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5.1 to 6.1 speaker question (1 Viewer)

Mike Co

Agent
Joined
Oct 21, 2003
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36
How important is it to voice the rear speaker in moving from 5.1 to 6.1? My understanding is that surrounds are not as important to voicing as mains and center, but am not clear how important the rear is from a voicing perspective.
Any comments?
 

David Judah

Screenwriter
Joined
Feb 11, 1999
Messages
1,479
Ideally, they should be the same, but we can't always realize the ideal setup in our rooms. I agree with the notion that the front three are the most important, so I'd say get as close as you can.

Suprisingly, there isn't much going on back there most of the time. I expected the DTS ES mix of The Two Towersto be alot more active in the rears, for instance.

My surrounds are of lesser quality, but in the same family of speakers and my rear surrounds are completely different. I take a bit of a hit for 5.1 DVD-A & SACD because of the surrounds, but I honestly don't notice much difference for movies.

DJ
 

ChrisLazarko

Supporting Actor
Joined
Aug 13, 2003
Messages
867
In certain movies I notice alot of action in the rears while others I notice less. Terminator3 was just incredible with the sound. The amount of sound coming from the back was more than I have heard in any movie before.

The center speaker is your most important speaker playing about 60-70% of the stuff we hear, the left and right cover about 25-30% and the rear surrounds are about 10% or so. The center speaker does play a little bit of the left and right I have noticed.

Usually rear surrounds aren't the main issue. I have the Klipsch Quintets right now which are satellite speakers and I plan on upgrade my fronts to bookshelves and getting a bigger center speaker eventually... my friends works at Bestbuy so I should be able to get a pretty good deal on all of it.
 

Mike Co

Agent
Joined
Oct 21, 2003
Messages
36
My question is specifically about the center rear speaker in a (prospective)6.1 set up. My surrounds are matched for my mains & center; the question is how important the rear center is tonally. My guess is it's not too important as long as sensitivity, power handling, and at least a freq response of, say, 80-20K Hz.
The Boston speakers are small but the Boston sub picks up the bottom fine. I'm checking out centers at the moment on E-bay and wondering what to look for (short of a Boston sattelite or center).
 

David Judah

Screenwriter
Joined
Feb 11, 1999
Messages
1,479
When I said rears or rear surrounds I was talking about the center rears, and used surrounds to denote the regular surround speakers(like in a 5.1 setup).

Again, it's less critical matching them tonally to the regular surround speakers although they would be totally matched in an ideal system(which few of us have).

Boston Acoustics makes some nice bi/di polar speakers especially for the rears and rear center/s. They are wall mountable and come in cherry. They retail for about $400, if I remember correctly. I think they are in the VR series.

DJ
 

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