You need to tell us where you will be when you listen.
Will you be sitting in one place - on the sofa say - or in a number of locations? Will you be listening to music as background or actually listenin
I will be sitting anywhere from the bottom wall to the top wall, on the left side of the kitchen island .You need to tell us where you will be when you listen.
Will you be sitting in one place - on the sofa say - or in a number of locations? Will you be listening to music as background or actually listening?
Yes, either side of TV, or on wall separating main room from bedroom.
You'll only know by trial and error which sounds best, and images nicely...
Yes I will definitely include a sub. However my concerns with setting it in front of the TV is that it will narrow the listening space to just that centre area of the listening room. Top side / bottom side would not get as much audio love, I assume. Hence I was thinking of finding a way to place speakers along the top or bottom wall.Either side of the TV. Sub somewhere up front.
OK but you can have only one area with optimal sound.I will be sitting anywhere from the bottom wall to the top wall, on the left side of the kitchen island .
OK. Flanking the TV/fireplace will optimize sound for the seating area (and the kitchen) and it will be heard clearly throughout, albeit not optimally at the dining table.I will certainly have a listening position set up in a decent spot in front of the speakers.. but I'm trying to find the placement which spreads sound optimally throughout the living space.
No. It will not narrow it. The optimal sound can only be where the speaker array is focused and it cannot be focused everywhere.A few have mentioned placement where the TV is. My concern is that this will narrow the listening area to just in front of the TV and the kitchen island?
No. It would be the best placement for the dining table but not for anywhere else.My thoughts were to place speakers along top side or bottom side wall, which would disperse sound more evenly throughout the living room?
Maybe optimal is not the right term to use.OK but you can have only one area with optimal sound.
OK. Flanking the TV/fireplace will optimize sound for the seating area (and the kitchen) and it will be heard clearly throughout, albeit not optimally at the dining table.
No. It will not narrow it. The optimal sound can only be where the speaker array is focused and it cannot be focused everywhere.
No. It would be the best placement for the dining table but not for anywhere else.
??? By alternative listening, do you mean casual or background? If so, imho, it is irrelevant. Wherever you put the speakers, you will hear them everywhere in this space but you can only have one arrangement/seating for high-quality (optimal) soundstage and balance. Pick the place you want to have that experience and the rest will take care of itself. (I am assuming we are talking about stereo speaker placement and not surround.)Which scenario would you say is for the "alternative" listening positions? If it's the latter, then I would say the latter scenario is preferred because it gives me a broader listening area.
Thanks for the help and sorry for my inexperienced ramblings. Would you recommend surround placement in this space, if I wanted to maximize the listening area???? By alternative listening, do you mean casual or background? If so, imho, it is irrelevant. Wherever you put the speakers, you will hear them everywhere in this space but you can only have one arrangement/seating for high-quality (optimal) soundstage and balance. Pick the place you want to have that experience and the rest will take care of itself. (I am assuming we are talking about stereo speaker placement and not surround.)
Can you help me understand the difference between casual and critical listening. It's been mentioned a few times so far, and I'm not sure if I fully understandI am a commercial audio guy, so I would suggest some wide dispersion ceiling speakers for casual listening coupled with a sub. If you do it cleverly, you could use the same speakers for surround purposes (just choose "5.1 stereo" or whatever equivalent from the receiver for casual listening).
Casual = background music or while guests are milling around.Can you help me understand the difference between casual and critical listening. It's been mentioned a few times so far, and I'm not sure if I fully understand
I would not. While going to a surround setup would improve the sound at the preferred listening site, it would be at the expense of the other parts of the room.Thanks for the help and sorry for my inexperienced ramblings. Would you recommend surround placement in this space, if I wanted to maximize the listening area?
Yes. One solution would be to have a dedicated stereo setup for the important listening area, a separate array of distributed speakers for the rest of the space and the ability to switch them on/off.A solution might be some sort of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) equipment. With this you have different 'presets' that optimise the sound for different locations. Again that's a simplistic suggestion. It's a lot more complicated then that.
Yes I will definitely include a sub. However my concerns with setting it in front of the TV is that it will narrow the listening space to just that centre area of the listening room. Top side / bottom side would not get as much audio love, I assume. Hence I was thinking of finding a way to place speakers along the top or bottom wall.
To do this , my ideas were to extend the bottom wall a bit to the right, since there isn't much wall to work with currently at the bottom, or remove the kitchen island to make room for placement at the top