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Hooked up surround speakers

Dentman

Well-Known Member
I mounted my surround speakers last night. I'm using my little SVS satellite speakers for surrounds. For appearance reasons I mounted them first firing straight out from the rear wall. I assumed this would be a fail but wanted to try it because it looks so much better.
I was shocked by how good it sounded. So here I am using speakers that couldn't be any more different then my mains, mounted incorrectly and it sounds awesome. To think how much wasted energy and time I spent years ago making sure everything was mounted perfectly and matched to a T ( went so far as to use 4 Boston Acoustic tower speakers in my first system. Oh well you live and learn.
I should note I have no interest in 5.1 audio been there done that.
 
To think how much wasted energy and time I spent years ago making sure everything was mounted perfectly and matched to a T. ... Oh well you live and learn.
I should note I have no interest in 5.1 audio been there done that.

Not to mention money wasted. I had 5 matching Mackie HR-824s. One used as a surround failed and I replaced the pair with Polk TSi 200s.
 
Year's ago (after much trial)I use to say that in my opinion the acoustics and placement issues that go hand and hand with surround speakers greatly diminished the advantages of exact matching speakers. I still feel that way.
 
For home theater, your left, center, right speakers are the most important and can benefit from having matching timber. Height, surrounds, rear and overhead are more sound effects and spatial fill. Changing where they are mounted technically changes the time delay and affects how things move around the room but sound is subjective. If you like it, don't worry about what the instructions say. Just enjoy.
 
How does it sound?

I neglected to mention that my rear surrounds have always been different than the mains. That’s because of room configuration. Issues. Anyway now the front stage all match but the surrounds and rears are different. After level matching all seven speakers I can’t honestly say it’s hadanegative impact. I don’t do multi channel music so the only signals going through are fill and effects in movies. Even with overhead panning effects I don’t hear any problems.
 
Congratulations!

I still argue that in an ideal surround system the speakers should share the same tonality and the easiest way to guarantee that is to use matching speakers - and I am convinced most serious enthusiasts would hear the difference with good content (generally movies don't qualify as good surround content for matching speakers). But, you are right, I too believe placement, acoustics and proper tuning are vastly more important. Also, most of us tend to buy and own speakers with a similar sound which aligns with our preferences. A dramatically different sounding set of surround speakers with good content would be more likely to sound worse than moderately matched speakers.

But ultimately, this is a just a fun hobby.
 
... generally movies don't qualify as good surround content for matching speakers

Precisely.
Which is why if I ever get the opportunity to upgrade my speakers, I’ll spend all of my budget on the front speakers. When I listen to music in the HT it’s always stereo.
 
Precisely.
Which is why if I ever get the opportunity to upgrade my speakers, I’ll spend all of my budget on the front speakers. When I listen to music in the HT it’s always stereo.

I agree generally with your logic, except TV shows tend to have very well placed specific detailed sounds in the surround channels. They are usually mixed in traditional mixing rooms with matching studio monitors perfectly placed around the mixing engineer while movies tend to be mixed in large theater spaces with multiple surrounds which create the well-known "diffuse" surround sound. I remember first discovering the magic of perfect surround effects with the TV show Numbers, which was unlike anything I'd heard before that. It was what drove my (and many others) to promote the ideal of perfectly matched speakers. At that time musicians were still struggling with how to utilize surround channels with music.

But, identical speakers for surrounds shouldn't be the first priority. If one must cut corners for budget, put the money into front stereo speakers and maybe the subwoofer, then the center, then (probably) acoustic treatments, before trying to perfectly match surrounds.
 
Congratulations!

I still argue that in an ideal surround system the speakers should share the same tonality and the easiest way to guarantee that is to use matching speakers - and I am convinced most serious enthusiasts would hear the difference with good content (generally movies don't qualify as good surround content for matching speakers). But, you are right, I too believe placement, acoustics and proper tuning are vastly more important. Also, most of us tend to buy and own speakers with a similar sound which aligns with our preferences. A dramatically different sounding set of surround speakers with good content would be more likely to sound worse than moderately matched speakers.

But ultimately, this is a just a fun hobby.
I don't think any rational person would argue that matching speakers are ideal. The point is that for movie sound affects it's not nearly as important as people are lead to believe. This is my opinion for what it's worth. I would love to see how many people fail to identify matching surround speakers while watching a movie in a double blind test. I bet the figures would be crazy high on the fail side.
 
I don't think any rational person would argue that matching speakers are ideal. The point is that for movie sound affects it's not nearly as important as people are lead to believe. This is my opinion for what it's worth. I would love to see how many people fail to identify matching surround speakers while watching a movie in a double blind test. I bet the figures would be crazy high on the fail side.

Oh, I totally agree 100% if the content is a movie. I have not heard a single movie which contained extremely detailed and precisely placed sounds in the surround channels. They typically use surround channels for ambience, general impressions of space, and to give the impression of life behind the listener. Good TV shows, however, tend to have very detailed sounds, sometimes with the same sound moving around the speakers in the room - like in the first season of Daredevil when the star was in the bad-guys' car and the camera was spinning around and around and the detailed sounds of voices speaking, music in the car speakers, and other such sounds were synchronized the spinning of the camera and the listener could actually hear the words being spoken and the music playing as it spun around the room. If the speakers are not matched with that specific scene, you can definitely hear the difference because the source is not changing at all.

But, for movies, I agree with you. Not so much for good TV shows or some surround music content.
 
Congrats on getting them installed, Jack. When I buy a new receiver, it will have Atmos in it, and I'm ok with using the Polk bookshelves in the basement I have as the Atmos speakers, even though I'm using all SVS speakers for the other speakers.
 
I havnt heard any shows like that but it's been about 10 years since my last system. I still feel however the simple fact that most surround speakers are placed at the extreme rear of the room, often times only inches away from the corner of the room, they suffer from extreme cases wall reflections. I'm sure they also suffer from some nasty acoustic issues. Now add to that, that they are or should be nearly 3ft above your head and behind you those channels stand nearly no chance if sounding close to identical to the mains.
For the lucky 5% or so who don't have placement or acoustical issues then I can see how beneficial matching speakers may be.

If you don't think speaker placement plays a massive role in how a speaker sounds here's a test. Put your main speakers 3ft above your head and and flat up against the wall behind them and only inches or a foot of the side wall and face them straight out. I promise you they will sound completely diffrent to you.
 
I havnt heard any shows like that but it's been about 10 years since my last system. I still feel however the simple fact that most surround speakers are placed at the extreme rear of the room, often times only inches away from the corner of the room, they suffer from extreme cases wall reflections. I'm sure they also suffer from some nasty acoustic issues. Now add to that, that they are or should be nearly 3ft above your head and behind you those channels stand nearly no chance if sounding close to identical to the mains.
For the lucky 5% or so who don't have placement or acoustical issues then I can see how beneficial matching speakers may be.

If you don't think speaker placement plays a massive role in how a speaker sounds here's a test. Put your main speakers 3ft above your head and and flat up against the wall behind them and only inches or a foot of the side wall and face them straight out. I promise you they will sound completely diffrent to you.

Yes, and I've agreed with you on the placement issue being more important three times in this thread.
 
Yes, and I've agreed with you on the placement issue being more important three times in this thread.
So you agree that in the majority of cases surround speakers will sound different then the main speakers do to placement and acoustics?
 
So you agree that in the majority of cases surround speakers will sound different then the main speakers do to placement and acoustics?

I won't go so far as to say in "majority of cases" because on this forum so many of us have very nicely laid out rooms. But I will say that if the placement is poor, that perfectly matching speakers shouldn't be a priority of so many other things one could focus on. I see this hobby as a series of decisions based on getting the most from my effort and money. While in a perfect world every speaker in the room would absolutely the same, as in the mixing rooms where our TV shows and music are mixed, that ideal isn't worth the cost and effort of the room design and layout makes it impossible to get good sound from the rear speakers. Choices, that's all. Just like buying a really high end amp when one's speakers really suck, we have to consider the most impactful way to get the most from our systems and that may not be through perfectly matching speakers. Every decision is dependent on many things, including one's willingness to sacrifice wife acceptance factor.

I am really glad when anyone is happy with their rig. I am glad you are finally enjoying a HT again, I think that's great.
 
I have to admit for a long time I've felt that matching speakers have been over emphasized in all but the most ideal situations. I still strongly stand by that. What blew me away is just how mismatched these speakers can be and still sound basically seemless to most mortals like myself.

I was ready with credit card in hand to order new speakers last night. It would have been a massive waste of money, for me. My point is I hope someone starting out in this hobby reads this info, looks at his/her room restrictions and maybe thinks outside the marketing hype that you have to have matching surrounds even though they stand no chance of matching your mains do to placement and acoustics.
For those that have no rear wall boundaries and have well enough trained ears that can hear just as precisely from speakers placed at the sides, behind them, and 3ft above their head then have a party and match away, it will be money well spent.
 
I totally agree it should not be a top priority, but this entire discussion started way back in 2003 when I challenged the idea that the most ideal surround speakers were always dipoles. I disagreed and argued for direct radiating speakers and then used that logic to carry it all the way to matching within a model line or even fully matched. This was supported by some AES papers and some manufacturers started making entire surround systems with small matched speakers, while others went with the THX model of dipole speakers in their surround kits.

But, while I will always claim the most ideal solution would be perfectly matched speakers all around, it should not take priority above getting good stereo speakers to start with. And, as I listed above, things like a good well-tuned subwoofer is more important, good stereo speaker placement is more important, good listening position is more important, addressing acoustic issues like bad first reflections or bass standing waves is more important, and several other things. But, if all those things have been addressed to the best of one's ability and there is still a desire to improve the system, getting matching surrounds might be a good next step. Certainly I think acquiring matching speakers should be more important than upgrading to Silver-plated cables or buying a $10,000 amplifier.
 
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