A little bit confused with Front and Surround speaker

[jomari]

Originally Posted by louhamilton

The ideal situation is to have 5or 7 of the SAME exact speakers. Big Daddy recently wrote a write-up on horizontal versus center speakers. Also, if you look at some of the multi-channel audio setups they usually have 5 of the same towers plus a subwoofer.

Although this may not be ideal for most room situations, it is proven to be the best from an audio perspective.

thats the thing, its an ideal situation. in most cases tho, you can see a number of people follow the said 'rule of thumb' would have a number of mediocre set of bookshelves for the entire soundfield. not that theres anything wrong with it (we all have our reasons, financial being first i suppose), but id rather invest my money instead on the soundstage compared to putting that money towards the rears. as long as the surrounds are sonically comparative to blend with the fronts, theres nothing wrong with such a setup.

again, its a preference, and in my opinion, id prefer to redistribute the money towards a better soundstage, and leave enough to compromise for the surrounds. unless you are using sacds or dvd-audio, you wont be putting too much information in them as you would with the front speakers. with all due respect, i find it a wasted effort to invest in such when you can 'bump up' your fronts to a better line, a better performing set instead of the identicals. IF your surrounds tho are mediocre and cannot perform as close as possible to your fronts, then all bets are off.