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Post by caper334 on Jan 28, 2010 20:34:13 GMT -5
I have atom monitors v5 right now for surround speakers and I have an older pair or b&w speakers 202I...about 14 years old...they sounded great with a marrantz receiver back then...could they be used as surrounds or somewhere else in the setup other than fronts and center any suggestions would be great
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Post by bfisher on Jan 29, 2010 7:52:13 GMT -5
generally speaking, you want the same speakers family used all the way around your room. You want them to sound similar. When a sound pans from front to back (or left to right, etc) - you want it to move smoothly - and not hear when it changes speakers.
You don't mention budget, existing equipment, room size or desired speaker sizes (bookshelf, floorstanding), etc so it's impossible to make any real recommendations.
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Post by mrcoop on Jan 30, 2010 11:24:07 GMT -5
IMO, the fronts should match...the rears do not need to match the fronts...who is saying how the sound is gonna be when it goes to front then to back...in real life, sound will sound different when its coming from behind or even beside you then in front of you.
just my opinion, fronts the same and the rears should be the same....not the same all the way around.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2010 20:37:25 GMT -5
Why would the ideal situation of having speakers voice/timbre matched be any different for a pan that moves from the front to the rear than a pan that moves from the front left to the front right?
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Post by Samuel on Jan 30, 2010 22:23:55 GMT -5
Why would the ideal situation of having speakers voice/timbre matched be any different for a pan that moves from the front to the rear than a pan that moves from the front left to the front right? Good point Chuckie........... ;D |
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cawgijoe
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Post by cawgijoe on Jan 31, 2010 0:23:49 GMT -5
I have Mirage Omnipolar speakers in for surrounds and Thiel Audio speaker up front. They sound great. I feel no need for Thiel rear speakers. The Mirages are great for dispursing the surround effects.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2010 1:18:09 GMT -5
I have Mirage Omnipolar speakers in for surrounds and Thiel Audio speaker up front. They sound great. I feel no need for Thiel rear speakers. The Mirages are great for dispursing the surround effects. Great for dispersing the surround but most likely with a difference voice character. Only when I matched the surround speakers with the front LCR's did I finally realize the actual improvement. It can be subtle at times but definitely audible. Not that your system does not sound very good, I'm sure it does. The dispersion of the Mirage surrounds certainly help present a nice surround effect. We are only talking here about the ideal match-up. We match the 5 or 7 speakers in a HT system for the same exact reasons we match the LCR's across the front or the the left and right speakers in a stereo system. There is a mistaken opinion that the surround channels contain only discrete special sounds placed in the soundtrack for special effects and to surround the listener with sound. The rear channels contain lots of direct sounds but also many ambient sound from the front channels. Listen to multi-channel music or the music in movie soundtracks. The instrument or vocal sounds from the rear speakers should have the exact same voicing/timbre as the front sounds. Have you been in a surround 360 degree movie theater? It would not be acceptable to have a different projector and screen material for the rear portion of the screen. Obviously you would be able to see a difference in the projected video, just like we can hear the difference in the surround audio. There are many people who are very happy with mismatched surrounds. I'm only saying do a comparison if it is not financially prohibitive or match all speakers when you do a whole speaker system upgrade in the future. |
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LCSeminole
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Post by LCSeminole on Jan 31, 2010 9:31:23 GMT -5
Ideally in a 5.1 setup, all 5 speakers should be the same. Again ideally. Not everyone has the funds to afford, say 5 tower speakers, or for that matter the space, so at the minimum the front sound stage should match.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2010 10:01:48 GMT -5
The obvious compensation here is to buy smaller surround speakers from the same brand and series that have the same exact tweeter and many times the same exact mid as the front LCR. This is sufficient to be close to the perfect match as the bass is not that important. ;D
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Post by mrcoop on Jan 31, 2010 10:19:01 GMT -5
Why would the ideal situation of having speakers voice/timbre matched be any different for a pan that moves from the front to the rear than a pan that moves from the front left to the front right? Well, like I said..."just my opinion" chuckie...have some one stand in "front" of you, and have them clap or even talk...then have them move a little to the left and then to the right, the perception of their voice (consider this timber) is very similar...now have them go to the back or even side of you...the image of the sound can sound completely different. You will really notice the difference, when the sound is becoming behind you. As a result,like I said "just my opinion", you do not need timber matched fronts with timber matched surround speakers. I am willing to bet if you, or any other auduiophile, came into my home theater and I played a movie blind folded, you will not be able to say with any kind of certainty these speakers are not matched. Whne you pna left to right...sure, sounds very similar...but when you pan front to back, the actual sound won't sound similar. I was concerned about my erd's and klipsch front stage would be different, sure they sound different when I play a test tone...but during a movie, I cannot even tell, and am willing no one else will be able to as well. |
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Post by DYohn on Jan 31, 2010 10:21:56 GMT -5
IMO for home theater duties it is not important for the surrounds to match the front three. As long as they are set up properly you can pretty much use any speaker for surrounds. If on the other hand you plan to listen to 5-channel music, then it is critical for all five speakers to not only voice match but IMO they should all 5 be the exact same systems. But as in all things audio, each person's taste will vary and whatever any user likes is what they should use.  |
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Post by mrcoop on Jan 31, 2010 10:25:30 GMT -5
IMO for home theater duties it is not important for the surrounds to match the front three. As long as they are set up properly you can pretty much use any speaker for surrounds. If on the other hand you plan to listen to 5-channel music, then it is critical for all five speakers to not only voice match but IMO they should all 5 be the exact same systems. But as in all things audio, each person's taste will vary and whatever any user likes is what they should use. now that, I may somewhat agree with...music maybe a different story. I may add, there are some unbelievable sytems I have seen that the surrounds are different (different manufactures) that are much different then the front stage. |
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LCSeminole
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Post by LCSeminole on Jan 31, 2010 10:34:48 GMT -5
Why would the ideal situation of having speakers voice/timbre matched be any different for a pan that moves from the front to the rear than a pan that moves from the front left to the front right? Well, like I said..."just my opinion" chuckie...have some one stand in "front" of you, and have them clap or even talk...then have them move a little to the left and then to the right, the perception of their voice (consider this timber) is very similar...now have them go to the back or even side of you...the image of the sound can sound completely different. You will really notice the difference, when the sound is becoming behind you. As a result,like I said "just my opinion", you do not need timber matched fronts with timber matched surround speakers. I am willing to bet if you, or any other auduiophile, came into my home theater and I played a movie blind folded, you will not be able to say with any kind of certainty these speakers are not matched. Whne you pna left to right...sure, sounds very similar...but when you pan front to back, the actual sound won't sound similar. I was concerned about my erd's and klipsch front stage would be different, sure they sound different when I play a test tone...but during a movie, I cannot even tell, and am willing no one else will be able to as well. I'm picturing your wife performing "Clapping" duties everytime you change your speaker setup! ;D |
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Post by mrcoop on Jan 31, 2010 10:35:17 GMT -5
I have Mirage Omnipolar speakers in for surrounds and Thiel Audio speaker up front. They sound great. I feel no need for Thiel rear speakers. The Mirages are great for dispursing the surround effects. Have you been in a surround 360 degree movie theater? It would not be acceptable to have a different projector and screen material for the rear portion of the screen. Obviously you would be able to see a difference in the projected video, just like we can hear the difference in the surround audio. Chuckie, this make no sense, visually and audio are entirely 2 different things and not sure you would even state it, even tho you admit that visually you can tell a difference...now that we agree on.... perception of sound is completely different, especially when it comes from all different areas of a room. |
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Post by Bruce on Jan 31, 2010 11:32:46 GMT -5
The obvious compensation here is to buy smaller surround speakers from the same brand and series that have the same exact tweeter and many times the same exact mid as the front LCR. This is sufficient to be close to the perfect match as the bass is not that important. ;D You are right on!!! That is why I purchased the DEF.Mythos 10 speakers for center,and both sides and back to match my DEF. Mythos ST fronts as the 10 speakers have the same tweeter and bass as the Mythos ST fronts EXCEPT the powered sub in the ST fronts.I had DEF. GemXL for sides and rear and NOW with the Mythos 10 the sound is a lot more unified across all ch.I believe for 5.1 music it does make sense and i have heard a big difference in BluRay movies in MY SYSTEM. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2010 12:12:02 GMT -5
The comment about the 360 degree movie theater was an analogy to try and get you to understand the concept. A simple test is to run the test tones on your receiver or pre-pro and listen as it cycles thru the 5 speakers. It should be very close all around. Now know that even with all five speaker the exact same tower that there will still be some differences due to room effects. Now do this test with surround speakers like I have that match the fronts in voice/timbre and you will hear that they are very close. Next do this with your mismatched surrounds and you will hear a significant difference in the mismatched surround speakers. I have heard the difference clearly for myself. You would loose your bet.
Those who think that matched speakers for movies are not required obviously have not heard the same movies that I have watched. Many of these have lots of music in all 5 channels. You haven't seen Ray, Chicago, Amadeus, need I go on. There is one hell of a lot of music thru all 5 channels in these any many other movies.
Dyohn, I agree that ideally all 5 speakers should be the same exact speaker. But as I mentioned above that is just not practical in 99% of home theater setups. The next best thing is to have the smaller surround speakers match in the critical mid and highs. The bass does not affect the voicing significantly. You feel that all speakers should be the same but do not see the reason for smaller surrounds that effectively are the same in the mids and highs??? All the people I know that continue to insist that the surrounds not need to be matching...none of them have matching surrounds.
I have looked for a long time but cannot find a link to the test that really opened my ears. I cannot remember all the specific details but very clearly remember the findings and conclusions. There was a test a number of years ago in a well known audio magazine that did a blind A/B comparison test of two 5 speaker surround systems. This test was done in the 90's when surround systems were just starting to become very popular. The question of whether the speakers needed to be matched was a common one. Most folks were expanding to a 5.0 or 5.1 system and buying a center and surround pair that did not match their existing stereo speakers (lots of brands did not even make matching center and surround models yet). The experienced listeners were all professional reviewers and industry personnel. System A consisted of two matching L&R speakers, a non-matching center speaker and two non-marching surround speakers. All of these 5 speakers were from well known and expensive high end brands. System B consisted of 5 speakers that were the exact same bookshelf speaker. The movie and surround music was limited to the low end of the frequency range of the 5 bookshelf speakers to make a fair comparison not influenced by the lower bass. All other components in the basic common system were high end. The speakers were the only difference and were switched back and forth.
The consensus results were that the panel overwhelmingly preferred the presentation of system B. There were comments that system A was better in some specific areas of sound but that the overall smoothness and cohesiveness of the surround sound was superior in system B.
System B consisted of 5 Radio Shack bookshelf speakers. I can't remember the specific model, but they were speaker in the $125-$150 range or so. All of the panel members were very surprised when they found out the identity of system B. Some of you might know that RS actually made some decent sounding bookshelf speakers in those days.
The conclusions of this test are ones that I never forgot. At the time I had felt that my system sounded very good but that something was missing in the realism of the surround sound. After reading this test I upgraded my system and the result was very obvious to my ears. ;D
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DYohn
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Post by DYohn on Jan 31, 2010 12:55:58 GMT -5
Chuckie: I agree with you in general. In the best setups, the surrounds usually voice match the mains. But I maintain that they do not have to. As long as positioning and levels are properly setup, the surrounds are the least important part of any HT system and really huge compromises can be "gotten away with" when it comes to surrounds. My statement about all five being the exact same is for surround music. |
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