I've often wondered,,,, If you were only worried about one listener in one spot of the room, would you be better off placing the speakers much, much closer to get the effect you speak of, or still place them farther away for a less "in your face" experience.
It's a very good question. I have seen some pictures of surround systems in very small apartments and I have read some articles.
My experience having both they are different, I think your listening space should engulf the size of room. If I had a 20' X 30' X 12'ceilings I don't think I would lay out a 5' X 5' niche in the corner. However when I was building my surround for car I did do a layout pretending equipment and wires where as if in the car.
The home 12' X 14' with 8' ceilings has a flavor for lack of a better word, that has been played and tweaked to my liking. I think it sounds bad ass. I am basically the only one that has listened to it, my biggest fear in life is a group of QQers would come over and say this sounds like shit. It is hard when you are your only feedback.
The car, I used a Crutchfield mounted Blu Ray player, USB in- sub in trunk-3 mains on dash, 2 rear deck-and two mids front doors, the key is the JBL DSP that you access from Ipad, and you can really dial it in, plus all the auto deadening stuff. I have never played an Atmos file, I just keep with 4.0's and 5.1's.
The music is exaggerated when I say in your face, like if there is a swirl going round in speakers, or an isolated voice coming from rear left, man, you really hear it,
Keep in mind it is not a small niche in house it is a vault of plastic metal and glass, where sound is mostly not escaping, the DSP on the Ipad is really important.
