When Your Back Is Up Against The Wall... In Your Home Theater How Can You Surround Sound?

If you are the person who has a living space where your seating is up against the wall, you too are likely wondering is going beyond 5.1 even worth it? Chief Product Officer Andrew Welker puts this FAQ front and center this week. (see what we did there? 🙃)

First off, most of us don't have a single-purpose home theater, or the ideal room. We live in our living spaces, and have multi-purpose lives and rooms. This means you have to be careful with the set up, your choice of rears and surrounds, and how you place them.

We welcome your comments and questions, and yours just might be the subject of an upcoming video!

- Dolby Atmos setup guide

Fall in love with your music🎵 all over again❤️
Get speakers you’ll listen to at any volume for hours on end.🎚️

Questions? Contact Axiom's Friendly, Helpful Audio Experts:
Canada: 705-635-2222
International: 1-888-352-9466
-
#SurroundSound #HomeTheaterSpeakerPlacement #AskTheAudioEngineer

[unnecessaryexprmnt]

Thank you for addressing what most of us need to consider!

[inthisdayandage]

First thing that came up when I searched and got all the information I needed to explore further.
Thank you kindly.

[atzeharrison]

Would be great, if you show sone graphics or pictures of the things that you explain

[sanjayl]

In my 7.2 system as my seating was with the wall I mounted the rear speakers hig on the wall. And the effect is fantastic.

[jackryder]

Very helpful video. I will call you soon. Thank you

[Bananasahn]

I was thinking about this exact predicament I am in and Axiom Audio’s video came up on my suggested feed. Very informative video. Thank you.

[Barleyleg]

Thank you for the video! I’ll find out tomorrow if I’ll be encroaching too much on my viewing/listening area. Have a small 50 watt/channel amp on the way to go from 5.1.4 to 7.1.4. The rears are on a table between the wall and the couch - about 2 feet behind me. I’ll be putting my faith in Dirac to get the job done properly. I think too many people rely solely on what the Dolby website suggests they do, as opposed to just simply trying it out in your individual living space. Dolby bases those configurations on a perfectly dimensional room, with perfect acoustic, in a perfectly clutter-free testing environment - something none of us have. Cheers!

[manuelmourelle]

I've been using my bipolars behind my couch on the ceiling tilted down towards the couch for years and i like it but this is a new closed room vs my open floor plan from before

[garyausten]

I have been adding to/replacing my system piece-meal (replaced my center channel a few weeks ago) and currently have a 7.2.2 set-up. My "theater" doubles as my bedroom and the single chair is against the back wall. I have my rear surrounds just behind the seat angled in and the sides just forward of my head so the speakers envelop me. The heights are on the front wall and just a week or two ago placed 1x2s along the outside edges to angle them in. It's pretty ugly, but I think it made a difference. I'd eventually like to replace the surrounds with some higher-quality better-sounding speakers, but probably still need them to be physically rather small to fit. Unless I move everything to a bigger room I don't think it's possible to add the extra heights - besides, I'd have to buy an extra amp to power them and use the pre-out connectors on my Denon AVR-X4700H.

[PrinceBarin]

I am lucky enough to have a dedicated home theatre room but I still need the couch against a rear wall since the room is not huge and, because of layout, windows, doorway placement, there is really only one orientation for sofa and screen. I have Monitor Audio FX channels on the rear walls as part of a 5.2.4 setup rather than 7 primary channels since there just isn’t a good way to put the additional two side surrounds in. It’s a compromise but seems to work well.

[greatm]

Another great tutorial Andrew ! I have a 5.1.2 system with the couch against the backwall and in-walls (backwall) for the surrounds, exactly as you described. Using the Dolby guideline, I located the backwall surrounds and 2 in-ceiling ATMOS very close to the recommendations. Surrounds work well and ATMOS is ok but not overwhelming (probably because of 2 vs 4 speakers ?). Eying your distributed audio speakers as an improvement for base level, may talk with your tech support.

[Samitocas]

Thank you again Andrew for your videos, you can't imagine how much we like it to learn more and more
about our audio setup. I have this problem in my living room but you know using omnipolar speakers help a lot in this situation, i have OMD 28 that diffuses the sound all over the living room reduce somehow this issue and really i don't feel that i need to install any speakers behind my listening seat.
I used to put m old Mirage M-7 si in the back and it was not bad (Behind my seat about 2 feet) but since i use my main stereo speakers the OMD 28 is really wonderful for home theatre is good enough. Presently i have my mirage OM 5 front speakers for 6 months and when i feel i miss my Mirage M 3 si i move it in and take away the OM 5, and so on lol. Sooner or later i will move the stereo listing system to the other living room and
transform the actual one for home theater. The only reason i did not is my Mcintosh amp mc 452 is so heavy.

Thank you again

[crossocean]

I fully agree. Thank you so much for your insight and advice.

[JohnJones-lgql]

Exactly the info I needed. Great video.

[Percival]

Very great video! Just wondering along with the couch being in the back wall, what height should speakers (rear) be at? I know they should be the same height as the front left and right speakers, however if the rear speakers are mounted on the back wall, each one being on the very end of the couch at ear level, wouldn’t that hurt/destroy peoples ears who sit far left or far right? So I guess the main point is, is it ok to have your speakers higher than ear level or would the destroy the sound quality, etc.?

[PatrickGuerrisi]

How about a pair of Sonos ceiling ceiling speakers right at the bsck of the room for rear surrounds?

I have large windows around my setup so cannot mount on side walls for reae surrounds

[SQUIDWORD]

Thank you for the video! I appreciate your info.

[chuckmaddison]

Put rear speakers, left and right in headrests of the individual chairs..

[ryanmichalski]

In a 5.1 system is there a way to have two speakers on each for the side channels (side left and side right )

[Dros]

Would you use a dipole/bipole speaker on the side surrounds as well in a couch against the wall scenario or a directional surround speaker pointed at the listening position?