"Surround Back" Speakers - matching..

D

Dodgey

Guest
Hi, I have now upgraded to a 7.1 amp and need surround back speakers (don't even start me on how I'm going to get MORE cables there!).

Any feelings on whether they sould be matched with the regular surrounds and how much difference it makes.

I have Eltax HT2 Bipolar surrounds and can get another pair from RS for about £70 which is no great shakes, but I'd rather install more subtle (smaller) ones if I can..


p.s. Have you upgraded from 5.1 to 7.1 and how did it sound??

Thanks
 
I haven't got the rear surrounds as of yet (and because the room is small and my listening position is flank to the back wall) and I probably wont!

However, it is always best the match the timber of the speakers so that when sound travels from speaker to speaker it flows rather then changes in sound. Every make of speaker will have a different sound. Therefore, stick with the same make and timber if possible. You also could carefully audition speakers and match them to your existing surrounds but this is a real pain to do.

I understand that a matching centre speaker is good if you have a single rear speaker or dipoles if you have two rears.

Hope this helps.
 
Originally posted by Dodgey
I have Eltax HT2 Bipolar surrounds and can get another pair from RS for about £70 which is no great shakes, but I'd rather install more subtle (smaller) ones if I can..

You shouldn't be using two pairs of bipolar rears. Ideally the bipoles would be at the side with a pair of direct radiators behind but you do need space behind the seating position to achieve this.
 
After advice on this forum (Don't flame me Ian) I went for 2 Eltax BiPols for the Surround Backs. Did try mono pols but as I am fairly close (3-4') the Eltax just difused the sound much better.
 
Hmmm. Interesting. I am considering another pair of HT2 bipoles (or dipoles - God knows!) because I can't imagine what else will match timbre wise!

My mains are Acoustic Energy 109's and 107C and I do not use AE for rears because they a) don't do bipoles and b) are too expensive

I switched from direct radiating to bipoles a couple of years ago and the difference was staggering. I like the diffused effect.

I may plump for another pair of HT2's and rotate them 90 degrees so they radiate up and down... I seem to remember someone at HCC recommending this approach...?

oh yes - there is about 10 feet behind me and the back wall...
 
Petrol head - Now I will make you really jealous....

I run full blast and my neighbours don't give a monkey.

They can't hear (old) / don't care

:)
:D
 
Not that jelous as my neibours have jet to complain and i run canny loud. Mind you their daughter is always having noisy parties. Live and let live I say :D
 
I had four identical monopole surrounds, but my rears sounded as if they were coming from the front - especialy when using the noise generator in the amp or from Avia.

Tilting the rears down a bit helped, but the imaging was still muddy. I thought I'd try some HT2s just out of curiosity, and found that in the rear position, the imaging problem vanished completely. I had tried them in the sides too, and quite liked them there, but the rears needed to be bipoles.

I then got another pair for the sides, and that sounded like an improvement, so now i have 4 bipoles.

Not strictly Dolby or THX, but it works for me in my set-up. My rears are 4ft apart and about 4ft 6ins behind the listening position.

Gary.
 

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