Rear surround

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  • 04-07-2005, 04:38 PM
    madmax1
    Rear surround
    was wondering if i could run different suround speakers with my setup?
  • 04-07-2005, 05:14 PM
    paul_pci
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by madmax1
    was wondering if i could run different suround speakers with my setup?
    Sure. For DVDs it shouldn't be that noticeable unless the speakers are far apart in quality or tonality, but for DVD-A, the differences may be less palatable.
  • 04-11-2005, 05:38 PM
    madmax1
    Rear surronds
    Well i was looking at the rear paradigm studio dipoles, but not sure i can afford $970 for the pair. Just to complete my set of studio's? Am i wrong but can't i use something alittle cheaper for the rears? I was looking the axiom's for $500.00 or is there some other choices out there? Please help??? Thanks!!
  • 04-11-2005, 06:05 PM
    LEAFS264
    Ya, paul is right. Use can use any decent pair of speakers... But like he said...you might not like the change for dvd-audio and sacd if your going that way. Paradigm titans v3 are a much cheeper option, you might want to look at. I think they are 250-300 bucks.

    Jay
  • 04-11-2005, 06:24 PM
    Woochifer
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by madmax1
    Well i was looking at the rear paradigm studio dipoles, but not sure i can afford $970 for the pair. Just to complete my set of studio's? Am i wrong but can't i use something alittle cheaper for the rears? I was looking the axiom's for $500.00 or is there some other choices out there? Please help??? Thanks!!
    That would depend on if you plan to play multichannel music through your system. If you plan to mostly watch movies older than about 10 year out, then you can get away with mismatched surround speakers. This is because those older soundtracks mostly mix ambient sounds into the surrounds with few sounds that get mixed into the main and surround channels at the same time at nearly equal levels.

    But, for a lot of newer movie soundtracks and with multichannel music, you want as close a match as possible between the main and surround speakers because increasingly sounds are getting mixed into all of those channels at roughly equal levels. In this case, timbre mismatches are clearly audible, and can sound distracting.

    With properly matched surrounds, the depth perception and the solid side imaging that gets created simply cannot be replicated using mismatched speakers.

    In short, you can get away with mismatched speakers, but if you want optimal performance and a true representation of what surround sound can do, then you need timbre matched surrounds. In your case, if you use Paradigm's Studio series, then you can also use the Studio 20 as the surround speaker. In general, I'm not much of a fan of dipolar surrounds to begin with, and I use the 20s in my surround setup.
  • 04-12-2005, 03:37 AM
    kexodusc
    I second the use of the Studio 20's...I used 4 of these as surrounds for almost 2 years. They tend to have pretty good dispersion and are small enough to place in a room. I much preferred these to the Studio dipoles and they're cheaper to boot.
  • 04-12-2005, 06:09 AM
    shokhead
    I thought dipoles are not as good for music and are better for movies?
  • 04-12-2005, 01:29 PM
    Woochifer
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by shokhead
    I thought dipoles are not as good for music and are better for movies?
    That very much depends on the movie soundtrack. If the surround content consists of mostly ambient cues and nondirectional effects, then the dipolar speakers are better at mimicking the speaker arrays that you typically find in movie theaters. But, if the soundtrack is mixed with a lot of activity that gets mixed into the mains and surrounds simultaneously at roughly equal levels, then going with direct firing surrounds will likely work better than the bipoles.
  • 04-12-2005, 02:30 PM
    shokhead
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Woochifer
    That very much depends on the movie soundtrack. If the surround content consists of mostly ambient cues and nondirectional effects, then the dipolar speakers are better at mimicking the speaker arrays that you typically find in movie theaters. But, if the soundtrack is mixed with a lot of activity that gets mixed into the mains and surrounds simultaneously at roughly equal levels, then going with direct firing surrounds will likely work better than the bipoles.
    Music as in 5 channel stereo,multi-channel audio,Pllx.