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Placement of rear speakers for soundbar

(Topic created on: 23-03-2020 04:03 PM)
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Helveticus99
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Hello everybody


I have a Samsung HW-Q70R soundbar. We are sitting around 2 meters away from the soundbar (and the TV) on a sofa. The sofa is positioned at a wall and has a width of around 2.5 meters. Now I'm thinking about buying the additional rear speakers SWA-9000S together with the following stands: https://www.vebos.co.uk/vebos-floor-stand-samsung-swa-9000s-black-set.html

 

We would place the boxes to the left and right of the sofa. The problem is that the boxes will be situated not behind us but to the left or right of us (because we are already sitting at the wall). Moreover, we are always sitting on the right end of the sofa, that means the right box would be much closer and probably above our heads (depending on the height of the stands).


Is this a problem or can these boxes still be a great experience?

 

By the way, does somebody know a better stand with is adjustable in height? Unfortunately we cannot mount the boxes on the wall because there are windows.

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Estevez1979
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I have a similar living room configuration for my HW-Q90R , and the same Vebos stands (in white, which are stunning) , and  there is not problem at all to have have those speakers in the back corners of the sofa.  In fact I always seat on the chaise longue (which is the left end of the sofa) and it's great to have the rears closer, because the main limition it is not the speakers placement, but the lack of power of rears in non Atmos content.  But absolutely recommended for Dolby Atmos 7.1 movies

 

 

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Helveticus99
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Thank you for your feedback.


My main concern is that the right speaker would be in a distance of around 50 centimeters and the left speaker would be around 2m away. Is that not a problem? Can the volume of the left and right speakers set separately?

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Estevez1979
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I do not really know for your system. But I guess it must the same for the hw-q70r and for the hw-90r.  As far as the hw-q90r, no, the left and right rears only can be adjusted together as one channel (rear level), no separation between left and right to adjust the volume.

 

But as I told you, I have same configuration, you  just have to play with the facing of the speakers, the ones more distant to your seating position would have to face almost directly at you. As we are talking about not very big distances (50 cm /2m)  not being symmetric will not make any big difference.  Take into consideration that only dedicated 7.1 soundtracks will make use of of the left rear and right rear separatedly (for example a dynamic object moving in the background, such as a plane or car), and those will sound powerful enough.  With  a 5.1 or lower soundtrack  the soundbar upmixes it to 7.1 but the rear level do not discriminate between left and right, both rears will reproduce the same sound. 

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Helveticus99
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I see. I always thought that for such a surround system one has to sit exactly in the middle (at least that was what I saw in pictures :winking-face:

 

Can you recommend a 7.1 soundtrack for testing the positioning of the left and rear speakers?

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Estevez1979
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HI again.

 

I've seen that hw q70r is a 3.1.2 system, and the satellites would update them to 5.1.2. Therefore the satellites would work as sorround channel. (Ls and Rs)

 

In that case any 5.1 soundtrack would work ok in your new updated system.  But the same I've said for rears would apply for surrounds , they cannot have the volume adjusted separating left and right..  Yes, it is better to be in the center, but I would not discourage you not to purchase the satellites, as the experience of having dedicated speakers for sorrounds makes up for the lack of symmetry. Other thing is that you are thinking to invest big in a 5.1 home theather with AV receiver and amp , being not symmetric would keep you from not fully enjoy the features of such system.  Just face it, almost no normal home is perfect or symmetryc. Thats one of the reasons why soundbars were created. 

 

To check the sound in your system I strongly recommend the official DTS demos that can be dowloaded from the Digital  theater website. The one that says 5.1 is perfect once you have your system installed. 

 

http://thedigitaltheater.com/tools/

 

Try also to dowload any of the dolby demos for 5.1 , as they will also take the power of your bar to the fullest, so it is easy to see where to position best each speaker.

You can find them here.:

https://thedigitaltheater.com/dolby-trailers/

 

 

 

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Helveticus99
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Thank you for your answer.

 


@Estevez1979 wrote:

HI again.

 

I've seen that hw q70r is a 3.1.2 system, and the satellites would update them to 5.1.2. Therefore the satellites would work as sorround channel. (Ls and Rs)

 



So which settings should I choose on the soundbar and TV? Surround mode or adaptive sound? I've read that surround mode does not work with rear speakers but I don't know if that holds for the q70r.

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Estevez1979
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Adaptative all the way.  Use sorround if you want to upmix some 2.0 content, Youtube, for example. Adaptative will use the original channel allocation and would sound more natural. 

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Helveticus99
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I have downloaded the official DTS demos you recommended. I have copied the file on a USB stick but on the TV it says that the Audio cannot be played. Only video is playing. How can I get also audio working?

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Estevez1979
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That happens most probably because your TV internal player cannot play MKV files with lossless sound. (Mine cannot either, andI own   a LG Oled C9, so it is not an old model)

For that kind of files you would need an external player such as Nvidia Shield TV, or any other TV box capable of  decoding high resolution sound and video.  Another option is trying to use any file converter program that converts mkv files into H.264 mp4 files without quality loss, there somefor  free on the Internet if you google it. It is little bit complicated but definitely cost free if you do not want to spend money in a multimedia player.

 

Sorry for the inconvenience, but the majority TV internal players are a long way behind of High Resolution soundbar technology. 

 

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