5.1 speaker advice

willd58 · 1 Apr 2006 at 21:23

Hi, i have a Cambridge audio A300 amp with some Mordaunt short 902's and a Mordaunt short 308 sub.

now the amp is pretty budget spec, and im thinking of going 5.1 soon, when iv gotten a decent Tv. what with me having the 902's and sub allready, im thinking my cheapest and best option is keeping them, and adding 3 more speakers, obvsiously a centre, and either making the 902's the rears or the fronts.

any advice would be good, i dont have a budget yet, ill have to see what happens, but i have got one question, does anyone know if itll sound ok useing the 902's as front left and right, and just useing the tiny versions of the 902, a pair of the premiere speakers as the rears, along with the the 902's?

Hesky82 · 2 Apr 2006 at 02:11

sounds cool, tbh you really dont have to worry about using different speakers at the rear, sonically they dont have to be similar to your 902 bookshelves, there gonna receive a different audio output anyway when in surround mode. again to a certain degree your centre will get different audio information when in 5.1 mode (speech etc..) so again sonically they need not match your fronts.
keep your 902s on the front end so you still have the better speakers running 2 channel stereo for music.
one thing to bear in mind is your amplification and speaker sensitivity, I would image both your current speakers and these premiere speakers have similar sensitivity (89db or there abouts like most 2 way speakers) so that isnt to much of an issue. as far as amplification goes if you hook your front end up with a meaty high power high gain amp and then hook up your centre and rears on a little weedy amp you will find your front end to overpowering and your system will sound unbalanced volume wise, struggle to hear voices in films etc..
if you want to go 5.1 you will need an extra 3 channels, so what do you plan to do amp wise?

willd58 · 2 Apr 2006 at 15:38

Im thinking either a Marantz or Denon 5.1 amp. I think ill audition, the Denon 1906 etc and the SR4300 and 5300 etc from Marantz.

I was planning on ditching the CA stuff, i dont think it really cuts it and will be very surprised if the Homecinema amps dont make a better 2 channel sound with music.

Journey · 2 Apr 2006 at 16:01

Not using a matching front three is possibly the worst advise anyone could give you, it is so important to keep the tonal balance across the front so paning effects from left to right etc sound correct, yes you can adjust this on the amp but it will never be truly balanced.

Use your 902's as rears and buy a nice matching front 3 set within what ever budget you set, the Denon 1906 is a cracking little amp for the money, and sounds decent with 2 channel music as well.

Audition, audition, audition...

Hesky82 · 2 Apr 2006 at 20:32

Journey said:
Not using a matching front three is possibly the worst advise anyone could give you, it is so important to keep the tonal balance across the front so paning effects from left to right etc sound correct, yes you can adjust this on the amp but it will never be truly balanced.

Use your 902's as rears and buy a nice matching front 3 set within what ever budget you set, the Denon 1906 is a cracking little amp for the money, and sounds decent with 2 channel music as well.

Audition, audition, audition...

You are right it is not ideal but you can do much worse things than not using a matching centre, if he has the budget i would recommend running the 905i centre speaker. the thing is the avant and Premiere range use very similar drivers so im sure tonally they wont be that different, I recall what home cinema commented on the similarities the premiere range share with avants.

I have demoded both the denon 1906 and a marantz sr4500 and I know that in 2-channel audio the denon is not comparable, even felt my old sr4200 running source direct sounded better than the denon.
if your only concern is connectivity and film performance the denon is great, if you want an av amp with more musicality it would be marantz every time!

willd58 · 2 Apr 2006 at 22:36

If i were to get a 905 centre speaker, with the 302's as rears, would this sound ok? The 302's are so much smaller is all.

Hesky82 · 2 Apr 2006 at 23:27

the 302's are actually 3db less sensitive than the 902, that means with the same amount of power the 902's will be noticeably louder, this is not a problem if your rears are close behind you say 1m behind and your fronts/centre a good 3-4m in front. atm i've got a pretty nice balance with this sort of set-up on my b&w speakers, if i put my sound pressure meter in the central listening position I can get similar spl levels from all speakers and it sounds pretty much perfect.