New room - prewireing surrounds but how many? 3 or 4 (1 Viewer)

[Brian Treinen]

Well, the walls are up in the new room and I've got a question running around my head - right now I've got "only" a 5.1 setup. So I'll clearly run the 2 surround wires throught the walls and out through a wall plate where the speakers will hang. However, in the future I'll be upgrading Next in line is my reciever but that'll probably be a little while. Do I run one line or two to the back wall? One for a rear center (DTS ES discrete) or two lines for rear surrounds (DD/THX EX)?? Personally I'm leaning towards two terminated into wall plates. Reasons are twofold, 1) 7.1 seems to be the latest thing and even if I went with a less expensive (than 7.1) 6.1 receiver I can always monoblock the other channel 2) speakers are bought in pairs as far as I know and (here is the big question) two speakers shouldn't affect DTS ES 6.1 - correct or no?

Yikes, can anyone shed any light here?

 

[gregstaten]

Run for two speakers on the rear wall. There are many good reasons why two speakers on the rear work far better than one speaker. While you're at it, you might want to prewire a speaker in the ceiling above your primary listening position. There is a movement in DVD-Audio and SACD to mix a high channel instead of a .1 channel. Though there aren't a lot of mixes with this yet, there will probably be quite a few in the coming years.

-greg

 

[Scott Page]

BTW Brian,

DTS Discrete can certainly use two rear speakers anyway. My Denon 3801 is a DTS-ES Discrete capable reciever and has 7 channels of amplification; 2 for rear centers.

Keep your surround locations high on the wall. The top of my surrounds are 6 feet off of the ground.

 

[RAF]

Without a doubt, wire for 4 speakers. Then you will be ready for 7.1 (6.1 can be run with the same signal fed to each of the two back speakers) and you won't have to change things again until 9.1 is released.

 

[Brian Treinen]

Thanks all. I was leaning that way and it's now been confirmed! Now when my wife asks "Why do we need two MORE speakers?!?" I can say EVERYBODY at HTF said that I've got to have 4 surround speakers not just two!!