stevebt

iTrader: (8)

I'm after upgrading two of my speakers and they are the surround backs I'm thinking of changing. I currently use Crane audio speakers for these but I'm considering swapping to some Kefs? Possibly floorstanders and I was looking at say the iq5se.

Does anyone have any better ideas or recommend a good book shelf speaker.

Jamz3k

This forum seems to have a bit of a hard-on for Kefs, personally I think they are the Audi's of the speaker market. Not bad but they don't excite me at all.

If you're looking rear speakers.....to be rear speakers, I'd look at a nice set of wallmountable bi-pole/di-pole dedicated rears.

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

I'm not after rears, I'm after rear backs as mine is a thx system.

Jamz, I actually like the Kef's as I have Kef reference speakers as fronts and a Kef 200c centre

Jamz3k

I just don't see the point in full range speakers on the rear of a home cinema setup but then I used to setup home cinema systems for customers and then they'd have me tweak it because it wasn't loud enough on the rear.

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

My thoughts were I would stand the other floorstanders near my rears which are large floor standers so in theory I wouldn't notice them as much?

Dingdongler

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you running a 5.1 or 7.1 system?

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

7.2 as I run two little rel q200's


Dingdongler, its a thx system so runs this layout. I'm after replacing the rear backs.

Dingdongler

Two subs, very nice, it's the only way to fly.

How big is your room and what is the distance fron your sofa to the rear wall?

Also don't forget not many films are actually made with 7.1 sound, the two extra channels are produced by processing

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

The room is just short of 4x4 and I don't sit in the position of that picture hence me wanting to add another set of floor standers where my rear floor standers are so I appear to hear everything right?

IWatkins

To my ear, and that is always a personal thing, Cranes are hugely accurate but with little depth. A pair of nice Kef or Mission rear backs would serve you well. Just get a pair of solid bookshelfs and they'll have the range you need. I use my trusty Kef Cody 70s which are nearly 15 years old but are perfect for this.

I have a very similar setup and room size and found that rear backs need to to be full range, heavy weight speakers in their own right. Using cheapie satellite speakers for this cancelled any gains with going 7.1.

Waterfall scene at the start of Prometheus is now fully immersive, the sniper shot on the dam in Behind Enemy Lines now makes me jump etc. Even the wife reckons its better than going to the cinema plus you can pause it

I.e. going 7.1 or 7.2 (or .3 like i have) means to me, you need to push the soundstage to the rear backs a little. In 5.1, rears were for fill only. In 7.1, half happens in the backend of the room.

But will stress, my ears will vary to yours, etc.. Don't spend huge cash on cables, etc..

Cheers

Ian

Dingdongler

Oh, I see. I've never managed to get the surround backs because my sofa is right up against that rear wall. I suppose as a compromise I could put them in the ceiling (though I know that is not what THX recommend)

If you can afford them and if you intend to keep your front end I suppose the obvious answer would be to get Kefs for the surround backs. Then all the speakers will be timbre matched and look better as a one make set.

On a side note

1) Have you bought the best centre speaker you can afford? When I splashed out on a good one there was a huge improvement.

2) Have you really got the two subs placed together like that?

jods

B&W XT2. For rears. XT4 for front.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I was under the impression that in a home-cinema setup SBR/SBLs act as a "infill" to assist the SL and SRs in odd room shapes/listening positions. So I don't "think" their size or accoustic range is so relevent, that said there has to be advantages in using full-range floor standers (unless THX specs specifically dicate otherwise - someone google it for me ).

This is where I'm currently at: My living room setup is in the form of a diamond (TV in the corner, "my" listening position at the opposite corner). 5.1 never worked that well - there was always a "sound hole" depending on where people sat. Currently I've just hooked up a set of old two-way A/V speakers off our old pro-logic CRT TV behind the sofas; the physical layout is similar to "Dolby True HD" or DTS-HD. They are certainly not wide range speakers (at a guess frequency range approx 120hz to 20Khz). Not up to THX standards, I know, but it made a hell of a difference to surround/spatial quality pretty much anywhere in the room.

So IMO even with some nasty speakers acting as the SBL/SBR in a 7.1 setup, for me it works better than 5.1 setup.

With regards to using full-range speakers (floorstanders and the more larger sized bookshelfers) IIRC THX reccomends speakers capeable of at least 80hz, this should be at a -3db roll-off (F3). Small satelites do not really honestly achieve this, some may claim to, but they do that by cheating on the tech specs, i.e using a -10db (F10) scale for the bass roll-off, in the real Hi-Fi world frequency range should be measured at -3db (F3).

However, I think the 80hz reccomendation is more to do with making sure the subwoofer(s) only handles sub-bass, epecially when it asserts that they need to go down to 20hz (which is pretty meaty for home A/V), this can make them somewhat iffy at higher bass frequencies; Smaller speakers (especially front and centre) rely on the subs more to substitute what they cannot achieve. Using subs for higher bass frequencies does cause problems in various listening postions as reflection of the bass from objects and walls causes bass either to be cancelled out in some positions (reflected waves are 180 degrees out of phase), or amplified (aka room gain, where refelected frequencies are in phase with each other). Not to forget further complications caused by the slope characteristics of the crossovers used by the A/V reciever to split the bass between speakers and subs. Hence the sound holes, sweet spots and boom spots.

If more mid/low bass is produced by each speaker by using "true" full-range speakers, these room-associated (and amplifier) issues can be reduced, leaving the subs to focus on the sub-bass.

So there is good logic in using proper full-range speakers on every channel (except the LFE channel, of course )...although I've not personally tested that theory in a 7.1 setup (only done it with 5.1 and high-end ICE).

IMO, to go any further with this, the real question that needs to be answered is how much bass effects are produced by the SBL/SBR channels?

jods

Kin ell.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Did you expect anything less from me?

Ant

I was always under the impression 7.1 was pointless in small rooms?

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

I have already said above that my centre is a Kef 200c one of the best centers around and my subs are at either ends of the room

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

I currently have the Cranes as surround backs and I'm more than happy with them but I'm just thinking of upgrading them and I pressume a full size speaker will give better sound? The rears I use are full size floor standers from Crane Audio and they look and sound fantastic, they were my fronts till I got the Kef reference speakers.

Dingdongler

As I said, buy the best centre speaker you can afford, the 200c is not bad but can be easily bettered.

No point spunking out on floor standing surround backs when your front end is not the best it can be. Perhaps also think about upgrading your subs.

Probably not what you want to hear but surround backs are the icing on the cake, get the cake right first.

Frosticles

iTrader: (1)

Naim N Sats.

Oldun

Betty Boothroyd was a good speaker but has now been superseded by John Bercow, good quality but lacks depth of character.