a rather interesting positive development

[ccotenj]

i have a 15X17X9 room... plaster... wooden floor with large rug in front of speakers...

ever since i first got my sierra's, i had the room set up the "short" way (i.e. tv and recliner on the long walls)... i had no complaints at all...

this weekend, we rotated everything 90 degrees, so the room is now the "long" way (i.e. tv and recliner on the short walls... this got the speakers about another foot off the front wall (they are about 3 feet off now), and the recliners about 3 feet off the back wall... this arrangement also conveniently opened up a "good" sub location...

without even dialing them in, it amazed me at the difference when i fired them up... the soundstage got considerably larger, and they sounded even better... markedly better... i guess the lesson learned here is to try multiple locations more often..

i'm not sure why this occured, but i'm not about to complain... well, i know acoustics, speaker placement, etc. are all involved, but i couldn't have figured it out if i hadn't of hit upon it by accident...

[scape]

congrats on the find, that's pretty cool to get such a large change from just two feet in wall length. I think placement is equally important as gear, in my opinion. i'm still trying to figure out my situation, as one whole wall is open to another even bigger room. the sound barely escapes to the rest of the floor, which is sometimes unwanted, i guess i could use the zone2 on the amp and set something up but that is such a hassle for just a bit more volume around the main floor. when i get the 170's hooked up i think the sound will drastically change.
for your room, i think by placing the couch in a bit and the gear in, your essentially using less of the room for acoustics and more is just the audio 'bubble'. having 9ft ceilings may help too. while my room has the couch backed to the open side, the expansiveness is greatened i think, there are no distortions coming from behind at most volume levels, as the wall behind it is 20 or maybe 30 ft away (dining room). my gear, LCR right now, is also 2 ft out from the wall. i've been contemplating setting it up in diagonal, but my roommate (aka girlfriend) is pretty much the sayer when it comes to furniture placement, to each his own as i've got my 'boxes' as she calls them.
i have been struggling with finding a good way to hook up the rear surrounds i have on hand, 2 very small satellites, and place them well. have you heard if using the ceiling (8ft) is such a bad idea, maybe hanging them literally only a few inches down from the ceiling? they would also be only 2ft horizontally off from the ends of the couch.