Now I see that post might have been misleading, but SVS is NOTHING like the company it started as. In fact, I think it started when Ron Stimpson and Tom Vodhanel crossed paths here on HTF. It was real people, starting up a company, designing subwoofers with exceptional value. I did their first real product photography for a few years in those early days. My first product shoot for them was actually in Ron's living room, and then I set up a mobile studio in his garage for some more product shots. Eventually they were sold to an equity firm, and now it's just not the personal endeavor it originally was. Tom went on to co-found Power Sound Audio, and I think he's still there. I haven't had contact with Ron in years, though.
It really depends on what you want to accomplish with them (Atmos?) and what your current speakers are. My current speakers are B&W DM600 S3s all the way around with a KEF sub, so they might be a fair match for my system, but I don'T know about yours. I always try to go with the same brand and series of speakers when adding more, if possible, but at very least; speakers of similar sound characteristics.
I'm not sure that this is a great thing. My Klipsch surround speakers are fine, but the matching center speaker is the weakest part of my whole system. Similar sound characteristics in this instance are undesirable. The center speaker's job is unique.
My height, back, and side speakers are the same. The center is of the same series (but will be replaced soon). The fronts are extremely different, HPM 1100, and have their own amp.
Agreed, but I'd go a little farther than that. The front and center channels, on most systems, look drastically different than the height, back, and side speakers, so invariably will differ from them in "tone quality and presents" (Timbre). Most front and great center channel speakers are 3-way.These are the work horses, where most of the sound comes from. Like the sub, quality is more noticeable here. Most height, back, and side speakers are 2-way, and are more so "support".
I have B&W 685/686 speakers with an SVS subwoofer. right now Im using cube speakers for surround and one of the 686 for the center. I know Im putting the cart before the horse so to speaker by looking a height speakers before I get a dedicated center but I want to budget for a well rounded Atmos setup and am between the SVS prime elevation mentioned earlier or B&W M1? once I get a center Ill move the 686 to the rear surround channel.
Sure it is. Buy 9 of the same speakers. But this is not a good idea. The right and left front, and center speakers along with the subwoofer, each has a specialized job. Not just any speaker will do anywhere. And rather than the "tone quality and presents", I use this standard in a different way. I listen to see if the speaker reproduces sound accurately, on the channel I assigned it to. I also like the equality of symmetry from one side to the other. You'd be surprised at how a good theater receive can adjust "tone quality and presents" into even a fair quality sound system. That not to say quality is not important. There is something to be said about a speaker that always sounds perfect, even without equalization.
If it were me personally, I'd go with either the HTM61 S2 or HTM62 S2 for your center to stay within the series and get best matching. For your x.x.2 or x.x.4 Atmos speakers, I'd also choose something from the same brand with the same driver size, if possible. I'd probably go with the M1s before the SVS, just to keep it all B&W, but that's just me. I'm kinda OCD that way. Sub brand doesn't matter as much. Mine's a KEF, but I'm not crazy about it. It's a sealed design which is supposed have better punch and control, but I had a Klipsch ported sub with less power, while I was living in the US years ago, and it was much punchier with better control IMO.
Yeah. Both these points are HT 101. I don't know why they're even being argued. FWIW, I have found that perfect matching tends to be a little less important with the surrounds than it is with the front three. All identical speakers are probably ideal, but that's not always practical. You sometimes need to weigh your priorities. With my main system, two channel music is my #1 priority. It wasn't financially feasible for me to fully match all the speakers to the mains, but with some effort, I found a combination that, along with some parametric EQ, is able to exceed my expectations.
The simplest way is to buy speakers from the same line. Beyond that, with a lot of work or luck, you can find mismatched Speakers that are similar enough to blend. It's easy to eliminate certain ones based on design. For example, if the speakers you want to match have silk dome tweeters, then a speaker with a piezo or horn tweeter are almost certain to be a bad match, because those types of tweeter produce significantly different sound.
, or add in second sub. In my media room, I have two small subs (tied together) and a medium sub for an x.x.2 sub configuration. I'd prefer to have a single monster sub, or even two mid-sized subs. But cost was prohibitive so I did the best I could with that approach. But they're all from the same vendor (Triad, in this case). So you can mix and match sub sizes. But, again for simplicity, it's simplest and most foolproof to buy matched subs from the same maker.
You forgot one thing, the room also needs to be built and designed for this purpose. Few people use their system purely for home theater. But for the best case scenario, we can all probably agree that all channels should be 3 way, exactly the same, realistic sounding, and with multiple subwoofers placed to create uniform lower frequency support. In my lifetime, I have seen only two of these type of systems. They were professionally built, and both people were filthy rich. You will never see towers in a system like this. A few of the members here may have a system that approach this, but most fall short in some area.
