Acoustic Issues for H.T. in a Non-rectangular Shared Space

[Sagie]

Hi all,

I am in the process of designing an apartment for me in my parent's
home's basement. One of the things I want to have there is a home
theater system (I'm thinking front projection, probably DLP).

I got into some problems while trying to fit in the home
theater, I thought I could get some feedback from any of you guys.

The apartment will have a kitchen/dining/living room space, in
which the home theater system will naturally go. Since this will be a
shared, non-rectangular space, I had problems applying rules and tips
I've found on the Internet, since they all referred to a dedicated
rectangular room -- a luxury which I don't have.

The space will basically look like here
<http://www.cellocator2.ath.cx/sagie/apartment-0.png> (measurements
are metric). As you can see there is an unmovable column there which
is a bit disturbing. The height of the room is about 2.2 meters.

I was thinking of fitting in the system in the manner depicted
in here <http://www.cellocator2.ath.cx/sagie/apartment-2.png>. The
green boxes are the front speakers, the red box is the center speaker,
which I plan to place below the drop-down screen (blue in the
diagram). The purple boxes are the surround speakers.

My guidelines for the placement were: 1. screen width for a
viewing angle of at least 36 degrees; 2. front speaker angle of 45-60
degrees (I was able to get 54.4 degrees).

There are some things which bother me with this placement
(besides the practical problems, such as having a screen in the middle
of the room):
1. The spectators will have a nearby wall on their left and an
open space on their right. Would such a situation not create a
confusing sound stage, with uneven reverberations on the two sides?
Can this be fixed with some kind of a movable partition which will
function like a "sound mirror" to even up the reverberations?
2. The front speakers will probably be wider apart than the
surround speakers. Is this okay?
3. The front-left speaker is positioned in one line with the
wall, in a way (see http://www.cellocator2.ath.cx/sagie/apartment-2.png).
Would this cause partial obstruction of the sound from this speaker?
Will this harm the front audio image? I can reposition/remove the
dashed part of the wall, will this improve the situation?
4. How problematic is this room acoustically? I couldn't
figure out how to calculate standing waves (nulls and peaks) for the
listening area in such a room.
5. What kind of acoustic treatment should I use?

I would appreciate any feedback whatsoever, concerning the
questions above or not.


Thanks a lot in advance!
Sagie.

My electronic mail address is at hotmail.com domain. Account name in
the domain is "sagsagman".

[Bryan S. Moore]

there is alot of open space so that is something you will have to live with.
I saw the speaker setup and one word of advice. Take that sub away from the
front wall..move it to the rear behind your couch in the corner. First
listen to it the way you ar going to have it setup then do what i suggested,
move it to the rear and I promise you that you wil lhear a huge difference
in sound when its back there

Bryan

[Sagie]

Thanks for your response, Bryan.

The diagram is not showing the sub, but I was thinking of placing it
in the same place you suggested.

Can you say anything about the front-left speaker being positioned in
one line with the left wall? Is that going to cause a problem?