Client's Great Room is roughly 30' square with a cathedral ceiling about 28' at the peak. Wants this room as a 2 channel audio zone (no video) where the room fills with music better than background music quality but not quite audiophile grade.

If it's possible to do so, I'd like to separate the question of what speakers to get with the question of how many speakers to get and where to place them.

So, for starters, assuming there are no restrictions on where speakers can be placed based on logistics or aesthetics, what are best practices for filling a room this size and shape with decent quality audio? How many speakers (and possibly subwoofers?) should be deployed, and where should they go?

Additionally, what should we be thinking about in terms of room surfaces to promote desirable acoustics? Thanks.

Find another room. Just went through thison my own great room and nothing worked at all. Moved everything into the living room, problem solved. IMHO that room will never work even with stupid money thrown at it.

are you saying 30' by 30'?

square rooms suck no matter what

Is the client looking for louder than background music, or better sounding than distributed audio type background music?  Two very different things, but it wasn't clear to me in your post.

yes, 30' x 30'

by "better than background music quality" i mean better sounding than distributed audio type background music.

this is not a client that will be blasting music, but by "fills the room" i mean the music level should be high enough at all points in the room so that listeners should be able to hear it in all its glory without straining.

Thanks for the clarification.  I'm doing a room right now that's 40'x38' and the client wants LOUD so might have been able to offer some advice there, but not really sure what to recommend for your job.

30'x30' really isn't that large, but the square shape and high ceilings will make things difficult.  Due to the height and slant of the ceiling, I'm guessing that you are ruling out in-ceiling and looking for in-wall?

Is the room enclosed or does it open to a hallway,balcony, etc. up on a higher level?

I'd probably tackle this with 4 in-wall speakers (one pair each in opposing walls) and an in-wall sub... I think a sub will be important to fill out the sound.  You might also consider running in mono?  My proposed solution isn't ideal, but there's only so much you can do without redesigning the room.

Acoustics will be affected a bunch depending on the room itself (wood/tile floors vs. carpet), lots of windows also seem to reflect sound more than walls, but lots of windows can provide lots of window treatments that can help with acoustics.

Acoustics aren't my forte, so I'm sure someone else can provide some better ideas.

Seems like I've got my work cutout for me. I left out an important aspect of the structure because I wanted to understand some of the basics before trying to grapple with the full story.

There is a loft in this room. Picture a second floor that starts at the south wall but only runs 10' to the north. The loft has railing (not walls) on the north side. The loft is considered part of the same zone as the rest of the room - it will always play the same source as the rest of the great room.

Other details:

- the ridge beam runs east/west (i.e. the roof height changes as you move north/south)

- the north wall is practically all windows (sliding doors below large upper
windows.) There is no place to inconspicuously mount a speaker, and the home owner does not want the speakers to be too visually distracting

- the east wall is mostly sheetrock, though the stairway starts close to the north side and runs up to the loft on the south side.

- the south wall (which is interupted by the second floor) is mostly sheetrock

- the west wall is open above 12" to an adjoining part of the house

Sorry if that's hard to follow.

What about these two configuration:

CONFIGURATION 1:
----------------------
- two speakers in the loft area (not sure exactly where)
- two speakers in the ceiling that separates the loft from the first floor
- two speakers opposite one another on the north side of the east and west walls
- one or two subwoofers

CONFIGURATION 2:
- four speakers: one in each corner of the ceiling
- one or two subwoofers

Much appreciate the help.

2 or more subwoofers will almost certainly be required to avoid peaks and nulls in a room with that many inconsistencies.

Pics?

2 pr. In-wall speakers. Pairs facing each other, 6ft in from adjacent wall. Subs in 2 corners.

I've been using a bunch of the Velodyne IF-IC in-floor subwoofers. They have a 12" woofer in a proper sized enclosure that fits between the floor joists. The flooring guys have been building 10" square wood grates to go above them. Totally stealth, and they sound great because of the big box. I'm more than a little annoyed with the direction Velodyne has taken recently, but the fact still stands that they make some killer products.

this will work:

one bic lighter
one rag
one pint of gasoline
one insurance claim
one resigen and build of room

:)

I recently went to a demo that Harman put on and they had 1 of these in a room that was roughly 35 X 25 (with a subwoofer). The off axis was amazing and even in the back of the room, it had only dropped about 3db.

[Link: jblpro.com]

We are working on a house now with a great room 40X60 with a 35' peak.

We installed 6 Totem acoustic Inceilings with 2 dual 12 subs.

Wall were'nt an option as they are all log or glass. The subs are in a side wall up high but is mostly blocked by an Ibeam support and Vent tubes. We are going to power them up for a test on tuesday to see how it sounds.

Can you describe where the in-ceilings were placed with respect to the perimeter of the room and the ceiling slope? Thanks.

This room is large enough to use a pro system, stop thinking a resi solution will work. We run into this all the time, we do both resi and pro and when you get to a room this big you need to start using pro equipment. Partner with a pro outfit in your area and in the long run your customers will be happier. The biggest Living Room we did was 50' by 60', 40' cathedral ceiling and a balcony on one end. We used a pro solution for the sound system but it is still controlled with a basic multi-room control system. The room is rich and nuanced, with tight well performing bass. A room this size is considered small for a church.