2nd Pair of Surrounds? (1 Viewer)

[Tom_Sm]

I have a rectangular living room (15'x40' with a very high ceiling) whose practical A/V area measures roughly 15'x25'. The RPTV, main and center speakers (equipment listed below) are at one end of the room, centered on the narrower wall. The primary viewing/listening area is about 10 feet away, with another viewing/listening area about 12 feet behind that.

Because of windows, fireplace, etc. I have two choices for how far along the longer walls to place my surrounds - 21' and 12'. I currently have them at the 21' spot (and pointed in to an area between the two listening positions) so that the secondary position has a chance at getting a reasonable experience. However, I feel like I'm not experiencing the proper sound at my primary listening beacuse the surrounds are so far away.

So, my question is should I add another pair of surround speakers (placing them at the 12' position) that would duplicate the L-R surround channels? Would that be too much surround sound? Don't the movie theaters have multiple sets of surround speakers? What should I be considering in this decision?

If I were to add another pair of surrounds, can I just wire them to the amp's Surround outputs on top of the existing wires? I wouldn't need to get a separate amp would I?

Thanks for any help. My equipment list follows:

Toshiba TW40X81 (not terribly relevant for this discussion)

Sunfire Cinema Grand Amp

Sunfire Theater Grand Processor

NHT 2.5i Main speakers

NHT Audio Center

NHT Super One surround speakers

 

[Jason P. Brett]

Tom, have you considered getting a pair of bipolar or dipolar surrounds for your room? I think that part of your problem might stem from your use of super ones for rear speakers. They're great speakers-I've got a pair of super zeroes that I use for surrounds-but I've got a smaller room and basically only one listening position (my couch is against the wall). I think if you tried some dipole or bipoles, which are far less directional and will aim the sound down the long axis of your room, you might have better results. NHT makes a speaker that matches this description; I don't remember the model designation but believe that they're about $700/pr.

If you do end up adding an additional pair of speakers in the back, a high quality amp such as your Sunfire should be able to drive two pairs of speakers without much difficulty. In fact Sunfires are particulary good at driving low impedance loads. I don't imagine it would have any trouble with two pairs of super ones.

Jason

 

[Tom_Sm]

Jason, thanks for your reply.

I will consider the speaker design you mention. If I were to go to this type of design, would you think I should place them at the forward most position (12') or the rear (21')?

 

[Jason P. Brett]

Before I make any more reccomendations, I should tell you that I was just on the NHT website and didn't see any speakers of the design I mentioned. Possibly discontinued? I apologize. Fortunately, speakers of this design are available from any number of manufacturers. As for placement, I would start somewhere in the middle, if it's possible. I don't know how your current surrounds are mounted, but if you have some freedom to experiment with placement, I'd say try a few different locations and see what works best.

Again, sorry for the bogus info on the NHTs.

Jason