Era 300 wall mounts in an open living/dining room: which of these four positions?

Question

I'm planning an Arc Ultra, Sub 4 and one pair of Era 300 surrounds. The four colours in the attached diagram are alternative locations for that single pair. The legend includes crops of my annotated room photo.

The room is approximately 24 ft 7 in x 15 ft 2 in, with a vaulted/raised ceiling, substantial beams, windows on one side and openings on the other. The main listening position will be 11 ft from the TV wall. The diagram shows the planned furniture arrangement; wall mounts are a strong preference to keep the floor clear. Heights and mounting clearances are still to be measured.

BLUE: Near seated ear height on the sides, about 2.5 ft behind the listening position, plus several feet of lateral distance.
GREEN: Above the windows/openings, about 6 ft behind the listening position. Higher, with nearby soffits.
RED: Inboard positions in front of the cross-beam. Either inverted, or upright projecting clear of the beam with an estimated several feet above into the vault and roughly 10 degrees downward tilt. This is a proposed experiment, not a proven reflection path.
PURPLE: Near ear height on the fireplace-end columns, about 13 ft behind the sofa. Potentially useful for dining music too, but furniture/people could obstruct sound towards the sofa.

Which location would you test first for TV/Atmos, and what would rule out the others? Specifically:
- Is blue's small rearward offset a problem once lateral distance is considered?
- Is purple's distance workable, or would you keep the surrounds near the sofa and use separate dining speakers?
- For red/green, what beam/ceiling clearances and upright versus inverted orientation would you use?
- Sonos staff have advised facing the TV wall. Do these side-wall locations warrant any inward rotation, or should the speakers remain parallel?

I'd especially appreciate Sonos staff input or experience from someone who has tested Era 300 surrounds in a similar room. I'm happy to measure the missing dimensions before deciding where to drill.

Stanley_4 · Answer

Wall mounts are problematic on side walls as they need to extend well into the room to allow optimum Era-300 orientation (facing the listener) and the minimum clearance for proper sound propagation.

I’d go with mounts on the beam. Maybe try them inverted too as that ceiling is going to make Atmos struggle to provide adequate height sound.

In that room a dual Sub 4 setup is really going to add impact to the TV and make a nice improvement to music, particularly when grouping in smaller speakers.

Maybe consider a couple Sonos on the fireplace plant shelf. Era-100s would fit in well. You could group them for music, probably a bit too much delay for TV.

If you put some in the Kitchen TV grouping might be usable due to the distance and separation, Try it and see how it works for your ears. I like listening while cooking and hate blasting the main room to have it loud enough in the cooking space.

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