Surround sound 5.1 setup

I’ve had difficulty getting surround setup in my main area, I can’t get the speakers behind far enough … I’ve lived with this poorly setup for a LONG time now, but the GF decided she wanted to see Top Gun … Well nothing says surround sound like Top Gun … So I got an itch to fix my setup. First up I bought some speaker stands that will allow me to get my very old bookshelf speakers as far behind us as possible. I found a cheap, albeit wobbly set on Amazon. They are from Prime Cables.

With that done I decided it was time to buy a decent center speaker. All the reading I did said it’s the place to spend your cash on for the most bang for the buck. I did some digging, and decided, go big or go home 😉 So I bought a Polk Audio Monitor XT35.

This thing is NOT light weighing in at almost 15 pounds, and cost me $289, again on Amazon. Placement of the center speaker is important, the closer to the screen the better the “feel” of the sound coming from where your looking at. So I decided I would mount it right above the TV, below wasn’t going to work. I briefly considered putting the TV on top of the speaker but the speaker itself that wide and I was concerned it wouldn’t support the weight of the TV. I found a great mount on Amazon (duh where else) that uses the VESA mounts on the back of the TV. The mount is really well made with lots of flexibility, lots of bolts and bolt holes … With a bit of a experimenting I rested the speaker on the top of the tv and secured it with the mount to the back of the speaker which has a keyhole mount.

I was a little concerned the weight might be a bit much for my 40″ Samsung but it is just fine. Here’s the TV with the mount from the back of the TV.

So with these improvements in place it’s now time to calibrate … My very old Denon came with a mic you plug in and then place it 6 places around the room so I dragged out my old trusty tripod and got it done. At the end of the calibration it tells you details about what it heard …

As always you need to be careful with where your content comes from … I download most of my TV/movies and use Kodi to play them back on an Amazon Fire TV stick. The Fire stick is plugged into the Denon receiver over HDMI. Kodi tells you pretty clearly if it’s recorded in 5.1 or not. Most of my TV is not. So I choose wisely when downloading a movie to insure it’s 5.1. Over the Air (OTA) TV seems VERY hit or miss on 5.1, I’d say more miss … I don’t have the room for 7.1 (two more rear speakers) and finding 7.1 content requires even more care … To get the best sound out of OTA TV I have an optical cable that runs from the TV back over to the Denon receiver. So in all the speakers on the TV are doing nothing. Honestly, my speakers are so much better than the TVs, it’s worth the bother …

So now onto Top Gun … that scene where the one MIG goes between the two fighters and whoosh you can hear it go right past you … It’s so much more immersive. The center speaker was expensive, and I’m not sure it’s 100% worth spending that much, but heh, speakers last a LONG time and we watch a fair bit of TV/Movies so why not!