Quadraphonic setups, speaker placement etc?

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Electric Moo

1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
QQ Supporter
Joined
Aug 28, 2020
Messages
1,038
Location
Moo Moo Land
what is everyone doing for their quad speaker setups?

I don't have enough floor space to put speakers in 4x corners, am considering hanging the rears from the ceiling

or even putting the rears in the next room, which is on the other side of a former wall ( there are still side pieces where the wall was )

Also, does anyone actually sit in the center of all 4x speakers? seems kind of impractical to have a couch/chair in the middle of the room

thx
 
I'm sure there have been threads on this before... using the 4 corners of the room is not recommended. Check out Wendy Carlos' site for a lot of great surround speaker information.

http://www.wendycarlos.com/surround/surround.html
Here's a snip from her site showing optimum 4 channel speaker placement...
1600098312706.png
 
...does anyone actually sit in the center of all 4x speakers? seems kind of impractical to have a couch/chair in the middle of the room

... using the 4 corners of the room is not recommended.

Don't knock it until you've tried it on vintage quad material. ;)

But as a practical matter, speaker placement is a compromise in any room.
Experimenting with seemingly small adjustments to position, angle and tilt can make audible improvements.
 
what is everyone doing for their quad speaker setups?

I don't have enough floor space to put speakers in 4x corners, am considering hanging the rears from the ceiling

or even putting the rears in the next room, which is on the other side of a former wall ( there are still side pieces where the wall was )

Also, does anyone actually sit in the center of all 4x speakers? seems kind of impractical to have a couch/chair in the middle of the room

thx

As Dave said:
But as a practical matter, speaker placement is a compromise in any room.

And technically Hamilton does offer a diagram that conforms to modern surround sound placement. However the Wendy Carlos site is as much personal opinion as it is fact, and the problem I have with that speaker set up is it does not "surround " you. The rear speakers are so much more center left/right that the soundstage is more 180 deg than 360.

Center left/right phantom imaging is a known problem in quad/surround sound. Moving the rears to the sides helps alleviate that but at the expense of depth, so pick what is most important to you.

My room is 13' x 25' & my speakers are not plastered in the corners but they are in a equidistant square with my sweet spot being a chair in the middle. A couch sits right between the rear speakers for more casual listening & watching movies. This puts them close to the set up diagram posted earlier. I can say for sure sitting in the middle makes for the best soundfield presentation.
 
I've been happiest with this 5.1 setup shown in the diagram. But my front speakers are spread out a bit more...perhaps 35 degrees instead of 30 as shown in the diagram. The surrounds are at 120 degrees.

5.1.jpg


I find that it gives me the best compromise for both 5.1 and quad material. My listening position is more towards the front third of the room for various reasons. YMMV [EDIT: I need to clarify that my seating position is in the center of the circle shown in the diagram, not the front third of that circle.]

(I also have 7.1 rear speakers, but I only use them with synthesizing 7.1 with Logic7. The vast majority (>95%) of my surround sound listening is 5.1 or quad.)
 
Last edited:
My living room/listening area is an L shaped room typical of 70's apartments. My rear speakers are to my sides by necessity. I would prefer the 4 in the corners placement but the room isn't big enough even without a TV. I still find immense pleasure in it though. This apartment is one reason I won't dive into 5.1 or more.
 
My living room/listening area is an L shaped room typical of 70's apartments. My rear speakers are to my sides by necessity. I would prefer the 4 in the corners placement but the room isn't big enough even without a TV. I still find immense pleasure in it though. This apartment is one reason I won't dive into 5.1 or more.
You need to upgrade to one of those new fangled 7.1 apartments!
 
I have a 7.1.4 system, with the couch in the middle, but more close to the rear. With Surround speakers at 95Âş (i.e. side speakers). 4.0 mixes maps the rears to the side Surrounds as in a 5.1

I have recently discover that the classical 70's QUAD mixes, with so aggressive discrete content, sound much better to me, with better level compensation and sound image, when I change the rear QUAD channels from the Surrounds to the Surrounds Back speakers of the 7.1 floor layout. It is almost a 'square' speakers layout and my MLP is a little more at the rear than in the exact square center. Not 'perfect' but almost.

For doing that I have two options:
- Change the amp assign settings config on my Denon 8500, thanks to the 'custom' config feature.
- If QUADs are remixed to multichannel FLACs, convert them to a 7.1 FLAC with the QUAD rears mapped to the last channels Surround Back. Using the last version update of the MMH tool.
 
I have 8 speakers as shown in my avatar (and am in the process of installing the other two).

The three front speakers are all mounted on the same wall, about halfway up.

The wing and back corner speakers are mounted near the ceiling on the side walls and face away from the walls.

The back speaker is mounted near the ceiling on the back wall and faces forward.

The zenith speaker will be in the center of the ceiling pointing down.

The nadir speaker will be under the computer/mixing desk.

For classic quadraphonics I usually use the 4 corners. I can move my chairs so I am in the center (at the mixing desk) or closer to the back speakers.

To close the side imaging problem, I can send the LB to the LW and the RB to the RW at lower levels or I can send several other signals to them (including Dolby Surround back). I can also send L+R to the F speaker and R-L to the B speaker for an octophonic system.

For home theater surround, I use the 4 corners. The TV is under the F speaker. The side image problem disappears with Dolby decoding. But I can add the other signals as above.

When mixing my own quad, I use the Dolby PLII, Dolby Surround, QS, and octophonic settings to check the mix.
 
120 deg rears here.

My comment on 4 corner quad and further odd or random placement:
Stuff mixed more with a multi mono perspective can shine and sometimes be really interesting with odd speaker placement. A ringer example might be Beatles "stereo" mixes. Many of the old more experimental quad mixes as mentioned.

Surround can do so much more than that though! (Stereo too)
As soon as you have a mix with elements positioned in the soundstage that use the triangulation of the speaker positions to deliver, you miss ALL of that unless you set your speakers in the required array positions.
 
The quick setup tip for sub placement:
1. Place the sub at the sweet spot listening position.
2. Play a test tone. (Multiple tones, sweeps, etc)
3. Move yourself around the room and listen for the spot you hear the bass tones the loudest.
4. Now place the sub in that loud spot.

This lets you dial in the system balance for the sweet spot and eliminates having any spots in the room where the bass blooms too hot.

This isn't necessarily and and-all-be-all and there's more to talk about. But it's a quick tip and gets you those obvious results. :)
 
The quick setup tip for sub placement:
1. Place the sub at the sweet spot listening position.
2. Play a test tone. (Multiple tones, sweeps, etc)
3. Move yourself around the room and listen for the spot you hear the bass tones the loudest.
4. Now place the sub in that loud spot.

This lets you dial in the system balance for the sweet spot and eliminates having any spots in the room where the bass blooms too hot.

This isn't necessarily and and-all-be-all and there's more to talk about. But it's a quick tip and gets you those obvious results. :)
I did this just recently and can testify that It works .
 
I am curious how many Surround Master users use the Surround Sound setup similar to the Wendy Carlos setup, or how many use the setup recommended in the Surround Master manual as shown here:

1631634716488.png


I realize some may just use the home theatre setup since they are also doing movies and may have various home theatre speaker setups, 5.1, 7.1, Atmos, etc.., and may not want to move the speakers, but how many actually like the home theatre speaker setup better than the S.M. setup, or do most prefer the S.M. speaker placement when using the S.M.?

Thanks for all opinions!
 
Back
Top