Same front and rear speakers?? (1 Viewer)

[Brian.R]

I currently have Boston Acoustics T830 towers for my fronts (and a VRC center channel) but have small multipole speakers (Cambridge Soundworks "The Surround II") for the rears. I've played around with the rear levels but they don't seem to be loud enough.

I plan to get a SPL meter and set them properly but if I'm not happy with the adjustments then I'll be in the market for new rears. It makes me wonder - how many people have the same front and rear speakers?

Is it overkill to get another set of towers for the rears??

Thanks,
Brian

 

[Arthur S]

Hi Brian

I have Cambridge surround switchable dipole/bipole surrounds and I have had to play around to get the surround level up to where I want it. I have adjusted my center and main L&R down almost all the way to achieve the surround level I want. I run the surrounds way hot...

I would not rush out to get towers for surrounds...

Please send me a Private Message to discuss...

Happy New Year

 

[Ed Moxley]

Most consider it to be the ideal setup, for all the speakers, to be the same. Then there's no question if the speakers are timbre matched. Kinda hard to have a tall, floor standing speaker, as the center channel. Center channel should at least be the same brand, for timbre matching. If you can do it, then yes, that is the thing to do!

I, personally, think that's great, if you can do it. But I believe it's not as critical for the rears to match the front three, as much as it is, for the front three to match (timbre match, that is).

 

[JohnEF]

Some years ago the the Secrets of Home Theater and HiFi website (http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/main.html) had, I believe, an answer to a question concerning this very issue and their recommendation was that in the best of all worlds identical speakers all around is the best even if it means tower speakers. Of course this could be very impractical because of size and placement. The second best is timbre matching by having the same brand and series (I got Pinnacle gold reference minimonitors for surrounds and rears in my 7.1 system to match my Pinnacle gold reference center and fronts).

I would agree with the writer above that the center and fronts certainly should be matching. Of course I'm not sure if I have the ear to discern a great difference (or any difference) if the surrounds were of a different brand.

In my mind the most important thing you could do is to use a sound meter to ensiure all speakers are properly calibrated.

 

[Tom Donaghue]

I'd like to reiterate some of the sentiments above, but at the same time, offer my take on surrounds as I have experienced as well as some input I've gathered over time from other reputable sources. This is a frequently debated topic, but when it comes down to it, it's a subjective choice as opposed to a 'right or wrong' choice.

If you have a dedicated listening room that is fairly large (3000 cu. ft. or larger), using towers all around (LF, C, RF, LS, RS) for a 5.1 configuration may be ideal for multichannel (MC) music listening (DVD-A, SACD, DTS), however very rarely are frequencies under 100Hz sent to the surrounds in movie soundtracks, so unless you're predominantly listening to MC sources, towers as surrounds likely will be rarely used to full or even half their potential.

I will agree that when listening to multichannel music, it is recommended that all five speakers are similar in timbre matching, but as I have found, it isn't a necessity as most folk's hearing is more sensitive to timbre matching in the front three channels for proper panning affects than they are to the sides and rear. Also, as many surrounds are engineered as mulitpole (bipole, dipole and quadropole) configurations in order to produce a more diffused soundfield, timbre matching becomes less crucial.

Having had direct radiating speakers as surrounds as well as bipole and quadrapole surrounds, I found that well built mulitpole speakers can produce just as accurate a soundfield as direct radiators, regardless of the source. Also, multipole speakers can provide a much better rear soundfield due to their diffusion when listening to movies with heavy effects in the rears, so it may come down more to your listening preferences.

I'm currently running BA VR3s and a VR12 up front in my main setup with Axiom QS8s and M3s for the surrounds and rear surrounds, which I'm more than satisfied with for two channel and multichannel music as well as movie soundtracks. I'm also using BA CR65s and a VR10 up front in my secondary setup with Cambridge Soundworks S300s as surrounds. Again, no problem w/timbre matching for music or movies.

So long as your front soundstage is timbre matched and all speakers are properly calibrated via SPL meter, you should have a well balanced soundstage for all listening material... -TD

 

[Brian.R]

I spent some time tweaking the system today. I discovered that my rear speakers had dipole/bipole switches that were not identical - they were symmetric. By that I mean to set dipole on both required one switch pushed to the left and the other to the right. I also had the left and right speakers in the wrong position.

I also changed my speaker settings on the receiver from "small" to "large" for all speakers and adjusted the distances by ACTUALLY MEASURING THEM WITH A TAPE MEASURE. I guess my stepping off wasn't very accurate! The rears went from 12 to 7 ft.

After correcting those simple mistakes I used the SPL. The center was +3dB higher than the fronts and the rears were -4dBs. The sub was also +10dB higher than all the other speakers. Adjusting everything to equal (and the sub 4dB higher) resulting a big improvement.

Listened to the Eagles and Pink Floyd. Man, what a difference. I'm not concerned about replacing my rears anymore. The adjustments really made a difference. I'm sure it's mental but I can hear things that I didn't notice before and walking from speaker to speaker allows me to absolutely hear what's happening in each channel. I'm impressed!!!

One more question: The Pink Floyd audio setup recommended flipping the SPL meter around during calibration of the rears (point at the center rear). This made about a 4dB difference. Is this the way to do it?

OK, one more question - the Pink Floyd disk was easier, but I also have DVD Essentials somewhere. Are there additional setups on that disk that I should run??

Thanks so much for the responses, they pushed me to spend a little time to make a big difference!

 

[SethH]

I'm not familiar with your towers, but you really shouldn't set your rears and center to Large. I would be surprised if your rears go much below 80Hz which means that by setting them to large you are losing everything below 80Hz that is being sent to those channels.

Setting the speakers to Small simply sends all frequencies below the crossover level to the subwoofer. Generally all the speakers in your system -- with the exception of the mains in some instances, should be set to Small. If the crossover is adjustable on your receiver I would start out with 80Hz and then play with it a little from there.

 

[SethH]

Usually the SPL meter is placed at the listening position and pointed straight up for the calibration of all speakers.

 

[Tom Donaghue]

This is the manner in which I typically calibrate w/my SPL meter, however I have seen some suggestions in which you may want to aim the meter more so in the direction of the speaker being calibrated to get a more accurate reading. I haven't found this a necessary step, though, so the way Seth's suggesting should be fine.

In addition to this, the 80Hz crossover setting is also highly recommended. The surrounds your using I don't believe will reproduce any frequencies under 120Hz, so as mentioned, you'd be losing any signal sent to the surrounds under this level. Even with my VR3s that are rated down to 35Hz, I don't run them any lower than 60Hz, and that's only w/MC music, I keep them at 80Hz for movies.

Lastly, some folks like to up the dB level of their center if the dialog is a little soft, which should be fine. Also most folks run their sub a bit hotter than the rest of the speakers, typically 3-4dB more, but this is subjective. If once you've calibrated and find the sub too laid back, you can always bump it up a dB or two, same goes for the center or surrounds, whatever your preference is. The calibration gives you a good starting point, then you can tailor it to your tastes... -TD

 

[Philip Hamm]

I'm so glad your tweaking helped! I would recommend however that you set your speakers in the rear to SMALL not LARGE.In my experience the best rear surround placement is up high near the ceiling. Using this placement makes more of a difference in the whole of the experience than even upgrading or using similar speakers. So, yes, since it would be exceedingly difficult to mount towers near the ceiling, I think they would be overkill.

I highly recommend wall or ceiling mounting your rears!!!