Rear Speakers - How important is size

[Vinyleyes]

I am slowly picking up the necessary pieces and now it's time for the Rear and Centre speakers. Not having listened to any decent AV systems I am interested to know how much weight of the sound .. and the general experience comes from the rear speakers. I do not feel that a little pair of trebly bookshelvers stuck at each end of the sofa is going to cut it for me .. I am thinking of a pair of decent floorstanders which will have the tweeter at ear level ... I want the full experience all around .. and not just some tweets coming from the rear ... ...
Does this make sense ... or will I be going for overkill.
The reason I need advice is that I am considering purchasing some KEF 105's for the front .. and I will put my refurbished and redrivered Castle Howards at the back .. They have an upward firing mid bass driver that I can place under my slanted roof which will throw that refection out and up and back towards the listener .. I just have a feeling it could sound quite special in that application .... Any thoughts anyone ... and also centre speaker type ... whats wrong with just an ordinary bookshelf thingy in there ? ....

[Reid Malenfant]

I find that there is as much bass information in the surround channels as the main left & right fronts On your BD player when you come to set it up you'll be prompted to select a speaker size If you set it to "small" then you'll be introducing a nice 100Hz (usually) high pass filter into the proceedings On the other hand if you set it to "large" then you'll get bass down to whatever is on the spun disc - much better

You could use a normal speaker for the centre channel, often the problem is though where to put it as you'll need it placed vertically either above or below your TV screen. I think this is generally the reason why you tend to get bigger enclosures deliberately built in a horizontal plane so they aren't too tall & as a consequence much easier to position

[pwood]

Rear speakers directionality and tone is more important than bass which is better dealt with by the sub. Bipoles at the rear or if you are lucky enough to be able to place speakers either side of you dipoles. It is very hard to get an ideal with dvd/BD players as you dont have the same control of the crossover as you do with an av amp. The Howards are a full range speaker but I would be setting the crossover at 60htz or higher. I had loads of links to some fab articles but cant find them again

Until now I had different drivers in my Fronts and centre and it just never sounded integrated the way my RX front end now does. Try and keep the same make of speaker (drivers etc) at the front if possible. Stereo speaker is fine as long as its not going near a CRT TV.

[pwood]

This is one of them. Okay it is designed for total novices but the part about why you should consider 80htz even for large is pretty good. Either way my RX6's go very low and I dont use sub for stereo but for movies the system is far better with them at 60htz.

[Vinyleyes]

Hi Paul .... Thanks for those tips .. I must admit I would have been setting my speakers at Large .. .... But that article all made good sense. (please send on any more you find ,, I am a Novice ... I was not even going to bother with a sub .. thinking my 2 fronts speakers would be fine if they had good bass response !!

I have bought this to get me going .. as I intend to keep the 2 front channels hooked up to my main vinyl sysytem. I will use a switch to change between inputs ,, so I will use purely 2 channel for Vinyl and CD .. then switch to Yamaha inputs for DVd's.

I do fancy one of the behomeths .. and I was looking at the YAmaha DSP A1 .. (picture below .. I love it in wood and gold) ... but that will be later when I have figured out all the connections and how to use pre outs for different amps etc .. I don't need HD as the Oppo will do that ..

I think now having heard what you have said that I will start out with the Howards at the front and use my JBL L110's at the rear on 18" stands. The centre speaker will be made up of my old castle drivers coming out of the Howards ( being replaced with Morels) .. and so I guess I am in the market for a sub !!

Any recommendations on great older AV amp/receivers gladly welcomed but I definitely fancy something big and classic to have in there as part of the show. ...

[Reid Malenfant]

This is one of them. Okay it is designed for total novices but the part about why you should consider 80htz even for large is pretty good. Either way my RX6's go very low and I dont use sub for stereo but for movies the system is far better with them at 60htz.

All well & good, though they have missed out a few things which put a different slant on things

They neglected to mention that a single subwoofer is very problematic to position It much easier to get good bass with less room effects if more than one subwoofer is used. What they are saying is get the sub to do all the work

Far better to distribute the speakers around the room that are producing bass imo than let one speaker do all the work & have problems finding a place to put it where it doesn't cause a shed load of room modes.

I tend to go against the grain in a lot of things & this is one of them yet again. Effectively they are saying that people who listen to stereo setups should also cut off the bass to there floorstander loudspeakers & employ a sub to do the job That's what they are saying when they say cut the bass off at 60Hz...

What a load of twaddle

E2A:- this is just my opinion, but the sub should only cover frequencies that the main & surround speakers can't do It's in the name after all - sub (below or under), woofer - that driver in your main speakers that does the bass I really just don't understand why they say set a floorstanding speaker to small It appears they really haven't thought it through imo. It's like they have a donkey so they'll give all the load to the poor thing & carry nothing themselves.

What happens when the sub is outputting some earthquake of bass at about 20Hz & is then asked to do some thunderous bass at 50 or 60Hz??? Answer is the driver will run out of excursion or the sub amp will clip, where as if they let the big speakers reproduce down to there natural rolloff the sub would never have been overloaded as it would never have been fed that 60Hz signal...



One more thing that hasn't been taken into consideration. If the floorstanding speakers are allowed to reproduce down to there natural rolloff point the chances are that in most UK homes the sub will be just beginning to operate at a frequency below where it'll excite the room & this should make it's placement easier...

[pwood]

I used to think the same I'll try and find the articles I had that explained the theory better as I am not able to explain in detail the way some folks can. It is accepted that a pair of subs is even better but it's hardly something most folks can get past their other halfs in the living room.http://www.avforums.com/tv/index.php further back Neil provides a good introduction on av setups.

Vinyl eyes as you have a no sub there is no point in me going on about it any more. If you are setting your system up without one then the Yamaha will send the .1 stuff for the the other speakers to the main stereo pair if you set the centre and rears to small and mains to large. I would also suggest trying the system in phantom stereo mode just using the main stereo pair and the 2rears as it may well sound more integrated across the front end.

Please bare in mind I use an Onkyo 875 av amp for everything. years ago I had a Dsp100 with a Linn Majic and remember well the fun and games getting all the levels right. Now it's easier as someone is bound to have an Apple IPhone/pad which can run a free SPL meter making the level bit a tad easier to get a benchmark.

[Batty]

My rears are only 11" high, drivers are 1" and 5". Catle Richmond 3. they are from the same range as my centre and fronts so tonal balance is accomplished, sounds very nice too.

I would suggest similar rears for yourself ie, a bookshelf from the same range as your fronts.

P.S. I use Howards (S1 model) for fronts.

[Vinyleyes]

I used to think the same I'll try and find the articles I had that explained the theory better as I am not able to explain in detail the way some folks can. It is accepted that a pair of subs is even better but it's hardly something most folks can get past their other halfs in the living room.http://www.avforums.com/tv/index.php further back Neil provides a good introduction on av setups.

Vinyl eyes as you have a no sub there is no point in me going on about it any more. If you are setting your system up without one then the Yamaha will send the .1 stuff for the the other speakers to the main stereo pair if you set the centre and rears to small and mains to large. I would also suggest trying the system in phantom stereo mode just using the main stereo pair and the 2rears as it may well sound more integrated across the front end.

Please bare in mind I use an Onkyo 875 av amp for everything. years ago I had a Dsp100 with a Linn Majic and remember well the fun and games getting all the levels right. Now it's easier as someone is bound to have an Apple IPhone/pad which can run a free SPL meter making the level bit a tad easier to get a benchmark.

Thanks for the comments guys .... and in light of what I am learning I guess I will need to go in for a sub (and I will think about 2) to get the full spectrum of AV sound. I will simply revert to 2 channel for CD and Vinyl replay using switch boxes.
But I am looking at AV amps for the future and did spot the Onkyo 875 going for 400 ounds on Ebay .. how are you finding it ? .. I will not need the HDMI effects though as My Oppo will do all that .. so I do fancy an older, more classic looking receiver ,, DSP-A1 looks very nice .. anyone ever had one. Also what are thought on sound degradation for AV amps that incude a tuner .. am I better off getting seperate tuner ... which takes me back to the lovely Luxman ..........

[Reid Malenfant]

If you are thinking of getting two subs then why not use them with your stereo pair of speakers? You'd be surprised how much deep bass is on modern CD recordings, i'm talking stuff below 25Hz & down to 15Hz or below

Maybe not a great idea when listening to vinyl though

As for the AV amp the world is your oyster as you don't need to bother with anything with an HDMI connection. I think the amp you mentioned may well be a rather big Denon, that is the kind of lines i'd go along as well. Get an earlier better specified on the amp front AV amp

I wouldn't worry about the tuner section in the AV amp, it won't affect any AV input & you don't need to use the thing after all