Thoughts on using '4' rear surrounds with 5.1 receiver

[Billy13]

I'm seriously contemplating using a set of dipole towers as sides, and dipole surrounds along the back wall......any input?

My receiver is a harman/kardon AVR7000 that I just got out of the shop with completely upgraded caps, so a different receiver is out of the question.....just so y'all know.

[josh96]

You could always try it, but it's not recomended. How many ohms are the speakers? You would most likely have to run them in series, and that might put them out of phase. if you ran them in parallel it would probabluy overheart your reciever and you would be replacing caps again.

[Nick The Slick]

Originally Posted by josh96

You could always try it, but it's not recomended. How many ohms are the speakers? You would most likely have to run them in series, and that might put them out of phase. if you ran them in parallel it would probabluy overheart your reciever and you would be replacing caps again.

Unless he used the pre-outs to an external amp, resolves that issue, but then means a new amp lol. It's recommended to not use both internal amp and pre-amp at the same time but I did it for over a year with my Yamaha RX-V667 when my sub pre-outs went out and had to use the main pre-outs to feed my sub without issue.

[Billy13]

Originally Posted by Nick The Slick

Unless he used the pre-outs to an external amp, resolves that issue, but then means a new amp lol. It's recommended to not use both internal amp and pre-amp at the same time but I did it for over a year with my Yamaha RX-V667 when my sub pre-outs went out and had to use the main pre-outs to feed my sub without issue.

Why is that? Don't people buy 3channel, and single channel amps, for fronts, center, or surrounds all the time to incorporate into their systems while still using the avr's power?

The curiosity of that, and harming the amp is killing me that's the last thing I want to do is damage my amp.

[Nick The Slick]

Originally Posted by Billy13

Why is that? Don't people buy 3channel, and single channel amps, for fronts, center, or surrounds all the time to incorporate into their systems while still using the avr's power?

The curiosity of that, and harming the amp is killing me that's the last thing I want to do is damage my amp.

What I meant was using the pre-out for the same channel you are using the internal amp for, not for different channels which is common practice (and is even how my setup is currently, fronts being powered by external amp and center and surrounds powered by internal amp). In my case I was powering my fronts with the integrated amp, but I was also running RCA from the front pre-outs to my sub to derive bass info (with fronts set to Large in the AVR and using an external high-pass filter to cut the lows from the fronts) since my sub pre-outs went kaput. Sorry, I should have clarified that. I'm honestly not even sure why it's not recommended, like I said I did it for over a year without issue.

[Billy13]

Originally Posted by Nick The Slick

What I meant was using the pre-out for the same channel you are using the internal amp for, not for different channels which is common practice (and is even how my setup is currently, fronts being powered by external amp and center and surrounds powered by internal amp). In my case I was powering my fronts with the integrated amp, but I was also running RCA from the front pre-outs to my sub to derive bass info (with fronts set to Large in the AVR and using an external high-pass filter to cut the lows from the fronts) since my sub pre-outs went kaput. Sorry, I should have clarified that. I'm honestly not even sure why it's not recommended, like I said I did it for over a year without issue.

Gotcha....

Yeah, no worries, , I wasnt going to try and use both.


I did however mess around with it last night. I had those towers in quite a few different locations. Also, moved the other surrounds a couple of times.......The way it sounds the best to me, is with my regular dipole surrounds still placed on the side walls.....BUT, I will be continuing to use the dipole towers as well, just not placed where I had initially thought. They really add reinforcement to the other surrounds when placed facing directly forward along each side of the couch.

I will be continuing to use them for the long haul, and I will be starting my search for a capable 2ch amplifier now.

Edit:

Using a HK3470 for amplification on rear surrounds. Works out magnificently as I'm also using it for music playback by way of a splitter off my EQ output utilising all 4 tower speakers.