Floorstanding speakers for rear surround?

SydDanube

SydDanube

SydDanube

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Joined
27 Feb 2015
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165
I am upgrading my 5.1.2 set up.
Current front left and right are Cambridge Minx Min10. Soon to be Dali Oberon 5 floorstanding speakers.
Centre is a Dali Spektor Vokal.
Front Dolby Atmos are Dali Alteco C-1 (which will then go on top of the front Oberon 5 speakers)
Rear surround are also Cambridge Minx Min10.

I have this crazy idea of getting another set of Dali Oberon 5 speakers for the rear surrounds at some point in the future. What are the benefits or downfalls of this?
Or should i go for a satellite speaker like an Oberon 1 or 3 to keep a similar sound / theme?

All running off a Denon AVR-X1400H.
 
hornetstinger said:
Wider frequency response and easier to drive.
But big and if close to you or blocking accessway or stick into room. Are they right behind you or have a couple of meters space?
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No blocking accessway. Given the space i have i reckon about 1.5m either side of the main seating position. Probably put them at the rear edges of the couch?
They have rear bass ports so will need space i guess.
 
I had floor standers for my rears originally. I can't say there were any issues (apart from size), I have changed to bookshelf that are wall mounted and can't tell a difference. There's mot that much that comes out the rears compared to your front 3.
 
I use a pair of old Ruarks for my rears. No issue here. If I were building a system from scratch I’d be looking at spending the majority on the fronts, eg 80%+ of the budget. All the same, I don’t believe that there’s anything wrong with using good speakers for the rears.
 
theone8181 said:
I had floor standers for my rears originally. I can't say there were any issues (apart from size), I have changed to bookshelf that are wall mounted and can't tell a difference. There's mot that much that comes out the rears compared to your front 3.
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Mr_Sukebe said:
I use a pair of old Ruarks for my rears. No issue here. If I were building a system from scratch I’d be looking at spending the majority on the fronts, eg 80%+ of the budget. All the same, I don’t believe that there’s anything wrong with using good speakers for the rears.
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Thank you. Appreciate the comments. Will get the Oberon 5 for the front speakers for now. So the fronts will all be of a decent quality. See how things pan out with work etc. and then look at getting another pair for the rear surrounds.
 
In the past I've done this (in the days of old 5.1 surround). I used a pair of castle harlechs up front, harlech centre and a pair of mission 731s on the rear. The mission 734s were known to be very strafing with the tweeter. The limited bandwidth of 5.1 rear signals meant that the boom and tizzy didn't appear. Luck rather than design. The sonic signature of the front was cohesive, the rear wasn't as noticeable. The harlechs are not a boomy speaker, 1/4 wave loaded and exceptionally quick bass response but depth - only a little polite. The up firing top speaker in the harlech give more atmosphere. Having said that - my flatmate at the time had pinkfloyd through the harlechs so loud I could hear it as I walked up the street. I was using a 5.1 amp with the front speakers driven through a separate amp (a point for later about power), leaving the 5.1 amp with the centre and surrounds.

Later digital surround has increased the bandwidth to the rears IIRC so this perhaps would not have worked.

Movies have more thump - a sub would help. Given Dali do a AV set with the 5s, a centre, sub and 1s for rear, that's probably a starting point.

One thing to note - the Dali speakers are 6 ohm. You'll need to go into the Dennon settings and set the speaker impedance to 6ohm from the default 8. They obviously draw more current - especially considering they're a low 88dB sensitivity.

Amp manufacturers often get a little over zellious in their specifications. An amp may be able, theoretically, to pump 134W on all 7 channels, but that's likely into favourable speakers and peak with distortion. If you add rears that are current suckers and low sensitivity, you may find that the power supply of the amp starts to have problems - this will impact the sound for all channels (and especially the front that is carrying a wider bandwidth) as the power supply is shared.
I would start to support FurryLemon's perspective is that you are likely to find the amp's power limitations driving four large floorstanders, two atmospheric speakers and a centre speakers. If you look at the Dennon AV package that they sell - it has small speakers and they're probably 8ohm..
 
FurryLemon said:
Well. No.

Stupid waste of money. Better off spending extra funds on a decent AVR. The 1400 is very basic and shouldn't be considered a 'keeper'.
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NickK said:
In the past I've done this (in the days of old 5.1 surround). I used a pair of castle harlechs up front, harlech centre and a pair of mission 731s on the rear. The mission 734s were known to be very strafing with the tweeter. The limited bandwidth of 5.1 rear signals meant that the boom and tizzy didn't appear. Luck rather than design. The sonic signature of the front was cohesive, the rear wasn't as noticeable. The harlechs are not a boomy speaker, 1/4 wave loaded and exceptionally quick bass response but depth - only a little polite. The up firing top speaker in the harlech give more atmosphere. Having said that - my flatmate at the time had pinkfloyd through the harlechs so loud I could hear it as I walked up the street. I was using a 5.1 amp with the front speakers driven through a separate amp (a point for later about power), leaving the 5.1 amp with the centre and surrounds.

Later digital surround has increased the bandwidth to the rears IIRC so this perhaps would not have worked.

Movies have more thump - a sub would help. Given Dali do a AV set with the 5s, a centre, sub and 1s for rear, that's probably a starting point.

One thing to note - the Dali speakers are 6 ohm. You'll need to go into the Dennon settings and set the speaker impedance to 6ohm from the default 8. They obviously draw more current - especially considering they're a low 88dB sensitivity.

Amp manufacturers often get a little over zellious in their specifications. An amp may be able, theoretically, to pump 134W on all 7 channels, but that's likely into favourable speakers and peak with distortion. If you add rears that are current suckers and low sensitivity, you may find that the power supply of the amp starts to have problems - this will impact the sound for all channels (and especially the front that is carrying a wider bandwidth) as the power supply is shared.
I would start to support FurryLemon's perspective is that you are likely to find the amp's power limitations driving four large floorstanders, two atmospheric speakers and a centre speakers. If you look at the Dennon AV package that they sell - it has small speakers and they're probably 8ohm..
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comments. For now i will only be adding the Dali Oberon 5s to the front. I have considered upgrading the AV at some point but have to temper my spending. In the future there will definitely be an AV upgrade, a new TV upgrade (go from 4k60hz OLED to 4k120hz OLED) and then add better rear speakers once i have won the lottery.
 
Wouldn't have thought it worth it. Though before I understood more about AV in general I always thought floor standers at the rear must be the 'best' solution.

Now it's not even on my radar at all.
 
On the subject of rear speakers, I have Wharfedale Diamond 9.1's for my rears, but I feel like these are wasted as rears, for the size and their performance? Price wise perhaps not, sometimes I feel maybe use smaller for the rears and put the 9.1 rears as a 2.0 bedroom setup?

Just seems like there isn't a lot sound in the rears most of the time, even on Dolby Vision content.
 
Will,
I think the 8pack and myself would both disagree with that.
The rears are far less important, but that’s certainly not to say that they’re doing very little.
 
willhub said:
On the subject of rear speakers, I have Wharfedale Diamond 9.1's for my rears, but I feel like these are wasted as rears, for the size and their performance? Price wise perhaps not, sometimes I feel maybe use smaller for the rears and put the 9.1 rears as a 2.0 bedroom setup?

Just seems like there isn't a lot sound in the rears most of the time, even on Dolby Vision content.
Click to expand...

Or get higher quality mains using 9.1 as rears.

I'm using high end standmounts as rears
 
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