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rear surrounds also "b" fronts

post #1 of 6
4/13/09 at 5:48pm
Thread Starter 
My home theater setup is in one half of a large room, and a pool table in the other half. I finally installed in-ceiling speakers near the pool table to serve as the rears for a Dolby 5.1 installation (got the wife off my back - "those are ugly, can't they go somewhere else" etc). Then I thought it might be nice to use those "rear" speakers as secondary front speakers ("B" on a system with A/B/AB fronts). I plan to use A, B, or AB for music and A (only) for the fronts of the Dolby setup. Here's the question: Can I safely wire the receiver's "B" and "Dolby rear" binding posts to the in-ceiling speakers if I am very careful to never select "AB" when I am not listening to a Dolby encoded source? (ie, if the rear speakers would always and only get one output from the receiver - B front or Dolby rear, but never both).

Thanks in advance!
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post #2 of 6
4/14/09 at 6:29am

Re: rear surrounds also "b" fronts

You're asking for trouble wiring them like that. I would recommend seeing what kind of "5 channel stereo" modes your receiver has - these will probably do what you would like safely.
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post #3 of 6
4/14/09 at 11:35am
Thread Starter 

Re: rear surrounds also "b" fronts

Thanks for the reply. I'm completely new, so I'm not following. Can you give me a concrete example?
Thanks
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post #4 of 6
4/16/09 at 6:43am

Re: rear surrounds also "b" fronts

You don't list your equipment, so I can't give specifics. In general, many surround receivers have a format which provide stereo (2-channel sound) using all speakers. It may be formatted to have all the left channels on the left side of the room and right channels on the right, with the center a combination of L+R, but it depends on the format. Something like this would be perfect for your use since it would be similar to having what you requested A+B without the option of turning off the A speakers. Depending on the receiver, it may include the sub or not.
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post #5 of 6
4/16/09 at 2:16pm
Thread Starter 

Re: rear surrounds also "b" fronts

I'm not sure if the specific equipment matters much. I'll try to reexplain what I want to accomplish. Imagine a standard 5.1 setup, with the front speakers wired to "Front A" and the rear to "surround rear." I would like to use the physical rear speakers as "surround rear" speakers when watching movies with 5.1 setup. I would also like to use those same speakers as "Front B" when listening to music; in that case, I can use the receiver to select A, B, or A+B.

It seems that one way to accomplish this would be to wire the receiver's "B" and "surround rear" posts to the speakers in question. When watching 5.1 content on the TV, I would then select "A" on the receiver and 5.1 output; when listening to music, I would select A, B or A+B on the receiver and 2 channel output.

I was told (see above) that wiring them this way would be a problem, so I'm trying to figure out how I can connect them (some kind of selector box?) to accomplish this.

Hope that's a clearer problem statement. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
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post #6 of 6
4/16/09 at 10:07pm

Re: rear surrounds also "b" fronts

You seem to be missing the point - you do not have to re-wire anything. When you wish to change your rear surrounds into music mode - change the mode switch on your receiver from Dolby 5.1 into 5 channel stereo - there is no need to re-wire anything.
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