HTM-200 SEs on the way, looking for advice on orientation

Hi - I'm excited to be replacing my 10 Minimus 7 surrounds with 10 HTM-200 SEs. The M7s were an experiment but they just don't put out enough. The HTM-200 looks to be the perfect replacement for our room.

You can see by the picture how I have the M7s oriented: All but the rears are horizontal to the listening area on the sofa. The rears are angled both ways. My theory was to point them all directly at the listening area.

My default is to install the HTMs the same, but figured I'd ask the forum for thoughts or suggestions on orientation.

Thanks much!

PS - am also excited to be trying out Ascend products for the first time!

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It's a bit tough to see how those are mounted. Can you post a close up pic showing that?

Any time you are suspending objects with any significant mass above where people will be, you want to take safety as #1. The 200's have dual threaded inserts on the back, but I would not rely on those for overhead mounting. You will likely have to create new screw hole locations for use with properly rated mounts, but that will be dictated by the mounts you use.

One thing to consider is just using side surrounds and not surround backs roughly where you have the picture hanging right now. This way you can get the surrounds closer to ear level, maybe 1 foot above that height. I have had surrounds the way you have them in the photo and closer to ear level and much prefer them closer to ear level. The elevated surrounds make all surround effects sound artificially lifted higher than they should be.

Furthermore, getting the surrounds closer to ear level allows for Atmos speakers to sound effective and you have a very good room to be able to properly place two pairs of Atmos speakers overhead with the open rafters. If the surrounds are high it would be more difficult to differentiate between side surrounds and overhead Atmos speakers.