Speaker Placement and Opinions on Dali Spektors

Leeray3

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Hi there, I hope everyone is not going too nuts with the lockdown!

I was hoping that I could ask a few questions / get any ideas on speaker placement for my living room.

As per attached I am looking to have a custom made cabinet for my AV equipment and I am trying to get the balance between nice sound and visual appeal (I have orders from the wife!)

The LCR speakers would be placed in a cabinet behind a black mesh so you won't see these and I was wondering if my mock up attached would be suitable. It is virtually to scale and the LR speakers would sit on a shelf that is 51cms from the ground with the centre speaker being slightly higher at 60cms.

The speakers would be as close to the mesh as possible to avoid any sound vibrating off the sides and all of the speakers will sit on acoustic pads to help avoid/minimise vibrations.

The shelves will be 1 inch thick and the sides, top and bottom will be and inch and a half thick (all oak wood).

I would prefer to have my LR speakers on stands or on the top of the cabinet but 1) my lounge won't accommodate stands :( and 2 the wife won't have them on the cabinet :nono:

My questions are:

1. Can anyone see any real problems with the design? I might consider having the LR speakers angled slightly if they are too low.

2. The speakers I am looking at are either the Q Acoustics 3010i 5.1 package, the Dali Spektor 2 5.1, the SVS prime 5.1 or the B&W MT50/60D - Some of these are rear ported so I'm guessing the back of the cabinet would need to be open or is that not a problem?. The cabinet itself will be 45cms deep

3. It is possible that these speakers could be placed on their sides (although doubtful), would this be a problem for any of the speakers mentioned? I have tried to look this up but the advice seems split. I'm guessing the B&W speakers would be fine though as the LR speakers can be rotated like the centre is.... or should they be upright?.


The amp I am looking at is a Denon and I'm thinking either the X2600H or the X3600H

My speakers will be used for say 90% movies so music is not my priority and my current speakers sit on top of my stand (StandsUnique AV10 cabinet) on a glass shelf and are roughly the same height as proposed above. My current speakers (Def Techs Pro 80) are slightly smaller than those mentioned above so they might sit 5cms higher.

I really would welcome any feedback that you guys have and I apologise for the number of questions asked.
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Have you considered the width of the cabinet? I don´t like the idea of having front three scrambled together closely with the listeners 2,5-3meters away, i think most manufacturers recommends about 1,8meter apart for the main L/R channels. Also the idea of hiding speakers behind mesh fabric, it must be acoustically transparent then. The av-cabinet needs to be open fully like below @gibbsy system which is custom made, including the riser for tv. Hiding the front three but still having quite deep largish speakers (QA 3010i) visible at the back of room for surrounds is bit strange aswell.

Most speakers even those 2-way horizontal center channels would work better as vertically upright. Definitely don´t lay the main speakers, unless you have coaxial driver design like Kef / Tannoy etc. Even the M1 and Prime Satellite should work better being upright.

I think the speaker choices you have are fine although they will sound quite different, B&W is more of lifestyle satellite system with higher price so if you don´t need to go that route, i would look the other options. With 90% use being movies you should think twice about the package subwoofer. With SVS you get good sub, but the rest options would be better bought as 5.0 and something better from SVS, BK Electronics etc.

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Hi Gasp3621, thanks for your reply.

So the biggest challenge for me is the width of the cabinet as unfortunatley anything wider than 115cm means it overlaps my french doors so I am restricted here, this is why I can't have speaker stands (even if the wife said yes). In my old house I had 2.2meters apart for my L/R Speakers so it was perfect, unfortunately thats not the case anymore.

The mesh would be acoustically transparant so thats not a problem however I never considered how hiding the front 3 speakers with 2 rears exposed would look, I guess that could look unusual. I could remove the mesh and remove the shelf riser for the centre speaker? I could use acoustic pads to raise it slightly

I was considering a different sub so thank you for confirming my suspicions, I have my eye on a few but thats a different topic.

OK, definitley keeping them upright, that's what I wanted to do but thought i'd ask, the only question really is then would the speakers, acoustically, sound much different if they where placed in a cabinet or above it? they would be at exactly the same height (I will build my stand either higher or shorter once decided) and they would be in the same position as my diagram. My worry about having them outside of the cabinet is that the TV is 110cm wide so the speakers would have to go underneath the TV so that would need rising and having the speakers and the wires exposed will look messy.
I have attached a rough mock up of the speakers inside a cabinet and out and also what the cabinet roughly looks like (in my head anyway).

Note that there is no mesh in the middle shelf, I just can't draw a blu-ray player or Xbox :)
 

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We have worked on a few systems similar to what you are proposing - the Spectral Scala is going to be too wide but does give you some idea of what you may want to achieve.

We have created custom cabinets with integrated passive speakerbars from Atlantic Technology and Artcoustic and a few systems with Gallo Acoustic Micro or A'Diva 'spheres', which work very well when space is limited.

Joe

 
Thanks for everyones reply here, I have tried a number of ideas using the limited space that I have and I think this final one might work, or will work better than my other suggestion. It's not much but I have opened one side of the shelf so the L/R speaker will now have the front, back and one side open, please let me know what you think.

Also thinking about speakers further I am now considering the following, either the Dali Spektor 1 5.1 system with a different Sub or the Dali Spektor 2 system but with Spektor 1 for the surrounds (again with a different sub). As I am using this mostly for movies and the speakers will be in a cabinet, albeit the shelf will be opened more , I am wondering if I will see any real difference between the two packages. Again I'd appreciate any thoughts on this but I'm guessing that if I have a sub then the differences between the two might not be that significant?
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