Is it bad to mix and match speaker brands for 5.1? (1 Viewer)

[Jesse Sharrow]

I just purchased a yamaha rxv-440 receiver and some boston vr-950's. These are absolutly wonderful speakers and those will be my mains. Now this is mostly a 2 channel system I will proably do 60% tv 30% music and 10% movies.

Now I also have a set of cheap sony towers that I havnt even heard yet. They were free from my brother. Would those do ok as surrounds?

Also I got a gift certificate for amazon.com for x-mas would it be a bad idea to get an infinity primus center channel or a JBL center channel? Or should I just wait till I can get the boston stuff?

Thanks for the help.

 

[JamieS]

The sonys will probaly make OK surrounds. (Better than NO surrounds). At least you will hear noise from behind you etc.

As for the center I would for sure wait and get a matching Boston center. SOunds pan across the front all the time and if the speaks don't match it will sound like crud. I don't know how much the natching center is but I'd save up or sell the gift crtificate (LOL) and get the matching center.

 

[Kenneth Harden]

Sell the gift certificate for 90% of face value on eBay and buy a matching center.

 

[Joseph Sabato]

You should get the matching Boston center; having the fronts matched makes a huge difference in the soundstage. I had 2 different series of Boston Acoustics for my fronts and they were close, but still not a good match. When I switched to 3 studio series JBL's in front, the imaging and continuity on pans were a huge improvement. You can get away with the other surrounds for now...spend the $$$ on the center.

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Indeed. Unless you get into multichannel SACD/DVDA, or listen to lots of DVDs with surround-channel dialogue (Unlikely) you will likely never notice a difference of speaker-brand for surround detail.

Better to spend your money on the "correct" center channel.

 

[CharlesD]

I found that having smae brand surrounds does make a difference, the sound is much more semless this way. If a sound is moving from front to back (or vice verse) there is never a popnt where you can tell which speaker is dominating.

 

[Jesse Sharrow]

Yeah thats kinda what I figured. Now my next question would be what should I do for my next step. Should I replace the surrounds with bostons or should I get a matching center?

 

[Greg-Sheffield]

By all means, go for the center speaker first! That will definately be the most noticable. Like most everyone said above, you can get away with different brand surrounds but the matching center is a must.

 

[Shawn_MM]

For movies your most important speaker is the center channel, and you should match (balance) everything across the front.