Ontopic Random Computer-Electronics Thread

I'm trying to figure out how to expand my surround sound setup. It's 5.1 right now.

I've got almost no rear wall except for a 3" piece on the left, a 12" piece in the middle and a 4' section on the right.

And no side wall on the right at all.

Ceiling directly above the couch, which is against the back knee-wall, is a soffit that has the main HVAC trunk in it, so no speakers are going in that, but it only comes out 3 or 4 feet.

I'm wondering if my receiver that has the mic you use to tune things for the room is smart enough to figure shit out when speakers aren't placed perfectly.
 
I'm trying to figure out how to expand my surround sound setup. It's 5.1 right now.

I've got almost no rear wall except for a 3" piece on the left, a 12" piece in the middle and a 4' section on the right.

And no side wall on the right at all.

Ceiling directly above the couch, which is against the back knee-wall, is a soffit that has the main HVAC trunk in it, so no speakers are going in that, but it only comes out 3 or 4 feet.

I'm wondering if my receiver that has the mic you use to tune things for the room is smart enough to figure shit out when speakers aren't placed perfectly.
If you've only got that much space, then 5.1 is just fine.

edit: 5.1 is good for just about any space, honestly. Adding speakers for anything but sound reinforcement in large rooms really doesn't make a difference in my experience.
 
If you've only got that much space, then 5.1 is just fine.

edit: 5.1 is good for just about any space, honestly. Adding speakers for anything but sound reinforcement in large rooms really doesn't make a difference in my experience.


^ This.

Would take a bigger room than most people have to get any real benefit. As in an actual miniature theater with a few rows of seating.


Also a lot simpler and easier to get good sound for all your guests instead of just those in a sweet spot by keeping all the low-end coming from a single location.
 
Look, the odds are that the speakers you're using are not great, so in the best case, all you're going to do is muddy the sound stage by having everything packed in so close together.

In the worst case, you'll have weird phasing issues in parts of the room where you lose frequencies entirely.

But you've got the speakers and the wire and the amp, so you do you.
 
I'm running 2.0 out of a set of speakers that's as old as me.

I'm of the belief that movies that rely on the sound of shit flying past your head to be 'immersive' tend to be shitty movies.
I like the center channel. It allows you to trade away unnecessary stuff for music and ambience (like bass and > 8KHz) for intelligible dialog.
 
I like the center channel. It allows you to trade away unnecessary stuff for music and ambience (like bass and > 8KHz) for intelligible dialog.

If done well like that they can be a great addition for clarity, especially in movies that go from really quiet whispery parts to really loud with lots of stuff going on.

I guess it's these cheap theater-in-a-box things everyone gets I've heard the most of but some of them really overdo it. Center voice can start sounding reminiscent of an old am car radio or truckers cb radio. Probably a combination of cheapass speakers and filtering off too much bandwidth, just leaving a narrow slice in the middle.
 
If done well like that they can be a great addition for clarity, especially in movies that go from really quiet whispery parts to really loud with lots of stuff going on.

I guess it's these cheap theater-in-a-box things everyone gets I've heard the most of but some of them really overdo it. Center voice can start sounding reminiscent of an old am car radio or truckers cb radio. Probably a combination of cheapass speakers and filtering off too much bandwidth, just leaving a narrow slice in the middle.
I made my own some time ago with 3 pairs of vifa 3" drivers (each bandpassed to a different frequency range with a 6dB/octave crossover network) and a silk dome neodymium tweeter. Sounds super smooth in the vocal ranges, forgoes any bass from about 200Hz on down at all, pretty much.