Where to placw speakers

[macbail]

I have a JVC 700 watt home entertainment system, to me it doesn't sound like it should for being 700 watts. I'm thinking maybe i may have the speakers placed wrong. The front L and R, how far apart should they be from one another? I don't have a big living room, about 14 by 14 or so. And the rear speakers, how far apart and how high should they be. The rear speakers are not really behind the main listening area, more like on the wall behind the couch, sort of beside you. The rear speakers are omni directional if this helps at all. And finally the sub, should the speaker part be facing a wall or does it matter?

[okl62]

It may be helpful to read this:

http://www.crutchfieldadvisor.com/S-1suBK6sUdsH/learningcenter/home/speakers_placement.html

[stereoguy]

First off, don't concern yourself with how many "watts" your amp is rated for. There are $100 700 watt amps and $5000 700 watt amps. There is no solid standard for that measurment, so the numbers are meaningless.

Speaker placement is a fickle beast. Sometimes rotating your speakers 10 degrees will make a world of difference. In general, for HT, you want your fronts reasonalby close to the tv, with the tweeters at ear level. Try pulling them a foot or so away from the wall and see if that helps. Start by making a equilateral triangle with your speakers and your main listening position, and then experiment with moving the L/R speakers closer to the tv.

Your center should be as close to the center of the screen as possible (either above or below the screen)

Do you have 4 rear speakers or two? Ideally they should be about 3 feet above the listener's ear. If you can't mount them on the wall, try putting them on the floor behind the listener, firing up. Not ideal but you have to make do.

It doesn't really matter which way the sub faces as the sound waves that is generates are not directional. The sub is the hardest speaker to place. Put it in a corner, and the corner will effectively increase the "loudness" of the sub frequencies. THe problem is that the freqs are not increased consistantly, and some freqs are exaggereated, while some are muted. One trick is to put the sub in your main listening position, and then crawl around on the floor while listening to a variety of bassy sounds. Whereever the bass sounds best while you are crawling around, is likely close to the optimal location for your sub.

The key with the sub is to experiment or add a parametric EQ, which isn't exactly cheap (~$120) and is tricky to configure.

[BobF]

Yes, don't get hung up on watts. JVC quotes in in peak watts and you are lucky if you hit it once a night. The true wattage is somewhat lower.
Do you mean it isn't loud enough? Are you getting anything out of the rear speakers? Are the fronts loud enough?
Do you mean you have to turn the voume up past halfway to hear it?
Is there a difference when watching tv, a dvd, or listening to a cd?
How is the dvd player connected? Are you running all the audio to the tv first and then to the receiver?

[SafeWatch]

Another question that hasn't come up is what are your surround settings?
Make sure you have the receiver setup for the proper surround settings according to your manual - this is probably one of the hardest things to configure on a receiver. Many have auto setup or auto detect settings, but lower cost receivers do not.

If you are using DTS and Digital cables (coax or optical) for your audio, then make sure your DVD player and receiver are setup to use these features. If you are not useing digital cables, then setup the receiver accordingly.

Having the proper receiver surround settings can make all the difference in the world. Power is relative - you don't need a lot of it to have a nice sounding home theater. If you have a powered sub, the receiver's wattage means nothing anyway.

Check your receiver's manual for the proper configuration for your setup.

Good luck!