Rear speakers on Toshiba 56" TV

I have a 56" Toshiba TV with surround sound. Toshiba give you some small rear speakers, which I didn't find very good. I therefore replaced them with a couple of 120w floor standing ones, around the same size as the huge internal ones in the TV. I've run standard speaker cable probably around 10m to 15m in length around my lounge to drive then.

The problem I have is that the speakers are not particularly loud. The TV allows you to adjust the rear volume, which I've set to 100%, which helps, but it still not great. They are loud enough when you turn up the volume, but the front ones drown out the rear ones.

I guess I have two concerns. Firstly, do I actually need an amp to drive these rear speakers? If so, could anyone recommend a small, cheap one I could discretely mount behind the sofa? Perhaps I should buy a proper amp which I mount next to the TV and run the speaker cable from there? I'm happy with the front speakers, so I really only need to drive the rear two channels.

Secondly, do I need special speaker cable to run speakers this sort of distance? I've got a feeling that you have to use special, high grade, speaker cable for anything more than a couple of meters. However, I'm not sure if this effects the volume or maybe causes the loss of the high frequency components of the signal?

Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks.

Kind Regards,
Shane Cook.

 

I suggest you check you manual to see if the Tosh is outputting equal power to front and rear speakers when set to 100%.
It may output less to rears. The amp in those telly's isn't the most powerful around either, so it may struggle to go louder anyway.
As for cable: as long as you are using something better than 50p bellwire, a run of 15m is fine. Using much better cable will make no diff. in your setup. Where you are possibly going wrong is with those large floorstanders.

What make/model are they? You telly's amp may be struggling to drive them and might even be damaging them if it is "clipping". Beware. To get more volume from speakers, you need a pairwhich is 8ohms, but more importantly, has a high db sensitivity level (above 90 is great). This means they are able to go louder with same power.

An external amp will be nice, but only if you have rear speakers pre-outs (not speaker posts) on the Tosh. If you do, use a phono lead to any budget stereo amp and then run the speaker cable from amp to rear floorstanders.

I know you say that the Tosh front speakers are fine, but the best bet for good sound front, centre and rear is to invest in a DD amp and run all 5 speakers through the amp, muting the telly's own speakers. If not, you will have to live with less sound at the rear, but again I stress beware of damage to the floorstanders by under-driving them.