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How high the rears?

What's the current thinking about mounting rear speakers? Near the ceiling, above ear level, at ear level. Our media room is 14' X 19'. The LR speakers are about 8' apart and 4' from the wall behind them. We sit pretty much at the apex of the equalateral triangle. I'm thinking the rears might be spaced about 6-7' apart.

My wife likes the looks of the ultra thin KEF T301s and I find their sound clean and open, so that's what we're getting. The tweeter will not match the T33 tweeters of the five KEF Reference speakers, but I assume matched voicing is not as important for the rear speakers.

db
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zmanastronomy's avatar
zmanastronomy
738 posts
 
Near the ceiling was good back when Pro Logic was king.
With todays digital surround the rears should be slightly above ear level.
At ear level may work, but the back of you seating furniture might get in the way.

Hope this helps.
John
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
I like it higher on the wall so as to not get directional sound that is easily placed by ear. But this is one of those topics where you will get a few opinions.
To me I should not hear the output from the actual speaker, I want to hear it breathing in the room but not able to pinpoint its position, that happens for me when its close to my ear level.
You are 4ft away and I think this may happen for you aswell but its just a guess.
meiwan
399 posts
 
I believe 6 feet off the floor is about right. You're right, voice matching for rears is not that important. Even with DD and DTS rears still mainly serve as sound effects speakers.

Ideally, the rears are placed further apart than the main LR speakers. I've got my mains about 8 feet apart in a 15X13 room, with the rears in the back corners (so 14' apart), about 6 feet up, angled in 45 degrees. With the sofa on the rear wall, that keeps the rears well away from our ears, allowing for good ambient sound.
audiofreakgeek
115 posts
 

Sorry John but Toni Grimmani and Lucas Sound disagree!

The rears should always be placed close to the ceiling and never at the ear level. Rears are supposed to be diffusive even in a direct radiating system. The idea of surround sound is to mimic what you hear in reality, as you move further and further away from a sound source you loose exact placement and instead hear the sound as emanating from a destination location. Most surround sound effects are trying to duplicate spacial cues to mimic the reverb times of large spaces to pull you into the movie, or to recreate pans from side to side or front to back.

If you can pin point where the sound is coming from you are defeating the concept. Direction not location is what we are aiming for. In fact most professional theater designer still prefer di-poles radiators for the side locations whenever possible.
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