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It's best if drivers need to be the same size? (1 Viewer)

Thomas P.

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May 20, 2002
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Hi Guy's, I'm trying to get some clarity here before I buy the rest of my speakers. I have a center that has the same size drivers (4.5) as the left and the right. The salesman is trying to get me to get a left and a right with drivers that are 5.25 inches and to use the 4.5" for surround. These are all from the same speaker line (Def Tech Mythos) but I thought I read that it is better to have all of the speakers or at least the drivers match in size. Can someone educate me on this subject? I have the Mythos 3 and 4's right now and am waiting to hear from you guys before I decide on the other 4 speakers.
 

Arthur S

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Just a few quick thoughts. Ideally, all of your speakers would be identical. Since you don't seem to have a complaint about lack of (mid) bass from the 4.5 in your left and right, I see no reason to change them for 5.25.
 

Thomas P.

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May 20, 2002
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Arthur, thanks. I have a DD-15. It seems to compensate for some of the limitations of the speaker. I'm just curious as to whether there would be any for lack of a better word, imbalances, in having larger drivers in the same speaker line for the right and the left in a 7.1 system. The sound is fuller and more detailed with the larger drivers.
 

Dave Moritz

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While IMHO it is not manditory to have matching mids. I dont think it hurts to have mids that are the same type. I feel it help to have timber matching on Tweeters and mids. I however do not believe you have to have matching woofers around all your channels. Keep this in mind about your center channel & main speakers, if you have a decent size room. And if you like to turn up your movies you will find that smaller drivers have a tendency to sound strained at louder volumes that larger drivers do. I would run larger woofers for your main speakers IMHO. This will help with movies and music to have large drivers for you main speakers. I currently run a Yamaha RX-V995 which is a 5.1 DD/DTS surround reciever. I also use a Sony DVD-S9000 ES DVD/SACD and a Denon DVD-2200 DVD/SACD/DVD-A player. My main speakers are Altec Lancing A-7 Voice Of The Theaters with Altec 15" woofers and Renkin Heinz HF drivers. I currently use a Polk CS-100 center channel that has 4.5" woofers and the rear channels have the same size woofers in them. Believe me when I say that at least IMHO the 4.5" woofers dont seem to work to good at louder volumes. They do good at low listening levels but when they are asked to keep up with larger drivers thats when the sound quality suffers. I am looking into upgrading my center and rear channels to a brand new line of JBL speakers that just became available. I am looking at JBL project array speakers. I want to go with there 880 BG Center and two pair of 800 BG Rear Channel speakers. They both use a horn driver and 8" drivers which not only should handle music well but keep up with the efficency of my Altec A7's.

I would run 6.5" woofers min on your main channel and maybe even consider 8" woofers and 5.5" - 5.75" woofers in your center channel. You also have to think about if you will be playing multi-channel audio or not. If you are it doesn't hurt to have decent size woofers in your rear channels. If I remeber correctly it is recomended to run the same size woofers in every channel for DVD-A. This also would work well for movies in surround as well. While your surrounds dont need to be huge for movies it helps to have decent size drivers for multi channel music.

Anyway that is my .02, hope this helps in some way.
 

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