JBL E100 vs Yamaha NS777

[RoadRunner6]

Because you typically cannot physically fit the same speaker in the mains position, the center position and the surround positions. You can buy "matched sets" from speaker manufacturers but despite the sales pitch, that often means they're primarily matched in terms of styling, secondarily in terms of voicing.

Easy claim to make. Easy claim to test. Just disconnect the center speaker and see how much dialog you get. I'm happy to do the experiment. I hope you'll join me.

Kevio, what are you smoking? Matched means they have the exact same drivers. This is always the tweeter and many times the same midrange and the same bass driver. "Matched" means matched voicing/timbre. This means they sound exactly the same or almost the same. Have you ever run the test tones in the speaker setup procedures? As you go from speaker to speaker the noise should be exactly the same or very close with matched speakers. If you have a center and surrounds from a different series or brand usually there will be a very noticable difference in the character of the sound.....this is not good. Of course, they make the matched speakers with the same appearance in the enclosures, duh!

You must only listen to documentaries. I have lots of movies as well as music videos where the voices are recorded in other than the center speaker. Many times the voices are reproduced in the left, right or surrounds as reflected sound. Put on a movie such as Amedeus and tell me you can't hear vocals coming from the other 4 speakers. Play the Eagles Hell Freezes DTS DVD and tell me you can't hear the singer on the left coming thru the left speaker, Duh!

Roger, with the advent of high quality powered subs the big full range tower speaker is no longer a given for full range big, loud sound. THX certified systems cross over from the mains to the sub at 80 Hz. Most quality bookshelf speakers play at least down to 80Hz at -3 decibels. There is some disagreement here about the effects of soundstage with a tower versus bookshelf speaker. I personaly think the smaller boxed bookshelf speaker has many advantages in sound over the tower. So bigger is not necessarily better with a good sub. BR gives some good choices above.

One definite advantage of the tower speaker is that they are usually more efficient than the bookshelf speakers (means they play louder with the same amount of power). Don't worry about 6 ohms versus 8 ohms. These are generalizations and not significant unless you know the actual measured lowest impedence of the individual speaker.

RR6