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Open concept living room.. need some advice

  • June 14, 2019
  • 6 replies
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My wife and I just closed on my new home, and getting very excited to make our personal tweaks. Well I'm in charge of the living room AV setup, and could use some advice. The attached image shows a side view of my living room and where there are existing mounts. The angle of the picture may not show it, but the front and rear mounts are evenly spaced at roughly the same height.

Note that I'm doing some minor renovation in the house and also have an electrician on hand (to install light fixtures, Tesla garage charger, and wire my alarm system), so the speaker wire vs A/C power conversation is not an issue.

I posted this same question on Reddit and got a ton of flack from "enthusiasts" making some borderline laughable suggestions of: "insert a new ceiling into your open living room" or "install wall dampening panels"... um no. This is a living room, not a dedicated theater room!

Having said that, I'm thinking about installing a center channel bracket under the TV mount and putting in a Playbar, then in the rear (above the sliding glass doors) putting 2 Play 1s, and hiding that Playsub under the staircase (or elsewhere?).

If this is a terrible idea, I may also consider just putting in 2 Play 5s up front and calling it a day.

Thoughts?

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    6 replies

    Airgetlam
    • Airgetlam
    • June 14, 2019
    If the couch goes in front of the glass windows (?) facing the TV over the fireplace, I'd be tempted just to do that PLAYBAR under the TV, and put either PLAY:1s or Sonos Ones on speaker stands behind/next to the couch, and just fill in the mounts in the ceiling.

    But two PLAY:5s would never be in play for me, they're not designed to deal with an A/V system, due to the delay involved.

    On the other hand, I do have a pair of PLAY:5s on either side of my TV currently, but just for music purposes, not for A/V use, the PLAYBAR handles that aspect. So, yea, the PLAYBAR and surround speakers in my first paragraph, and a pair of PLAY:5s in the front on the ceiling mounts for music would be killer. IMHO. 🙂
    Bruce
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    • sskassam
    • Author
    • Contributor II
    • June 14, 2019
    Good perspective--thanks.

    So you think having the Play 1s in the back mounted at about 9 feet would be too high?

    Also note that I'll keep about a 3 foot (or more) clearance between the glass doors and the back of the sofa..
    Airgetlam
    • Airgetlam
    • June 14, 2019
    It's not recommended by the "home theater literati", but I've done it before, and it worked fine for me. I happen to have them on speaker stands behind/beside my couch now, and I like the flexibility the stand provides. Having said that, I'm not sure I can recall the last time I moved them, other than when moving houses. I think as long as you used TruePlay, they'd probably be fine. The key thing about surround speakers is they really are supposed to be "behind" you, but if you go to the theater, they're often both behind and above you.

    You'd certainly have a benefit of that extra 3 feet (walking space, I assume), to make sure that the sound would be behind the seating space. If you do mount them, I'd be sure that they are tilted down.

    At the end of the day, it's your home, your ears, your budget that has to be satisfied. There's no way I can tell if a difference of X inches would make a difference. I've given you the "preferred" method, but I've done it the other way myself, and can suggest I didn't find much difference, if any. It's entirely up to you 🙂
    Bruce
    NickTheGreat
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    • NickTheGreat
    • Trending Lyricist I
    • June 14, 2019
    I agree that the rears are too high. I'm having trouble with the scale/size of the room, but I also like the idea of Play:1's on stands. I have the Monoprice stands, and they're really nice. So are their wall brackets, but not sure that'd work for you.

    I know your room has high ceilings but I'm not sure its huge? So I'd think the playbar would have enough horsepower for your needs.
    S
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    • sskassam
    • Author
    • Contributor II
    • June 14, 2019
    I agree that the rears are too high. I'm having trouble with the scale/size of the room, but I also like the idea of Play:1's on stands. I have the Monoprice stands, and they're really nice. So are their wall brackets, but not sure that'd work for you.

    I know your room has high ceilings but I'm not sure its huge? So I'd think the playbar would have enough horsepower for your needs.

    Ceilings are about 20ish feet high... the mounts are at about 9ish feet up.
    lewisc
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    • lewisc
    • Headliner I
    • June 17, 2019
    I agree with the rears being a bit high.

    I have my TV hooked up to an audio splitter/selector then into Play: 5 (then grouped wirelessly to 4 other speakers). After I correctly set TV sound settings and altered the Play: 5's line-in settings I have had no problems with any noticeable input lag.

    I have successfully tried this setup with both a Samsung and Sony TV 🙂
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