Blake

Currently, I have four speakers mounted in each "corner" of my mini home theater. Those four, with the center and sub gave me the 5.1 I enjoyed for a long time. However, I have just ordered a bunch of new gear and the receiver (see sig) is capable of 7.1. I don't really want to add in-ceiling speakers between the front and rear speakers, but would like to use all 7 channels if possible, so I had an idea.

The TV is in the middle of the front two speakers. Would it be possible (or even advisable) to put floor or tower speakers on both sides of the TV for the front surrounds with the other two speakers further out on the sides?

Essentially, this would give me 5 "front" speakers and 2 rear speakers, but I'm thinking it should work. My receiver has an auto-calibration feature where I can just plug in a mic (seems to be more common place of late), so if I just hook up all 7 speakers and let the receiver do it's thing, could that work?

Or am I just better off sticking with my current 5.1 setup?

Thanks!

Brian Shannon

I would not do it unless you replaced the speakers. Adding more speakers of different types is likely to produce a sonic mess.

Sdallnct

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there is that many 6.1 DVD's let alone 7.1.

Spiky

There's always 2 sides....

Pros:
There are zero 7.1 DVDs (and always will be zero), but dozens of 6.1, probably well over a hundred. And they are great if you have a 6/7.1 setup. That may not seem like a worthwhile percentage, but many of these are people's must-have and often-played discs like SW and LOTR. Also, HDDVD and BD are 7.1 capable, but no discs yet. The future will hold more benefits for a 7.1 setup.

Cons:
I like my 7.1 setup, but I can't say it's all that big a deal. It is really only useful if you have the cash to spend and the space to separate into even more channels. I would say you want a fairly wide room to make it worthwhile (mine is 13' wide), otherwise you have these speakers all bunched together which doesn't give much separation anyway. Practically, spending more on a better disc player, sub, or amp would probably give better improvement to your system. I was finishing off my 5.1 system and was able to get a decent discount on the last 2 speakers so I went for it. And I already had the DVDp and sub covered. But then I had to get extra speaker mounts, too. HTs nickel and dime you.

So, it's an improvement, but probably not worth it for most people. 5.1 is still great. Often times those 6/7 speakers are either doing nothing or repeating what is coming from the 4/5 surrounds.



But Blake, there aren't front surrounds with the Dolby or DTS soundtracks, 6.1/7.1 adds rear surrounds. The typical setup is moving your current surrounds to the sides and putting in rear surrounds behind you. When I say to the side, they should be directly to the side of where you usually sit, in a line with your ears. If you have more than one row of seating, you'd have to choose exactly where to line them up.

Blake

Thanks for the input. My room isn't very big for a home theater, so I would be bunching the speakers up in front and yeah, probably won't make that much of a difference. I probably could put the money to better use just upgrading the four satellite speakers I have since they aren't the best in the world.

On that note, if speakers of different types produce a "sonic mess" - if I were to upgrade, should I make sure the center and all satellites are the same brand? Also, what are some good, but relatively inexpensive brands? I'm not really looking to upgrade RIGHT now, but might in the near future and wanted to start looking around and testing them in stores.

Gambit

I think it's more important to make sure that your sound wall in the front is consistent (i.e. front L/R and center). The rear surrounds are usually more for ambient sounds and is probably harder to discern a difference from.

Don't know what you consider inexpensive, but I would recommend Paradigm speakers which are usually a very good value.

Brian Shannon

Ideally all the speakers come from the same brand.

If you were going to upgrade I would listen to speakers for your front three first and then move to the rear channels. The front three are the most important.

Spiky

Same brand, and often the same product line matters, too.

Sdallnct

Yea, I'm wired for 6.1 and got curious about how many DVD's I owned that were 6.1. Not many. And in my room I wasn't a 100% sure it was a huge improvement. With 5.1 it seemed like a lot more seperation. With 6.1 it did seem more like a wall of sound behind me. And depending on what it was, I liked it a little or not as much.

I basically did it as I was using the exact same speakers in my living room set up and my wife wants to go in ceiling for the surround in the living room. So I went a head and took one of them and make my theater 6.1.

Overall I'd say I'm fine with it. Not overly excited and now that I have heard it in my room probably would not have done it if I had to go buy add'l speakers or something.

Blake

With regards to front speaker positions, my two front speakers are in the corners of my room near the ceiling. I'm thinking about buying some towers to place next to my TV on each side like I see with quite a few flat screens.

What is the optimal position for front speakers? Where can I read some setup ideas/reviews, etc.?

Spiky

Ideal for stereo in most not-specially-built rooms is an equilateral triangle. I like that for surround, too.

Blake

Yeah, been reading a bit around Google. I can't quite get the triangle, but hope to get the front speakers out a bit from the wall. Unfortunately, the rear speakers can't be moved really as the seating is against the rear wall.

Spiky

That's another situation where the 6/7 channels probably will help very little. When your seating is right against the wall.

You also generally want (in a perfect world) the tweeters of all 3 front speakers to be the same height. Higher frequencies are much more directional to our ears, so you want them similar. The THX recommendations are quite good as I recall. I think you can find them on thx.com.

Oh, and also the tweeters should be around the same height as your ears. Once you start trying to figure that out you'll realize how impossible that is. Esp since your eyes should be around 1/3 of the way down your screen. Something's gotta give. Can't put the speakers in the screen, generally.

JZ1276

I'm not even sure I understand this question....you want 4 front surrounds? 7.1 is 4 rear surrounds, not 4 front surrounds. IMO, 7.1 is not as good as having 6.1.

Blake

Well, I don't want 4 front surrounds, but I could have them there. After some research, I'm just going to go with 5.1 for the time being - replacing the small Onkyo speakers I have now.

mrhan

I think 2 rear channels sound less localized than 1 rear channel. I experimented with both and found that the sound is more spacious with 2 rears. I guess to each his own but with proper calibration it sounds great on my system.