advice needed - placement of two pairs of front speakers hifi / home cinema

[mathew]

Hi,

Just after some advice re my new 5.1 setup.

I have a Naim hifi with floorstanding hi fi speakers.

I will be adding a separate, new, 5.1 setup to the room (q acoustics 2000i) for home cinema use.

Just wondering what I can do about the front speakers as they ideally both want to be in the same position. Are they Ok fairly close to each other as shown?

What do you think?

Thanks.

 

[MaturityDodger]

Why not use the hi-fi floorstanders as the fronts for your 5.1?

There are two ways of doing this:

1) Connect both amps to a speaker switch, and the switch to the speakers. TC-7220 AUDIO ROUTER
2) use the AVR's pre-outs and use the stereo amp as a power amp for 5.1 listening. If the stereo amp has HT passthrough then that's perfect. Otherwise you'd have to manually set the stereo amp's volume to a certain level every time. Plus it's dependent on your AVR having pre-outs.

 

[mathew]

Thanks, good idea. It's certainly more wife friendly only having one set of fronts.

Hifi amp is a Nait 5i, AVR is a Onkyo NR609.

Am also thinking maybe retire the hifi for now and use the AVR and new speakers for music.. I don't actually listen to it all that often and would be nice to try the Spotify feature of the AVR - however it would also be nice to get some use out of the Rega DAC I bought earlier in the year!

 

[MaturityDodger]

Ok, I think you'll have to go with the switch option then - don't Onkyo only have pre-outs from the 7xx models upwards?
I have a 508, and use a speaker switch with my XTZ stereo amp.

By all means give it a try with the new kit for music, but I think you'll notice quite a difference in quality.

You can still use the AVR for spotify. Use the AVR's line-level zone 2 output to feed the stereo amp. This isn't suitable as pre-out for front channels, but if you're not playing something through the AVR's other speakers then it's exactly what you need.

Also if you're using the same fronts and still buying a 5.1 package... you have a couple of spare speakers so you could always make it 7.1!

 

[mathew]

The back of the sofa is about 1ft from the back wall, making ears say 2ft from the back wall. I wonder if that's too close to the speakers for 7.1, though I suppose no different than the surround speakers being close to the left and right seats when 5.1 - and they can always be tuned down a bit so as to not overpower the fronts. I think this could be an awesome plan.

You're right the 609 doesn't have pre outs, also the nait doesn't have an HT pass through or proper pre-ins (it's just a line level input integrated hifi amp). So I agree a speaker switch would be the way forward if sharing the speakers between the two amps. That Beresford looks good it would cost nearly that to buy the fat banana sockets if buying in small quantities!

 

[MaturityDodger]

Yeah, I'm in a similar situation - I can't get anything behind me. Got a foot or two, and then a large window.

I actually went with the front-height configuration of 7.1.
I didn't do this because I particularly wanted it or thought it would make things better, but 'because I could'.
Originally I had fronts and surrounds from an Onkyo 5.1 kit in the top corners of the room (TV wall-mounted and central). I really didn't like the sound of this, so bought 5.0 good speakers, including XTZ 99.36s as fronts to be shared with stereo system.
The surrounds used the in-wall wiring at the rear, leaving two high wires at the front. It was easier to leave the two speakers up there than to take them away!

I think that 7.1 hront-height makes a slight improvement over 5.1, but I can't say for certain that this isn't a placebo effect!