Looking for some help, guys. I have the worlds worst audio setup for TV watching. We bought a house that was pre-wired for 5.1 surround sound in the living room. The speakers are all paradigm, so they're decent speaker and sound great for music, but since they're all in-ceiling and down firing they're awful for TV or movie watching. Hearing/discerning speech during tv shows and movies is difficult without the volume cranked up high and on stereo mode.

Obviously, this is not the ideal setup. We're not huge audio buffs and don't watch too many movies but I'm looking for anything that I can do to marginally improve this setup at the least. I'm assuming that replacing the center channel speaker would be a priority. I have a HDMI cable that goes from the TV to the media cabinet that's off to the right. I'd like to think that I could use that pre-existing wiring tube to run wiring for a center channel speaker to place on the mantle. My wife is against mounting speakers on the walls and floor stand speakers are out of question since I have toddlers. Any suggestions would be appreciated!


Current setup

What kind of receiver do you have? There are many that use a microphone to measure distance to all the speakers from the main seating position and then modify the speaker levels of each speaker accordingly. I have a Denon that does that and a new Yamaha that does it as well. That can certainly help. You can also work on just adjusting the speaker level of the center speaker to be higher than the rest so that voices and other main sounds are heard more clearly.

Oh man. Those 3 front speakers all facing downward and spaced so close together are a real shame. In a perfect world, your TV gets moved off the mantle and onto the wall to the right. Then you start with true LCR speakers, inwall or otherwise. In the real world, a real center channel would help with vocals, but everything else would still be garbage. Personally, I would get a soundbar to replace the LCR in-ceilings and put it on the mantle. Yopu could still use your rear surrounds with quite a few of them.

If afterward you cont to have dialogue audibility issues, you might have to look into room treatments. That space looks REAL echo-y.

Ok so I'll move the TV over the media cabinet, wire the center channel to sit inside the tv cabinet, add two bookshelf speakers to sit on the media cabinets for my front Left and Right. My subwoofer is to the left of the tv cabinet so I'll keep that in the same place. I guess the only in-ceiling speaker i'll keep wired to the 5.1 setup are the rears even though their not ideally located. It sounds like this might solve most of my issues.

FTACO97 said:

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What kind of receiver do you have? There are many that use a microphone to measure distance to all the speakers from the main seating position and then modify the speaker levels of each speaker accordingly. I have a Denon that does that and a new Yamaha that does it as well. That can certainly help. You can also work on just adjusting the speaker level of the center speaker to be higher than the rest so that voices and other main sounds are heard more clearly.

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This is a good place to start. Depending on your receiver, you might be able to make meaningful changes to sound quality. Even using a cheap SPL meter and tape measure for checking speaker levels and distance should help if you don't have an "auto program" feature on your receiver.

Otherwise, I agree that putting a good center channel on the mantle would be my next step. And angle it down to the listening area.

Kids are big, cat and Roombas are still a problem, but we pulled our BP2002 tower speakers out of storage and replaced our old (damaged by in-laws) receiver... original setup was 7.1 with a Yamaha receiver purchased in 1998. We had the towers in storage for ~15 years. We went with a cheap Sony STRDN1080, but it's surprisingly not that bad. 5.1 without the towers is lame. All speakers are definitive technology, they sound great even with the budget receiver.



Two shelf, two wall mount, a sub, center behind TV and the twin towers with powered subs. The Sony is no match for the old Yamaha in its prime, but it doesn't stink. Speakers are the most important part in my opinion. Nineteen years after our initial system, I'm glad we didn't go budget on the speakers.

I could not disagree any more strongly with the above posters with the assertion that a new receiver and room correction would make much of a difference with your current setup.

I'll cross-post this here from Classified board as it looks like there's some possible folks that might be able to help:

WTB: Decent Home Theater Receiver
Anyone trying to upgrade their system and can't pull the trigger as you've got a decent one already? Let's make a deal.

I am just looking for one with a few HDMI ports for new man cave. 2.1 would be fine. If it had a Phono source, that would be great but I can remedy that.

I have a Denon Audyssey enabled receiver I'm getting rid of if interested (I recently upgraded). In Austin.

jjdavis85 said:

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Ok so I'll move the TV over the media cabinet, wire the center channel to sit inside the tv cabinet, add two bookshelf speakers to sit on the media cabinets for my front Left and Right. My subwoofer is to the left of the tv cabinet so I'll keep that in the same place. I guess the only in-ceiling speaker i'll keep wired to the 5.1 setup are the rears even though their not ideally located. It sounds like this might solve most of my issues.

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Not sure what you mean regarding "inside the tv cabinet". Hopefully you are not talking about the TV's built-in speakers, that would not be an improvement over what you have now.

Just installing a soundbar on the mantle and running it with the monitor output of the TV would be a huge upgrade over what you have now. Otherwise, a dedicated center channel speaker plus bookshelfs for the left and right channels would be the way to go. You could look at replacing the rears with some directional (adjustable) type satellite speakers for a better surround experience.

We have our center behind the TV, in the cabinet where the TV resides. That works fine and I assume that's what he is saying.

Probably so and agree that works fine.

In ceiling speakers are terrible for surround sound and any home builder who goes along with mounting a tv over a fireplace needs to have their head examined. If you want the fireplace as the focal point of the room then make it the focal point and move the TV to another room.