I'm trying to deal with my wide open loft, approximately 37 feet wide and 22 feet deep (not including the protrusion). Placement of everything is complicated by sloped ceilings beginning at 6 feet high on all outside walls, and a useless closet that has resulted in a ton of furniture lining the walls.



Also having trouble deciding between 5.1.2 or 7.1 setups. The orange cones would be where normal surround speakers should go, and the blue for typical 7.1 rears. Technically the blue seems a more "reasonable" distance away than the orange, but it's not ideal placement for 5.1. Trying to not do any permanent ceiling-mounted speakers as this would be temporary at best, and it's already like our 6th layout in the space.

So... go 5.1.2 with 5.1 speaker placements and hope the distance isn't an issue? Or 5.1.2 with 7.1 rear placement? Or just go 7.1 and give up on ceiling reflected Atmos...

My future intention is to completely redo this into a proper suite with bedroom / living room / closet / kitchenette / etc... but for now I'm just trying to figure out something functional so I can enjoy some flicks with the wife!

If its temp, just go with 5.1. Why bother with something more elaborate (and cost) only to redo it later? You summed it up already: something functional to enjoy. Just do that, something functional (which means to me the easiest and most cost effective - since its temp).

Don’t bother with 7.1. While Content formatted in atmos is becoming popular, 7.1 never caught on much. Just do 5.1. Or do 5.1.2 with atmos ceiling speakers. But with 5.1, forget all the official documents you’ve seen on speaker placement and put the surround speakers behind you to get some distance

Well, I kind of marked up your drawing on where I would put speakers, but can’t figure out how to post it.

Reality is not as strict as theory. I've discovered this time and again with less than ideal speaker locations. Don't worry a lot about positioning that's not perfect. The best you can do will probably be okay.

On the other hand, you could get some surface mount speakers and position them in the room up on poles that hold them where you'd mount them. This would allow you to move them and find (I'll predict) that major positional differences make smaller sonic differences than you'd imagine.

And anything you do will help you get a feel for the effects in the actual room.

Does it have to be surround?  A great friend and former workmate used to say 'Good stereo is better than bad surround any day of the week.'

Fins - if you like, you could email me, or post to a free photo host.

But thanks for the feedback! Regarding 7.1, I wouldn't be interested in replicating actual 7.1 content so much as just having a "fuller" surround envelopment. Like, I used to have a proper 7.1 setup for years in my prior home (with fairly ideal speaker positions) and I can't say that I ever said "this is definitely 7.1, not just upconverted 5.1".

But for the limited seating positions in this situation... I'll probably do okay with just 5.1 with off-spec (but logical) rear speaker positions.

And yeah, I do really want some kind of surround. I don't have anywhere else to watch movies at this moment, and I really really miss my prior setup.

I don't think I'll be truly happy until I build the theater I want in the basement...

What free photo host is available now that photobucket doesn’t work?

The gist of my layout is do 5.1 or 5.1.2, and the surround speakers go in the blue wedges, lined up with the end tables on each side of the couch. If you want to do atmos, put them over the end tables, or just slightly in front of the end tables to create that overhead dimension.

I’ve used www.tinypic.com before... and www.imgbb.com may be an option.

I think you can still create a free wordpress.com site. You could use that to host images.