Placement of Revel Performa S30 surround speakers

The dealer is wrong on wiring them out of Phase! This is not the solution, no.
However as for set-up of the speakers, one would need to be able to see your room and set-up. EVERY room is different, and requires different considerations.
Really, there are ways to find the best placment, and it doesn't simply have to do with where someone thinks they should go! if you want the same sound balance with the front speaker, so the speakers will all dissapear acoustically, and proper coupling of them to the room/seating possition, there is quite a lot more to it than simply saying they should go here or there, based on theory! If you want anything resembling high fidelity, top caliber sound from those excellent speakers, you need to really have someone do it for you!...the possitioning that is.
Setting up speakers, for excellent results, is not a simple proceedure. it really takes knowledge, exerience, and some acquired skill to do it well, and few can do it right! THIS ARE IS WHERE 99.9% OF ALL AUDIO ENTHUSIESTS, AND EVEN LONG TIME AUDIOPHIES, SCREW UP! I've done over 1000 systems in my day, and have worked in 5 high end stores, been to all the shows, and counless homes....trust me, most people SCREW UP THE SPEAKER PLACEMENT!!!
You really should pay someone who know's what they're doing to look at your room, and figure things out for you. Unless your willing to spend years, and thousands of hours trying to figure out how to do it well, you really should consult an expert on the situation. Otherwise, what you find is that you'll highly likely get only mediocre to poor results from otherwise excellent, yet mis-installed gear!
If you doubt, just email ANY of the stereophile writers and ask em!!!...ANY!
Your Revel's, I believe, are ported speakers, correct? This usually always makes for very difficult "close to wall proximity" possitioning. Whatever you do, make sure you configure them for "small" on your pre/pro.
My dad used to say, if you need something done, you always go to the expert on the matter!!...my suggestion indeed...
Good luck

OOOOPS!....just realized you are talking about dedicated S30 surounds. I was thinking about the 20's, which are ported. These speaker(S30's) are sealed, and are balanced from the crossover to be flush against the wall. However, for proper sound, you still need to have them placed properly on the walls/ceiling/etc, whichever. Placment is still critical in the room, and require attention. If you chose to do it your self, may I suggest you pick up a lot of info on how to place speakers.
Good luck

I recently purchased a pair of the same speakers. Like you, I plan on installing them on the back wall. My take, after reading the Revel S30 manual, is that you want the speakers 20-30 degrees behind and 15 degrees above the main listening area.

If your listening area is six feet from the back wall, and assuming your ears are about 44" from the floor when you're seated and listening, then the 15 degrees higher would put the speakers at a height of 68" (44" + 24") from the floor.

I don't know that I can help with the recommended separation between speakers. I ended up with about 12 feet between the left and right surrounds.

Hope that helps. If you don't have Revel's manual, you can get it from their web site.

IN response to Mr Basmith's posting on proper placement for your S30's, this is as far as 99.9% off the people ever see for good sound from their speakers!
I don't care if the manufacturer likes to see their speakres 20 degrees behind and almost 6 feet off the ground! Using that as a hard and fast rule is still going to garantee that you'll end up with likely poor sound from the speakers!!!
Now grated the main action is still happening in the front speakers, but it still matters!
I'll state again...EVERY ROOM/SET-UP calls for different speaker placement!...especially if your not using EQ's to help balance the speakers properly!!
Different places on the wall will have dramaticly different changes to the sound you get from a given speaker! If you are putting those speakers on the wall where the manual SUGGESTS you put them, you might just find that there's a huge hole at critical bass frequencies, or large lumps at uperbass/lower midrange frequencies, and get cruddy sound that either sounds week dynamically, or boomy, or lumpy, or at least tonally completely different perception wise than the mains!
I simply cannot understand the logic behind placing speakers "just so", so they are in the possitions you "think" they should go, yet end up with A BAD SOUNDING, POORLY BALANCED, UNATURAL SOUNDING, INCOHERENT, "NON FLAT RESPONDING" SPEAKER, THAT YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST BUY SOME OTHER CHEAPER SPEAKER AT THAT POINT AND BE DONE WITH IT!...saving money in the process!!! Because that's exactly what's going to be the case, no matter how much you spent on the speakers, or pottentially how good they are capable of sounding, if you don't know how to make em sound good in the first place!..and every room sound different in different locations!...every room!...it's the law of physics your dealing with here....impossible to overcome or fight against it with out serious trade offs.
I'll say again, lOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION, is the single biggest factor in getting ANY speaker to sounding good in relation to your seating area!
...there are much MUCH better ways to figure best speaker placements in the room, and it doesn't simply involve someone's "suggestion" as to where they should go in "blanket" statement! Yes, you can try to keep them in general areas for perspective and locational cues for sure(infact you need to get em in a general area of target if you can for sure). But your speaker locations varying from just inches to feet in one dirrection or height to another, will great impact the sound!
Good luck...there's no formula answer to where to put a speaker in any room! You gotta know it's different from circumstance to circumstance.
Good luck