Surround Speakers - Ideal Height?

Hi everyone,

We are currently in the process of building a house with Carlisle Homes, I'm having a dedicated home theatre room dimensions 4.2 w x 5.5 l, and am planning on having a 7.1 speaker setup. My question is with the 2 surround and the 2 rear speakers, what is the ideal height that they should be? On the rear and one of the side walls there are slimline windows 514mm high, the ceilings are 2740mm high, and the top of the slimline window is at 2173mm off the ground, would the speakers be better placed below the slimline or above it?

Thanks in advance
Mal

According to THX, for 5.1 the original spec was that you wanted your left and right surround speakers on the side walls facing each other, about 3 to 4 feet above ear level and about 1 foot or so behind you.

As the 2 rear surrounds on the back wall in a 7.1 setup are really there to smooth the panning of sounds around the back of the sound stage (as well as centre some effects that are meant to sound directly behind the viewers), they should be roughly evenly spaced between the left and right surrounds at the same level.

If you have environmental issues that prevent you from achieving this ideal setup, you really only have 2 options:

1. You can do what I did - Alter the environment to allow yourself to put them in their ideal places (I had windows moved (at plan stage) to allow ideal placement of my surrounds).

2. You can put the speakers as close as the environment will allow you to get to this ideal arrangement. Whatever else you have to do, try to keep them symetrical.

Thanks Rodda,
So if ear level is about 1 metre, 4 feet above that will make it about 2.2 metres, which would put it just about the slimline window, which is about where I want it, especially if I put a raised floor at the back of the room of about 20cm.

Thanks again.