surround speaker placement

[Ed.]

my friend just bought a new house and wants to turn the downstairs into a bar/arcade/home theater room.  he'd kinda like to leave it be all one big open room, however, we were trying to figure out how to in the future mount the speakers if theres no back wall (or side walls for that matter).  We could always get stands, but he would prefer not to.  would it hurt the sound to hang the surround speakers to the ceiling and angle them down at the listening area?  I swear once that i read that surround speakers shouldn't be much more than a 1' over your head, but i can't remember where i read it.

also, i'm trying to talk him into the sony 3000 es receiver - any suggestions on surround speakers and good stereo speakers for that receiver?  He has a bit of money to play with, but not much so good speakers on the cheap would probably be his best bet and hopefully he can upgrade in the future.

[jk labs]

my friend just bought a new house and wants to turn the downstairs into a bar/arcade/home theater room.  he'd kinda like to leave it be all one big open room, however, we were trying to figure out how to in the future mount the speakers if theres no back wall (or side walls for that matter).  We could always get stands, but he would prefer not to.  would it hurt the sound to hang the surround speakers to the ceiling and angle them down at the listening area?  I swear once that i read that surround speakers shouldn't be much more than a 1' over your head, but i can't remember where i read it.

Not an easy question!

But something can be said. The mass of the moving cone compared to the mass of the speaker as a whole, seen in the light of Newtons law saying something about action & reaction being equal, will lead you to conclude that the freely moving speaker cabinet does not emit any energy of significance. So hang the speakers and be happy.

I'm not familiar with arguments saying something about speaker height above the head but of course speakers emit beams of sound much like a flashlight emit light so the speakers must be aimed at the listener.

Walls reflect incoming soundwaves. In a room they act to reinforce low frequencies in particular.
So your friend might struggle a little to obtain a balanced reproduction of the deepest lows relative the highs. It's a question of levels, crossover frequenies, standing waves, damping, boundary reinforcements (F.ex putting the subwoofer in a corner yields many many dB more bass).