Help on surrounds!

[luvs2jam60]

I need some help on some VERY inexpensive surround speakers for my system. And when I say inexpensive, I'm talking $175 or less. I have a very limited budget because I'm in college, and I have a 3.1 setup as of right now. Not bad for a dorm room if you ask me. Anyways, I'm upgrading to a Denon receiver and I want to get the full DD effect, so I'm going to mount them to the bottom of the top bed of a bunk bed. And I know everybody that's reading this is thinking "Bunk bed? This kid's out of his mind!" Anyways, I'm looking for something quite small, probably a pair of satellites, and I just wanted advice on what kind to get. I don't have enough room for another set of bookshelves, so I need to save on space on them. Preferably something too that can be mounted easily and a lot of varying ways that can be mounted, because I'm probably gonna have to rig something up. Please, any advice would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!

[paul_pci]

I need some help on some VERY inexpensive surround speakers for my system. And when I say inexpensive, I'm talking $175 or less. I have a very limited budget because I'm in college, and I have a 3.1 setup as of right now. Not bad for a dorm room if you ask me. Anyways, I'm upgrading to a Denon receiver and I want to get the full DD effect, so I'm going to mount them to the bottom of the top bed of a bunk bed. And I know everybody that's reading this is thinking "Bunk bed? This kid's out of his mind!" Anyways, I'm looking for something quite small, probably a pair of satellites, and I just wanted advice on what kind to get. I don't have enough room for another set of bookshelves, so I need to save on space on them. Preferably something too that can be mounted easily and a lot of varying ways that can be mounted, because I'm probably gonna have to rig something up. Please, any advice would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!

I used to sleep in one of those dorm room bunk beds, but I never dreamt of a 5.1 system. Anyway, check out Polk or Infinity at the Crutchfield website.

[Woochifer]

Before you even get started, what main speakers do you use? You want the surround speakers to timbre match as closely as possible, and picking something within the same speaker family is typically the best way to go. If not feasible, then you need to find something with comparable timbral characteristics.

If you plan to primarily view movies, then you can get away with mismatched surround speakers a lot of the time because plenty of movie soundtracks get mixed with primarily ambient effects and minimal directional effects that need to blend in with the front speakers. But, if you want to get into multichannel music or mostly watch newer movies, mismatching surrounds will call attention to themselves and create problems because those types of soundtracks need a consistent blend with the front speakers.

[luvs2jam60]

Before you even get started, what main speakers do you use? You want the surround speakers to timbre match as closely as possible, and picking something within the same speaker family is typically the best way to go. If not feasible, then you need to find something with comparable timbral characteristics.

If you plan to primarily view movies, then you can get away with mismatched surround speakers a lot of the time because plenty of movie soundtracks get mixed with primarily ambient effects and minimal directional effects that need to blend in with the front speakers. But, if you want to get into multichannel music or mostly watch newer movies, mismatching surrounds will call attention to themselves and create problems because those types of soundtracks need a consistent blend with the front speakers.

I have JBL E30 fronts and a JBL N-Center II center channel speaker, with a JBL PB10 sub. Yeah, I kinda like JBL if you haven't noticed. It seems the best bang for my buck right now. And I do plan on using the system for multichannel music as well as DVDs.

[luvs2jam60]

Before you even get started, what main speakers do you use? You want the surround speakers to timbre match as closely as possible, and picking something within the same speaker family is typically the best way to go. If not feasible, then you need to find something with comparable timbral characteristics.

If you plan to primarily view movies, then you can get away with mismatched surround speakers a lot of the time because plenty of movie soundtracks get mixed with primarily ambient effects and minimal directional effects that need to blend in with the front speakers. But, if you want to get into multichannel music or mostly watch newer movies, mismatching surrounds will call attention to themselves and create problems because those types of soundtracks need a consistent blend with the front speakers.

Also, what did you mean by matching the timbre? Did you mean similar db sensitivity, crossover frequencies, etc, or is it something else I should be looking for?

[paul_pci]

Also, what did you mean by matching the timbre? Did you mean similar db sensitivity, crossover frequencies, etc, or is it something else I should be looking for?

Timbre refers to the tonal aspects of the sound, not the crossover or sensitivity, per se. Most of the time I agree with Woochifer's always-wise insights, but if this is just for kicking it in the dorm, then you don't need to go all out to find the perfect match. Save that for a more permanent and dedicated listening environment, where all the speakers will be spatially aligned (unlike the dorm room) where timbre matching will be more evident and desireable.