Irregular Home Theater Room Shape - Will I Have Audio Issues?

My new home will have a dedicated home theater room (I asked the architect for a perfect rectangular shape but it didn't happen).  It is mostly rectangular but one side is 2' wider for 1/2 the length and the back wall slants to a V.  I believe the dimensions are roughly (12' wide by 18' long & 10' ceilings).  I hear from some that the audio could be an issue - others mention there are speakers that will compensate.
 
I attached a photo...
 
Advice? 
 
 

I have seen almost a dozen theatre rooms in people's houses and within five years every one of them is a kids playroom or a storage room. I almost did it myself but listening to others selling their equipment and seating I realise it really doesn't have a place in most homes.
It isn't ever as dynamic as going to the theatre, it isn't a night out for the wife, people visiting want to be social and talk not locked in a dark room with sensory deprivation, and you will get real sick of being alone in there with nothing else to do.
 
Having said all that I see no problem for rear speakers. I hang mine off the ceiling behind us facing down at 45 degrees. If they are at ear level the front row people  get blinded from the rear sound by the people sitting behind them.
 
Many times I have thought about turning the rear speakers off. The surround sound can be so real that we have to pause movies and TV shows to look for what fell down and smashed or answer the phone that didn't ring. Too real. Jumping back to replay the part again is very common to prove where the sound came from.
 
Keep your front speakers close to the screen and not too wide for a smoother image and out of the corners so you don't get bass booming.  Keep the monitor screen away from the wall to keep the same plane as the front sound image and about 14 inches closer to the viewers.

When I built my recording studio, I avoided parallel walls in both the live room and the control room, because they can cause very nasty room modes.  Things like standing waves and the like.
 
You may have accidentally done a really good thing.
 
If you want to make your head explode, you can read about it.  Here's an article intended for recording studio design.

Because of the reason mentioned above, my rear surrounds are about 2-ft above sitting ear height - they sound great.
 
Understand that these are Dolby guides for OPTIMUM configuration, as with most installations there may be compromises:
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/guide/surround-sound-speaker-setup/5-1-setup.html
 
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/guide/surround-sound-speaker-setup/7-1-setup.html
 
My wife and I love our setup enough that we rarely go to the movies... probably 2-3x per year. Everything else is watched from the comfort of our living room... not even a dedicated home theater room.

ccmichaelson said:

My new home will have a dedicated home theater room (I asked the architect for a perfect rectangular shape but it didn't happen).  It is mostly rectangular but one side is 2' wider for 1/2 the length and the back wall slants to a V.  I believe the dimensions are roughly (12' wide by 18' long & 10' ceilings).  I hear from some that the audio could be an issue - others mention there are speakers that will compensate.
 
I attached a photo...
 
Advice? 

Click to expand...

 
I'd say that there are receivers that will compensate. At the simplest level, speakers are "dumb devices" that just play whatever signal is sent to it. However, many of the mid to high end receivers come with some sort of adjustment/tuning microphone which can measure the distance of each of your speakers to an optimum listening position (middle seat in middle of your room?). Depending on the receiver, these microphones and associated technology can auto adjust your EQ and speaker levels, evaluate and adjust for standing waves, as well as time-alignment (delay sound from closer speakers by milliseconds).

We find some echo in our living room but lots of wall hangings, curtains, soft wallpaper, or tapestries, absorb standing waves and echoes.  Hang a thick curtain wall at the back with the bar behind it.
 
Speakers cannot take back sounds once they have produced them and a wall has reflected it.

Speaking of wall hangings, we used to have these 3 decorative metal wall art decor pieces that my wife picked out for our dining room - open and adjacent to our living room. Those things use to rattle against the wall and it drove me nuts. They're now gone and have been replaced with a mirror!

Do you really need seating for 17?  
Frame off the odd shaped back corner into storage, or expand the other bath into it.
 
I don't know what the actual dimensions of the room are, but at 218sqft, it can't be more than 12' wide.  That seems pretty tight for 4 seats at about 2' wide each plus 2' walkways on both sides.  But hey, the architect knows best, right?
 
And make sure you add some real good sound insulation in that front wall.  Hearing the toilet flush in the middle of a tender moment on the screen breaks the mood.

The area SDA made above would also be very accomadating for centralizing all of your structured wiring; unless you have a separate space for that already. I know I'd love to have that much room for my structured wiring, networking hardware, and media rack.

ccmichaelson,
 
Very nice and welcome to the Cocoontech forum.
 
Here redid one room (well gutted it sort of).  It was a family room but I wanted 7.1 sound in it versus the legacy 5.1 sound.  I did go to ceiling middle back speakers here plus wall rear speakers mostly because of the shape of the room.  Probably not optimum.
 
After it was done did do that whole microphone / speaker sound testing from the seating in the room. 
 
The room dimension were not totally rectangular.  I did initially do a drawing and placed a virtual line rectangular for audio infrastructure in the same drawing.  This is though different than a theater sound system implementation.
 
As the room was gutted and was going to be painted over again I penciled / chalked into the ceilings and walls what I wanted to see and hear.  Mostly done leaning a bit on the aesthetics (WAF thing) of the symmetry of audio speakers in the virtual rectangle.   Used those laser measuring and drawing line tools which are really neato gizmos.
 
Two local neighbors here redid their entertainment (media / guests) areas.  One went with one section for viewing the LCD with seating accordingly placed plus multiple smaller bar sections (well and bar stuff) with high stools and tables very much sports bar like.  Speaker placement is more relating to hearing sound in any section rather than movie sound like.
 
I have seen another set up like this before.  One was made into a combo sort of library wall with books making the room sort of a books store coffee shop atmosphere and hiding all of the LCDs with whatever mechanisms or a sports bar motif.  Two sets of audio here.  One theater and one sports bar.
 
Both have adjacent equipment rooms with much of the infrastruture in a sort of long utility closet type set up.

Do you really need seating for 17?  
Frame off the odd shaped back corner into storage, or expand the other bath into it.
 
I don't know what the actual dimensions of the room are, but at 218sqft, it can't be more than 12' wide.  That seems pretty tight for 4 seats at about 2' wide each plus 2' walkways on both sides.  But hey, the architect knows best, right?
 
And make sure you add some real good sound insulation in that front wall.  Hearing the toilet flush in the middle of a tender moment on the screen breaks the mood.

t1.JPG

Click to expand...

Oh yeah! Bar behind the curtain at the back and double offset studs in the front wall for a sound break.

ccmichaelson said:

My new home will have a dedicated home theater room (I asked the architect for a perfect rectangular shape but it didn't happen).  It is mostly rectangular but one side is 2' wider for 1/2 the length and the back wall slants to a V.  I believe the dimensions are roughly (12' wide by 18' long & 10' ceilings).  I hear from some that the audio could be an issue - others mention there are speakers that will compensate.

Click to expand...

 
You need to spend some hours reading in the "Dedicated Theater Construction" forum over at AVSforum...  The room is a good size for ~8-10 people in total, assuming you want that much seating to begin with, as was already pointed out.  My theater will seat 12 max - with 8 in recliners and 4 more at a bar table.  You could do a similar arrangement - primary seating and "overflow" if there's a few big parties to handle, for example.
 
But the layout as shown is not workable.  You do not want seating that packed in, nor that close to the screen.  The HVAC concerns alone for that many bodies is significant.  
 
As for the room shape, it may cause some problems, but you'll at least be able to place speakers where they need to be, and some good acoustic treatments can help deal with the rest.
 
Hope that helps,
 
Jeff

My advice:
 
I would leave the room unfinished, without drywall.  After construction, take your time and become an expert yourself on theater construction, or hire one.
 
If you really want the theater up and running ASAP, hire the theater designer now.
 
There are many details that make a big difference, things you would never imagine.  And, your architect is NOT an expert in theater design.
 
I would also recommend spending several hours at the AVS Dedicated Theater Design & Construction subforum, before you make your decision to hire a designer or not.
 
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/19-dedicated-theater-design-construction/
 
Be warned - if you decide to do the theater construction yourself it will take a year or 2, minimum.  It may be best to use a local AV company for the install, one with lots of HT experience.
 
What part of the country are you in?

Another look and see reference relating to your endeavor is CE Pro.
 
CE Pro
 
They always have pictorials of home theater set ups et al.
 
I've been reading this magazine for over many many years now.
 
They do have references there for many professional shops which do custom theaters and commercial automation stuff.
 
Locally here we have an automation shop for custom built homes which includes multiple rooms of home theaters.
 
They used a large building and gave the showrooms multimillion house looks. 
 
I've never seen anything similiar in the local smaller  / big box stereo shops / stores. 
 
Kole Digital Systems
 
If you are on a short time frame of completion personally I would just hire a company / person / consultant that knows how to do this (as stated above). 

I'd say the latter depends on how in-depth/detailed you want your home theater to be. Personally, I don't care if my setup is THX certified, if my screen is calibrated on a weekly basis, if the speakers perform perfectly at reference volume, etc. I don't care to be that scientific about it. I simply want a space to enjoy movies with friends/family... and that includes a large screen and surround sound. The blacks of said screen may not be blacker than black (BTB), and the whites may not be whiter than white (WTW); for those who don't know, those are real terms used when you start digging into this stuff. Sure, if I've got a Bill Gates budget, I'm paying for those things even if I can't tell the difference, but that's simply not the case.
 
I'm also a hobbyist photographer and frequent specific forms for that as well. There are people who will buy cameras and lenses and only photograph test sheets of graphs and such and tell you that this camera with this lens doesn't provide a sharp image. We call those people measurebators and/or pixel peepers. They will literally buy the same lens again from another source and test it again and again to find a "good copy". I live in the real world and take pictures of real things like landscapes, portraits, still life... not test sheets. I'd wager money that you won't find a picture of a test sheet in an art gallery.
 
When I watch a movie I probably can't tell you if the dolby decoding was done properly or not, or if the screen was calibrated recently (unless it's TERRIBLE)... because I don't watch the movie to evaluate the gear. I watch it to enjoy the experience.
 
I guess the question is, "What's good enough?" There are 300 MILLION photographs uploaded to Facebook on a DAILY basis. I'd say the LARGE majority of those are taken with a phone. So, for most people that's good enough. They don't need a DSLR camera with 25-megapixels and a 200mm lens. So, regarding your home theater, what's good enough for you? What meets your requirements?