Keep surround sound or use a quality sound bar instead?

[Hookmaster]

I am going to be reconfiguring my basement. Right now the tv is in the middle of the long wall and I have the surround sound set up with a speakers in each corner of the room. It sounds awesome. The new configuration will have the couch and recliner in front of the fireplace with the tv off to the side. It would be hard to setup the surround sound so I was thinking of a quality sound bar and subwoofer. Your thoughts.

I have attached a picture with the 2 layouts. In the proposed layout the couch and chair will be a little further away from the fireplace.

[Bobby Bass]

I would stick with your surround sound system and just put your far right speaker next to the couch. With a lot of space behind your seating area a lot of your background noise is just going to go right past you and be lost in the basement. For a real upgrade to your set up search for a BUTTKICKER you put this under your couch and it converts your bass audio to a shaker that will rock your couch and really add to your TV /movie experience. I have one in my theater and it still makes everyone say it is way to cool of an experience when they feel their first explosion sitting it in.

[Kyhl]

Symmetry is very helpful but you don't have it in either layout.

Is the SS system full range speakers or a satellite sub setup?

Putting a bass driver in a corner is a bad idea unless it was designed for that style of placement. It will create room modes, ie boomy one note bass. So if it is a satellite or bookshelf system then you should be ok keeping the surround system. Or if it is a system with full range drivers crossed over so that the sub handles all of the bass.

If it is floor standing speakers playing full range then you "may" have bass issues stuffing a speaker in that bottom left corner.

You will benefit from having more space behind the seating area. The close proximity of the couch to the wall in the current setup is tricking your ears/brain to sum the initial sound and the reflected sound from the back wall into one event, skewing clarity.

The downside of moving seat to the middle of the room is that you will lose bass reinforcement but that is usually a good thing. Most of that bass reinforcement is again, one note bass.

Changing the orientation so the seat is away from walls may put you on a mode or a null and you may need to experiment with placement of moving the couch forwards or backwords to find the ideal placement without room treatments.

It comes down to, try it and find out.

[bobberineyes]

I have no idea what kind of system you have but with my older set up, if I were to ever change things around i can change the output of all speakers thru the receiver. So if I were to move my TV, can always move the sound with it.....maybe you can too.

[Bobby Bass]

For any surround system a spl meter will let you tune your speakers so you have matching volume from all of your speakers at the prime or master seat. You can get those for less then 30 bucks as was pointed out you can adjust your speakers and configure your system for your space from your receiver/amp.

[Kyhl]

In a nutshell, firing length way into the room is generally better for either setup.

Bass does not work as well in a small space when the driver is placed in a corner. The corner will act as a horn, amplifying certain frequencies based on the horn lengths, walls. That is the drawback of putting a speaker in the lower left corner.

Putting space behind the seat will increase the initial time delay gap (ITG) which is a good thing for any listening room.

ideally you want an ITDG of 8-20ms. With the seat against the wall the brain sees the initial and reflected waves as one event but they aren't. Increasing the gap between the 1st wave and the reflected wave allows the brain to separate the two into an event with an echo, reverb. When that happens the brain easily identifies the first wave making easier for you to focus and translate it.

[Hookmaster]

I can adjust the volume of each speaker through the amp. So you are saying do that and see how it sounds? I thought I would at least need to change some speakers around but keeping the same wiring, something like this. FL is front left, FR is front right, RR is rear right, etc.

[Kyhl]

You still want the FR C FL in front of you. The last drawing has the FR behind the couch.

Fireplaces are the bane of audio rooms. They create unusable walls and can become helmholtz resonators. I feel your pain.

Is this a satellite sub system?

[bobberineyes]

I would definitely try it first without tweaking anything, then up the output of the rears for sure if need be. In the illustration they do look like they are quite aways away.

[Hookmaster]

I don't know what you mean by a satellite sub system. The front speakers measure in inches, 15 L x 7.5 H x 7.5 D. The rear speakers measure 8 L x 6 H x 6 D. They are all hard wire and ceiling mounted. The powered subwoofer is on the floor and the center channel is on the tv stand.

[Kyhl]

So close to a satellite sub setup, more like bookshelf style. They should be fine near a corner.

The distances should not be an issue. Just about any A/V receiver (AVR) in the last 15 years has distance and volume settings. Set the correct distance for each speaker so the AVR can calculate the correct delays to make the sounds arrive at the correct time. Each foot is about 1 millisecond.

Then set the volumes of each speaker as suggested and give it a try.

You will want all three front, center, and right to be infront of you.

[bobberineyes]

Another thing to consider, if you have room for more speakers on your amp/reciever. Maybe easier to ad than relocate.

[amateurfishing]

To your original question, we gave tried 2 different center channel speakers (both with great reviews and not cheapos), each time we tried them we felt the tv speakers were just as good if not better than the single center addition. I highly recommend tweaking your current surround sound system or adding to it. One center channel is definitely not the equivelent.

[Kyhl]

When choosing a center speaker, it is best that it matches the rest of the speakers. At a minimum, it has to be from the same manufacturer as the mains.

Next, it should be designed with a goal of matching the timber of the mains. This is done by using the same mid driver and tweeter as the mains.

Lastly, better results, within budget, will happen using a single midrange driver with a tweeter mounted above. This helps mitigate comb filtering for people sitting off center. Using a main speaker tipped on its side creates this problem of comb filtering. As do poorly designed MTM (mid tweeter mid) designs set horizontally.

Of course, there are exceptions.