Floorstanding speakers for surrounds? (1 Viewer)

[GreggB]

I haven't seen any post about this so I may be crazy. I want to replace all my mains, center and surrounds. Currently have 2 old sony speakers, 2 very old sansui speakers, and a sony center. I also have a JBL sub.

I have listened to several speakers at nebraska furniture mart and like the JBL E100 and E90.

Most of the time my system will be for music, then DVD movies, and sometimes DVD audio.

Since I do listen to some dvd audio I was thinking of getting the same speakers for main and surround, but the EC35 for the center. Would 4 E90's or even 4 E100 be crazy?

Most people get the bookshelf speakers for the surrounds. I figure these will probably be the last speakers I will buy for a while. Also there is no telling what surround formats may come in the future, so why not get full range speakers if possible?

Anyone else have a setup like this (4 E100's or 4 E90's)?

If it matters they will be hooked up to a Sony STR-DA5ES receiver.

Forgot to add: the room is about 25 feet X 25 feet

 

[SethH]

Most people get smaller speakers for surrounds either due to space constraints, money constraints, or a desire to have bipole or dipole speakers. There is no real reason not to use floorstanders as surrounds if you've got the money and the space.

 

[Paul Mor]

Don't know if it's a good thing or not, but I have floorstanders as surrounds. I have them elevated about 1 1/2 feet on a cabinet-type piece of furniture to raise the tweeter above ear level. I found that I need to turn the level down on them so they don't stand out as much during movies, but I think they're great for DVD Audio, and music played using various surround fields.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

A while ago I tried floorstanders as surrounds. They were great for multichannel music. However, not so great for DVD's. The speakers I had were too big for this, but raising them up off the floor 6-18" would have helped a lot. They were just way too localizable for movie soundtracks.

 

[GreggB]

Thank you all for your input. I think I will go with 4 floorstanding speakers. Maybe my next receiver will have two sets of surround speaker outputs...

Thanks,

Gregg

 

[Dave Moritz]

I see no reason why you couldn't use full range speakers for you surrounds. I believe that for dvd-a its recomended that you use the same size speakers for all channels. So I would be willing to be that they would work great for movies as well. A few years ago I was at CES in Vegas, and DTS had a great demo. They used 3 pair of 20k JBL flagship speakers in there HT room to demonstrate DTS. It worked great so if they can do it I see no reason why you can't.

As far as your Sony reviever goes, am not sure if it will handle it? I guess you will find out once you do it.

Let us know how it works out?

 

[gene c]

DTS actually recommends full range speakers all around, "including the center and surrounds". How about a tower for a center .

 

[GreggB]

Well, my receiver is rated for 110 watts per channel. The e100's Power Handling (Continuous/Peak): 125 Watts/500 Watts. The e90's 110/440.

Do you think the e100's would put a strain on my receiver?

 

[Dick Boneske]

The criical thing for surround speakers is placement. Whatever it takes to put the tweeter/midrange drivers above furniture and with a direct path to the listener's ear needs to be done.

Floor standing speakers sometimes lend themselves to this better than smaller ones--unless they are wall mounted or bookshelf mounted.

Your receiver should handle these with no problem. The surrounds require only a fraction of what the front speakers do--with very few program exceptions. For future improvement, you may want to use separate power amps for the front speakers. I believe your Sony has preamp outputs.