Surround Setup - "new" living room

task · 13 Nov 2019 at 12:04

I've got a Denon AVR1912 amp that was setup in my previous living room driving a 5.1 system comprised of 4x hifi speakers wall mounted (4x wharefedale RB-21), a hifi speaker on the floor as a centre and an active sub.

The living room has been refurbished and I'm at the stage of chasing cables into walls and choosing which cpeakers to use. I need a new speaker to use as a centre but I wondered if full size speakers are overkill for rears? These are going to be mounted directly above the seating so smaller speakers could be less intrusive.

I also have a pair of floorstanders, Eltax Liberty 5+ (again, nothing fancy) and have considered using these as the centre speakers.

Any recommendations for smaller rear speakers and/or centre speakers?

Cheers

200sols · 13 Nov 2019 at 12:08

For rear speakers directly above you I prefer ones like monitor audio FX. They come in 3 ranges bronze/silver/gold depending on budget. Ideally you would keep the front 3 speakers from the same range.

hornetstinger · 13 Nov 2019 at 12:45

Do not use two speakers for the center speaker

task · 13 Nov 2019 at 12:54

hornetstinger said:
Do not use two speakers for the center speaker

Haven't been and wasn't planning to

lucid · 13 Nov 2019 at 13:55

task said:
Haven't been and wasn't planning to

To be fair to @hornetstinger, you did actually write:

task said:
I also have a pair of floorstanders, Eltax Liberty 5+ (again, nothing fancy) and have considered using these as the centre speakers.

That might not be what you intended to write, but it does come across as you wanting to hook up a pair of Libery 5+ for centre speaker duties.

lucid · 13 Nov 2019 at 14:02

task said:
I wondered if full size speakers are overkill for rears?

It depends a lot on the room - how much space you have - and the rest of the gear. The ideal scenario is that all 5 or all 7 surround speakers (inc centre) are exactly the same model. That way the only difference in tone is down to the acoustics of the room. It's not practical for most people though. There isn't enough space for the sound from direct-firing (monopole) speakers to spread and develop a sound field when they're little more than a couple of feet from the nearest listening position.

If you have no plans to go ATMOS, then dipoles such as the MA BXFX or Mission 77DS are a good choice for surround duties so long as there's a sub to fill in the bottom-end.

task · 13 Nov 2019 at 14:05

lucid said:
To be fair to @hornetstinger, you did actually write:

That might not be what you intended to write, but it does come across as you wanting to hook up a pair of Libery 5+ for centre speaker duties.

Front speakers, rather than centre.

task · 13 Nov 2019 at 16:28

lucid said:
It depends a lot on the room - how much space you have - and the rest of the gear. The ideal scenario is that all 5 or all 7 surround speakers (inc centre) are exactly the same model. That way the only difference in tone is down to the acoustics of the room. It's not practical for most people though. There isn't enough space for the sound from direct-firing (monopole) speakers to spread and develop a sound field when they're little more than a couple of feet from the nearest listening position.

If you have no plans to go ATMOS, then dipoles such as the MA BXFX or Mission 77DS are a good choice for surround duties so long as there's a sub to fill in the bottom-end.

No plans for ATMOS at this time and there's a decent enough sub to fill out the bottom end.

Rear will be mounted almost directly above/behind the listener so I'll explore some bi-pole/di-pole options. It looks like I can pickup some S/H Eltax to match the floor standers from the same series.

hornetstinger · 13 Nov 2019 at 17:33

Probably look at new speakers eltax liberty were not exactly high end.