i know its highly subjective but looking for 'rules of thumb' to ease the trial and error pain! i'm building a set of cinema 10's that will sit on what amounts to a cabinet 27" tall 30" deep all the way across the 13' front wall.....mlp is 11' and centered....its a 13'x15' living room inside 3 walls with open floor plan to kitch/dining, rear wall is 30' back, ceilings are vaulted from 11' up to 23' c10's will be on each side of a 60" plasma, directly under (into the cabinet but not 'built in') the c10's will be the new 'super lab's' in a sub/mbm configuration. the c10's horns will be centered 1/3 of the way up the screen. bottom of horn will be roughly seated ear height. 1) being a 2.1 system that will mainly be setup for music i'd still like to be able to get a 'phantom' center channel effect for movies and music dvd's...... so given i've got a 30" deep 'countertop' and plenty of sideways room should the speakers be fairly close to tv or away to the sides to help this? i'm guessing closer is better? 2) should tv be in front, even with, or behind the speaker baffle? i'm guessing even with so that the hard surface of the screen will project this 'phantom' center? i've got no dsp delay so 'behind' also might be better for low freq alignment? 3) should i be sound treating the area behind the tv and speakers or are the reflections going to help a 'phantom' effect? thanks, Bob btw...extra thanks to erich and everyone else involved here....this is awesome!
The speakers should be close to the sides of the TV for better phantom center. You do want the baffles sitting close to flush with the front of the TV. Experiment with toe, you might find that a strong toe angle can add to the phantom center effect. Treating the area behind the speakers will help reduce SBIR and that can clean up the range from the bass through the lower midrange by reducing the impact of reflected sound. Depending on the amount of surface treated it may also help with dialog intelligibility and general sound clarity in the room. Doing so should not reduce the phantom center effect.