VOGONS


First post, by badmojo

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I spent a very enjoyable day yesterday reconfiguring my home office / man cave to allow me to properly install my recently purchased Logitech Z906 5.1 surround system. Going through that process has left me curious to see how other people have set up their systems, or if indeed many people are going to the trouble of setting one up at all. The main challenge of course is getting the satellites mounted in an appropriate location relative to the listener. Initially I tried sitting them on top of my retro PC station, which happened to be directly behind the PC I was using the Z906’s on. The height was about right but they were too far away and too close to each other, so there wasn’t enough stereo separation. You can of course adjust the level of individual speakers which overcomes an incorrectly placed speaker to some extent, but there’s no substitute for having it placed at the correct height and angle.

By flipping my desk around I was able to wall mount the satellites in whatever position I chose, and after much research and measuring and indecision I settled on a height and distance from each other. Most of the advice I read online suggested mounting them at or above seated head height (for a THX system), and most diagrams had them pointing towards the listener. The rears are also placed further apart than the front speakers, again based on advice. I found a really nice conduit system at the local hardware store to hide the wiring and I had a set of wall brackets from a previous system I had years ago.

I’m really pleased with the result. The surround effect is very pronounced now - I can clearly hear sound positions but at the same time there aren’t dead spots where sounds noticeably jump from back to front. It was a decent amount of work and you can go a long way with a quality set of 2.1’s or headphones, but proper surround on a game that implements it well is pretty damn amazing.

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Reply 1 of 4, by Joseph_Joestar

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My 5.1 setup is pretty simple. The front and rear speakers form a square and I sit right in the middle of it, meaning where the diagonals would intersect. Each speaker is diagonally one meter away from my sitting position, except the front center one which is around 50 cm away, and the subwoofer which just sits below the table. That works fine for me, and positional audio is precise enough that I can hear enemies who approach me from behind in FPS games.

This is great for older games which use DirectSound or OpenAL, but newer titles from the Win7/10/11 era can be hit or miss. For example, Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal have inferior sound positioning than Doom 3 + EAX 4.0 on this speaker configuration. Not sure why that is, maybe surround sound in newer games is mixed for a proper home theater setup or something.

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Reply 2 of 4, by Intel486dx33

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I have a Klipsch 5.2.4 surround sound system for my Home and PC but I like just using this $30 Anker Soundcore-2 Bluetooth Speaker.
It's small enough that I can take it anywhere and it has an AUX input so I can use it with any computer or device.
And it sounds pretty good for the Size. Great for listening to music or watching movies too.

Last edited by Intel486dx33 on 2025-05-07, 10:26. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 3 of 4, by badmojo

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-05-06, 03:46:

This is great for older games which use DirectSound or OpenAL, but newer titles from the Win7/10/11 era can be hit or miss.

Yes I've noticed this too. I suppose there's some effort involved from a dev perspective to make a game properly utilise surround sound so perhaps it's just not a priority these days.

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Reply 4 of 4, by chinny22

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Best setup I had was when the wife was away for a couple of months and I took over the living room.
The computer was against the wall opposite to the TV, so the back of the couch faced the computer.
That meant I could put the rear speakers sort of up against the couch and out of the way.

Now that we have kids only chance of a proper setup is if I get a weekend to myself.
On the very rare occasions that happens I'll move a computer onto the dinning room table and chairs make for good makeshift speaker stands.

Rest of the time because I have so many PC's I'm connecting to Logitech Z5500 speakers over optic or a single 3.5mm so loose surround sound.
The speakers have a "stereo x2" mode which kind of do the trick especially as behind me but just in "out of the way" locations.