5.1

topher

topher

topher

Soldato
Joined
3 Jan 2003
Posts
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just looking into going from stereo to 5.1, but 1 problem a may have is that my sofa is right up against the back wall! so I would'nt be able to have the rears behind me.

can I have the rears either side of the sofa (again the speakers will need to close to the sides of the sofa).

can I have the rears facing forward or do they need to facing the sofa?

so many questions...
 
Strife212 said:
Not really, even the link you gave says they should be on either side of the listening area.

The ones directly behind are the 7.1 ones
Click to expand...

Meh, they were just random links. In the corners, at a height is the proper placementm, but in reality it's a compromise due to room shape/furniture etc. Note that in some of those links, the rears are bipolar/dipolar, which I guess he isn't using.
 
jellybeard999 said:
Meh, they were just random links. In the corners, at a height is the proper placementm, but in reality it's a compromise due to room shape/furniture etc. Note that in some of those links, the rears are bipolar/dipolar, which I guess he isn't using.
Click to expand...

Really disagree with height and the use of dipole speakers. Rear L/R effect in 5.1 are directional sounds you want them at ear height facing the listener.

Ala http://www.dts.com/Consumer_Electronics/Home_Theater/~/media/D205D6E32D0A40E3AA956D20C5617DCD.ashx
 
While the ideal for 5.1 surround is speakers mounted to the side of your sofa at ear level, if you set up the system carefully then you can get an acceptable performance with the rears mounted high on the walls behind you. IMHO its far more important to get the front left/right and center speaker at the correct height and placement.

My rear surrounds are high up, and angled steeply down, so the HF response is still aimed roughly at the sofa, rather than being sent along the ceiling. Its a comprimise of asthetics V performance. It works well enough, and my GF tolerates (well she enjoys them) my large floorstanding front speakers :)

Anyway, Side is fine, they should face the sofa, and be equally spaced with the sofa in the middle. (Although you can compensate for some unequal distance with delay and volume correction on most AV amps)
 
vila said:
Really disagree with height and the use of dipole speakers. Rear L/R effect in 5.1 are directional sounds you want them at ear height facing the listener.

Ala http://www.dts.com/Consumer_Electronics/Home_Theater/~/media/D205D6E32D0A40E3AA956D20C5617DCD.ashx
Click to expand...

I'm not advocating the use of dipoles - that's just what happened to be in the link on the Dolby / THX site.

I thought the rears were supposed to be higher up and it was only the front 3 that should have tweeters at ear height in the seated position.
 
cheers guys

so next question!

currently have a pair of dynaudio 42's / arcam cd72 and yamaha ax596, that I am looking to sell the lot and use the cash to purchase the 5.1 kit.

was looking at q acoustics 1030i for fronts
1010i for rears
and a cheap centre

I dont really want a sub, which is why I picked the 1030i instead of the 1010i/1020i.

will be using my PS3 for bluray.
which amps should I be short listing for approx £200 - £250
 
I have the Q-Acoustics 1030i's fro fronts - very happy.

AV AMp wise, I would have thought something like the Yamaha RXV465 or Onkyo 308 or Pioneer 519V
 
another option would be something like the tannoy 5.1 sfx or the yamaha nsp range, but I guess the q-accoustics sound better.

what features should I be looking for in a av amp?
 
2nd hand Arcam AVR200?

Might as well start as well as you can, and at your budget high definition sound won't sound any different to standard DTS/DD.


PS get a sub at a later date....
 
Floorstander speakers dont really replace subs in a 5.1 system. The 1030i's drop to 48hz, which isnt "that low", and some 5.1 sound tracks can really hammer the woofers even on top quality floor standers. Of course if the reason you dont want a sub is due to consideration for neighbours then fair enough... But whatever you do, I would not recommend telling your AV Amp to "downmix" the 5.1 to the main speakers. Set your amp to full range on front left/right (and mebee centre too), but leave the .1 channel to the non existant sub :P.

You'll still get plenty of depth to the movie soundtracks, without putting way too much bass on the floorstanders.
 
Bossk128 said:
2nd hand Arcam AVR200?

Might as well start as well as you can, and at your budget high definition sound won't sound any different to standard DTS/DD.


PS get a sub at a later date....
Click to expand...

You can have a huge budget and still not notice the difference between 1536kbps DTS, 640kbps DD, and the "so called HD" sound tracks. In the dolby labs, they use many thousands of pounds worth of amps and speakers (I heard around £40000!) in their "demo/testing" suite, and even so the successrate of identifying 640kbps DD and HD audio is pretty close to "random luck".

If HD sounds different on a 1k reciever hooked up to 3k speakers... The odds are any difference heard is purely "intentially" added by the DPS's in the receiver.. A bit like early CD players which had artifically enhanced high frequencys, while later more expensive CD players were smoother and sounded far more like the original master recordings.

Thing is, even 640kbps is a reasonable bit rate for compressed audio... and the final quality of compressed audio is largely down to the quality of the encoding hardware (not the decoders). Dolby, and DTS can both reassign bits from the surround and subs to increase the quality of the front speakers, and even in high action movies, the rears are often doing fairly little work, and dont need as many bits as the fronts and centre speaker. DD is considerably better than say MP3 stereo @ 320kbps.
 
Last edited:
Corasik said:
You can have a huge budget and still not notice the difference between 1536kbps DTS, 640kbps DD, and the "so called HD" sound tracks. In the dolby labs, they use many thousands of pounds worth of amps and speakers (I heard around £40000!) in their "demo/testing" suite, and even so the successrate of identifying 640kbps DD and HD audio is pretty close to "random luck".

If HD sounds different on a 1k reciever hooked up to 3k speakers... The odds are any difference heard is purely "intentially" added by the DPS's in the receiver.. A bit like early CD players which had artifically enhanced high frequencys, while later more expensive CD players were smoother and sounded far more like the original master recordings.

Thing is, even 640kbps is a reasonable bit rate for compressed audio... and the final quality of compressed audio is largely down to the quality of the encoding hardware (not the decoders). Dolby, and DTS can both reassign bits from the surround and subs to increase the quality of the front speakers, and even in high action movies, the rears are often doing fairly little work, and dont need as many bits as the fronts and centre speaker. DD is considerably better than say MP3 stereo @ 320kbps.
Click to expand...

That was kind of my point: I was pre-empting criticism of a lack of HDMI audio.

Slightly OT: In saying that, I can definitely hear the difference between DTS and DD on my Jurassic Park DVD (DTS was a lot better) but it's difficult to tell if it's a better mix, or a better codec. Doesn't matter to me, it was still better :p
 
I am almost set on selling my dyna 42's and get the q acoustics 1030i's for fronts, I was planning on getting the 1010i's for rears, but the misses isn't keen on the idea, are there any smaller rears? perhaps small sats?

for amps I was looking at
Sony STRDH800
Denon 1610
Sony STRDH800
Onkyo TXSR577
Onkyo TXSR607
Sony STRDN1000
Yamaha RXV765
 
Ihave the Monitor audio R90s paired with a yammy 765, i nearly bought the QA 1010i but having saw them in store they were too big so went for the MA's and i am very happy with them, the newer R90HD have just been released so you should be able to pick up the R90s fairly cheap.

W x H x D (mm): 150 x 215 x 195 1010i
120 x 190 x 140 MA R90

Very good sounding speakers.
 
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