Sides Vs. Rears-a 5.1 configuration problem

[sbeck]

I have recently upgraded all that I have which is plenty for my 20 X 12 living room. My question relates to side surrounds versus rear surrounds. Since I will only be running a 5.1 system due to the size of the room as well as my wife's insistence that the madness stop, would I be better served hooking up my dipole paradigms as rear or side surrounds and if using them as sides would it be sacreligious to still put them in a position on the back wall out of convenience. A review of the 605's manual seems to indicate that there might be more supported listening modes if they are used as sides as opposed to rears?

[MPDIEHL]

Let your room decide. To the side walls and slightly behind you may give you the best sound. You may also try other locations switching between bipole and dipole (If that is an option) Rember you should hear the sounds without being able to pinpoint the location of each speaker.
A great surround track to try is "Open Range" (not available on Blu Yet) set to DTS audio and jump to chapter 14 Listen for the bird and insect sounds in the quiet passages and the echo of the gunfire report. You will even notice the echo change direction as the camers pans around and the locations of the mountains in the background shift.
Dont start this too loud this is one of the hottest DTS track I have ever used as a demo. The gun shots will put your sub to the test and hit you in the chest.

[MPDIEHL]

When wiring a 5.1 to just about any 7.1 receiver you will want to connect your surrounds to the terminal marked Surround not Rear Surround
If you wire to the Back Surround with out having side surround in place you will be loosing a lot of the surround info.
The rear surround outputs only send info from 7.1 tracks or the "Mix" of sound created by the receiver if you are playing a 5.1 track into a 7.1 speaker set up.
The location of the speakers is secondary to wireing them to the correct terminal.

[sbeck]

thanks for the tips. Tried them as rears yesterday and looks as though sides may be the better choice.

[sandman6662]

Like he said above , some times you have to let the room decide ,as my room setup i can only have them on the back wall and they woek very well , no real side wall option for me though I wished but , anyways just expmt. and you find the right place..