



## troutspinner (Nov 8, 2013)

I have a 20' x 18' room with 9' ceilings in my basement and I am hoping you guys can point me in a direction to satisfy my audio wants. I currently have nothing, call it a blank canvas.

The room is my office (I work for myself) where I spend a ton of time. On one end of the room (the long side) is my sit/stand desk with my computer equipment and the opposing end is a wall mounted LED TV. What I would like to achieve is good sound for everyday listening while at the computer with the source coming from my computer or phone/ipad but also have the ability to use the solution with my TV for surround sound on the other side of the room. The final caveat is I would like to keep the speakers hidden if I can.

Would you just buy a typical home 5.1 receiver with bluetooth and maybe some wall or ceiling speakers and a powered sub? Would wall mounted locations sound better than ceiling or vice versa? I don't have a budget per se but I don't want to break the bank either so costs would be very conservative.

Thanks for any and all help.


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## Lycancatt (Apr 11, 2010)

denon makes great receivers and I'm a fan of the ahu subs and the veledynes..both of which can be bought used these days for pennies compared to new. in wall will sound way better than in ceiling and will give you a ton more flexibility. dynaudio makes nice inwall speakers but they aren't cheap..sadly I cant recommend any others because its been almost 10 years since I was really into home theater.

one thing I can suggest is, get a receiver that does 5.1 but also has a speakers a/b set of buttons on it so you can run two sets of front speakers. this way you can have one set on either side of the tv and another set much closer to the computer/desk area. this will allow you to turn on/off at will whichever set you are near, and keep the sound focused on you more of the time.


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## troutspinner (Nov 8, 2013)

Thanks. Good advice on the Denon, actually just found one on CL for a steal and the A/B switch. 

Anyone have opinion on the spacing of the speakers? Let's say I go both sides of the tv, the room is 18' wide, divide the room into thirds? So 6' from wall, 6' speaker to speaker and 6' to.opposing wall or should I space the speakers further? I suppose height would be dictated by the tv height?


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## grinkeeper (Jun 26, 2015)

I have read lots of amazing reviews about these servo subs and you can DIY kit buy.

Rythmik Audio • Servo subwoofer products


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## Lycancatt (Apr 11, 2010)

spacing would depend on if you plan to use a center channel most of the time or not. personally I'd be about 3 ft from each side wall and then have a center. would make the stage wider from the back especially.


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## Justin Zazzi (May 28, 2012)

Lycancatt's advice about having an A/B switch is wonderful. I have one with this ability and could see using it for just such a thing. This will likely be the most important feature and you should ask for a live demo to see how the switching works, what the range is if you're using bluetooth, etc.

If you're going for a 5.1 system, a home-theater-in-a-box could be a good performer but only if you're willing to spend more than $299 at your local big box store. It will also have speakers that will be 100% visible, as will their wiring. A THX Certified logo on whatever system you end up purchasing used to mean it was awesome, but now that THX has so many levels of mediocrity you might be getting something amazing and maybe just something decent.

A soundbar plus a subwoofer module will be much more pleasing to the eye, but it might not have the A/B functionality mentioned earlier. You might be able to run a connection from your computer to the sound bar through a long wire or over bluetooth etc to get that switching ability.

In-wall or in-ceiling speakers are certainly more "hidden" than other methods but are not ideal for any kind of video/tv/movie since the sound doesn't come from anywhere near the screen. They might be a great solution if you don't care about that so much.

To help you with placement, try putting the front left speaker at 25% of the distance from the left wall to the right wall, and the right channel at 25% the distance from the right wall to the left wall. So if your placing them along the 20' wall, that would be 5' from the left and right walls. This should get the most even bass distribution in the room based on some studies done by Floyd Toole and published in his book Psychoacoustics. You will have to experiment with the distance from the front wall (two feet or so is much better than flat against the wall) and the elevation (avoid exactly halfway between the floor the ceiling).

If you want to learn more about speaker placement for a surround sound system, check out the documents on either Dolby or THX websites. Last time I looked they had some really easy to read literature about how to get the best from what you have.


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## troutspinner (Nov 8, 2013)

Thank you for the responses. With reading what you guys wrote, here is what I am thinking.

Buy a 5.1 Surround Sound Processor with Bluetooth and A/B Switching capabilities. Since I do not want any exposed wiring or speakers on the floor/furniture, 5 In-Wall speakers (type to be determined, most likely Dayton for budget) to do FL, C, FR, RL & RR and a powered sub. RL & RR Will be on "B" Switch that will be sourced from my computer. Sounds pretty simple and straight forward.

Just for clarification though. The Front and Rear side speakers (I am into car audio so that's the easiest way for me to describe this), would it be better if they were mounted with the speaker pointing at my eyes or on the parallel walls pointing at my ears? Would one be desired over the other?

Thank you.


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## diy.phil (May 23, 2011)

Since it's a workspace, the simpler the better... maybe just a wireless speaker will be good


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## troutspinner (Nov 8, 2013)

Thanks and I already have 2 of them. It's more than a work space though, the other side of the room is for football games or if I want to make the escape from the wife and kids.


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