I've purchased that mount for my surrounds, sold under the Definitive Technology name by Crutchfield. Shorter stud, $50/pr. Haven't mounted them as yet. Need to run permanent speaker wire runs.

Still undecided on what to do for the heights. Options:

1- Mount on walls (SS3's). CHALLENGE: wide of recommended locations per DOLBY, approximately 35-40" outside of L/R mains.

2 -Mount on wall (HTR 7000's) (9' high) or under soffit ( 8' high). CHALLENGE: same issues as above.

3 -Suspend on cables across room, ala similar lighting systems. CHALLENGE: I have some weight concerns here as there would be approximately 16-20 lbs hanging for each pair of cables. (See attached picture. Envision SS3's in place of the fixture) I would use 3/16" cable similar to that used as lifelines on sailboats. Still, getting enough tension on the cables to keep them from sagging over a 17' run may not be possible.

Not rushing into this as the format wars for immersion sound are still far from settled and I'm waiting for the next generation of Home Theater Receivers to be released. Also, not much in the way of decent ATMOS material to watch at this time, and only a trickle in the immediate future. With luck the new boxes will be both ATMOS and DTS-X capable, and feature rich on improvements over Gen 1.

Just picked up another set of SS3's to round out a 7.2 system; T2's L/R, SCXL, SS3's- surrounds, SS3's -rear. 2 ea Rythmik 15" subs. Sounding good so far. 'Interstellar' was (shall I say it?), OUT OF THIS WORLD! Great overall sound mix, fantastic LFE. Best sonic experience so far on this setup, and only 5.2 right now.

Blues

Option 2 would actually work well, as the HTR 7000's should be outside the L/R mains.

Time time to Saul....err, Sandy. Need some specific placement / aiming guidance for this.

Blues

Best guidance is from someone standing in your space and looking at the surfaces, dimensions, screen and seating location, etc. Really hard to do via email. You can certainly call the GoldenEar office and speaker to someone (often times Sandy) and perhaps we can suggest based on a verbal description of the space as it relates to your vaulted ceiling.