Building new HT - Need help hanging M30's from exposed ceiling & other advice.

[awrhodes]

I'm building a home theater in an unfinished portion of my basement (imagine a game room-type atmosphere), so I have exposed ceilings. I would like to hang my Monitor 30 rear speakers at about the middle of the room straight down from the floor joyces (the steel support beam is also an option to mount them to). I was wondering if anyone has any good suggestions for how to do that. The speakers come with keyhole mounts, but that's not useful given the size of the room. Also, most mounts I've seen support up to 8lbs and these speakers are 9lbs. Given that its an unfinished basement, the aesthetics are inconsequential, and an "industrial look" might actually be pretty cool. The pictures below give you an idea of what I'm thinking. Also, comment on the placement of the CS2 center channel if you will.

Rear Plan:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_H_lBatcD2bM/SljLbt_3upI/AAAAAAAAAOE/vCtsMi4kKOg/s912/HT%20-%20Rear.jpg

Front Plan:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_H_lBatcD2bM/SljLay0krSI/AAAAAAAAAOA/14m-QVQ7tTo/s912/HT-Front.jpg



As an additional question, I bought the Yamaha RX-V565 7.1 system, as well as 2 Monitor 60's as my fronts, and a CS2 as my center, and of course the Monitor 30's as my rears. Should I fill out the 7 channels or will I be fine with 5? As far as I understand, hardly anything takes advantage of 7.1 at this point. I'm using a U-Vsere STB, Xbox 360, Wii, and a standard DVD player (no Blu-Ray). I know that I need to get a sub, but I'll worry about that later.

[wutadumsn23]

First off, welcome to Cub Polk!! I don't know if it is just me or not, but I can't view your attached pictures so it makes it harder to critique your placement or offer advice, lol. It sounds like you system is well matched by what you have described, the Monitor series is a winner I run 70's/CS2/40's and it sounds very good. As for your AVR, it won't have a problem running your set-up at 90W per channel. The 60's could use a little more power to live up to their potential (200W per channel) but it doesn't look like the Yammy has pre-outs so no hopes of adding an external amp unfortunately. You will be fine with 5 channels unless your room allows for a well setup 7.1 IMO. You are correct that most movies don't support 7.1 (except for a limited number of Blu-Rays) so again, I wouldn't worry about rushing into a 7.1 setup. I will attach a link to Dolby's website for "proper" setup for a 5.1/7.1 system. Good luck and see if you can retry those pics.

http://www.dolby.com/consumer/home_entertainment/speaker-setup-guide/index.html