Which rears and where ?

redboy1

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Hi

Just moved into a new house and still lots to do but im trying to get the most important bit set up at the moment, My AV.
Ive got AE neo 3 V1's at the front and at my last place i was using the rears from my previous set up JAMO A102 HCS5.

Im after a bit of advice on what rears to get and where to put them. Im going to be running a 5.0 system eventually when i get a matching centre (using the centre off my jamo's aswel at the moment). My budget is only around the £100 mark so i dont mind second hand options.

Ive attached a rough plan of the room with a few position options. The Rears are going to be wall mounted so i dont really want them sticking out too far. I personally like position 1 as the distances will be about the same but they will be a little infront of the listening position, Would this work ?

Help much appreciated.
 

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Personally I would go for option 2 since you do not really want your surround sound effects coming from in front of you. I would also keep your current rears but instead upgrade you centre to one that matchs your front AE speakers. This will give a bigger improvement in sound compared to changing the rears.
 
Just as PSM1 says go for option 2 so that the rears are in the rear. Or move your sofa forward ;) although that doesn't look like an option in this case.
 
I'd generally rather compromise on the distance positioning and compensate for this in your AV receiver settings than not have your rears behind you. Temporarily set them up in both positions if you like and run a scene with a plane flying over head for example. This should fairly clearly illustrate the difference you'd be hearing.
 
So does anyone have an opinion on the wharf 10. dfs ? or any other alternatives
 
After doing a bit of searching on bipole/dipole speakers, there dont seem to be many around so im thinking there not the best choice for rears.

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Would option 3 for placement be ok ? Because there W x H x D (mm): 182 x 357 x 237 ,There a fair size so im thinking of putting them on stands.
 
Option 3 is 2.5m behind listening position and 2.9m apart if that helps.
Also how do most stands work ? do they clamp to the speaker or does the speaker just sit on top.

Any help much appreciated:)
 
The speakers just sit on top of the stands although you should use something like blutac to secure them to the top plate.
Option 3 is a possibility on stands but probably a little too far back in terms of distance and angle to get a truely immersive rear effect.
Dipole/Bipole speakers are best suited for times when you have the sofa right against the rear wall so no space behind the listening position. Hence dipole/bipoles in option 2 may not be the best (although I have seen THX I think recommend such speakers in a similar location. However, since you have space from option 2 to the sofa for the sound to disperse I would be tempted to have either satelite speakers wall mounted or even the AE speakers on stands in the same location.
 
Thanks PSM1, Option 2 would have to be sats or the bipole speakers as there wouldnt be much room to walk past if i put the AE's on stands there. I could put them on brackets and put them up to the ceiling but Dont think that would look good.
I think i might have to try my jamo rears in the two different positions and see what its like.
Got to feed some cable there somehow but all the walls have been decorated so that should be fun, Does this cable look decent enough 50m Quality 2 x 2.5mm 322 Strand Loud Speaker Cable by: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics
 
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Let us know how it sounds when all set up.
 
The speakers are all set up now with cable tucked away behind the skirting. I haven't given them much of a test yet but after putting a few scenes on a couple of blu-rays im very happy with the result :)

Aesthetically they look great in the two corners at the back of the room sitting high up on the stands, but the main thing is they sound great.
The difference moving to these at the rear from the jamo has improved massively which i suppose was to be expected. The surround sound now sounds so much more realistic with the bass going much deeper, and it probably helps the rears being the same make as the fronts as the tones just sound the same.
As for the surround effect it works very well. with them being a bit further back i think the sound disperses well giving a good realistic effect, it also helps i think that the stands are a metre high which fires the sound over the listening area, so all in all im very happy with the results.

I have a few questions though.

Is there a way of reducing the bass more ? the room is very hard with little furnishings so the bass seems quite loud, Not over powering but i dont want to start ticking off neighbours. I cant move any of the speakers which are all about 4" away from the walls.

Also are there any kind of clamps you can get to clamp the speakers to the stands ?
 
Just use blutack to hold them to the stands. This provides a secure fixing and how I have attached my rears to the stands.
 
Cheers PSM1

So does anyone know how i can reduce the Bass ?
Is there an equalizer or something that will work in between the amp and speakers which would let me fiddle around with the tones.
I here of people putting bungs in the rear ports to reduce bass, Would doing this put more pressure on the drivers and also where do you get them from ?

Thanks any help much appreciated
 
Have you tried moving the speakers out away from the wall a little to see if this improves the sound? I know you say you can not move them but hve you tried to see if it improves. This way you will know if it is a boundary effect or not.
The bungs will not damage the drivers so no worries there and I am sure if you put a google query for speaker port bung it will throw up a few places.
 
Have you tried contacting AE for port bungs?I am sure I read on the forums that someone was in the same position as yourself and they sent them the bungs free of charge.
Some folks use rolled up socks as port bungs worth trying to see if it reduces the bass boom

Regards Martin
 
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I rang them yesterday but they was just finishing for the day, they said they would ring back today but they haven't, i forgot all about it otherwise i would of rang.
Ill try them tomorrow but i dont think they will be open, If not then monday.

Im a bit baffled though with these receivers that you cant reduce the bass more than what it does. Also i dont really understand why they rear port speakers if you have to have them sitting 2ft away from the wall, Why not just front port all speakers so you have the option of putting the speakers where you like.
 
Even front port speakers can suffer from the boundary effect and boomy bass. Even a front ported speaker sends a fair bit of sound backwards which interacts with the wall behind.
You may find some well placed room treatments to capture/reduce bass will give much better effects than using bungs etc.
 
What sort of receiver do you have ? Are your rears set to small or large?

If set to small the fronts set to large should handle the bass,then you could try raising the crossover frequeny on the rears.

Regards Martin
 
I have an onkyo 606, Its not just the bass on the rears i want to reduce but on the fronts aswell.
Ive had a look in the settings but cant find anything referring to large or small speakers or any crossover settings.

There will be more furnishings going in the room as funds allow like rugs, plants, bookcases etc, so hopefully that will reduce the harshness of the room thus reducing bass, but the more i can reduce it now the better it should be then.
 
For me, bunging the ports with rolled-up socks helped to reduce uneven loud bass. I'd have used foam if I had it.

I've got AE radiance 1 speakers now. Biggish bookshelf size, relatively close to the sides of a bay window. I've just done 4 frequency response tests
(1) without room correction but with a rolled-up sock in the port
(2) with ARC room correction and a rolled-up sock inthe port
(3) with ARC room correction (done assuming sock there) but no sock
(4) no ARC, no sock

You can see a lot of effects from 50-200 Hz. 6 dB is noticeable, 10 dB is meant to sound twice as loud.

Bottom line, 2 is best (sounds pretty good), but 4 without room correction and port bungs the bass would sound mad.

I've not tried setting up ARC with the speakers without bungs though. That might be just as good or better. But I don't want the neighbours to have to put up with another 10 minutes of boop noises.

ps I don't know how you set stuff up on an Onkyo, but it must have settings for whether all the low bass gets taken away from the speakers and sent to your sub - that might help too.
 

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