2. home-theater
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how much did you spend on rear surround speakers?

I thought i would share my experience setting up my home theater speaker system. I had Dali Helicon MkII for my fronts and Dali Helicon center. my side surrounds were an old M&K from one of their early surround systems. I replaced the M&K side surrounds with Dali Helicon C200 and was very happy with the sound. I moved the M&Ks to a rear surround position for my 7.1 system. However, when i found a pair of Dali W200 on Audiogon i bought them. After setting up with Audessey from my Marantz AV8801 processor, i was extremely pleased with the improvement in sound. I was very hesitant to spend much on side and rear surrounds, but in my experience, the extra dollars to have matching voices from the Dali helicon line actuallly made a difference i could hear.
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audiojan's avatar
audiojan
390 posts
 
I have a full Thiel speaker set up, so that doesn't come cheap, no matter how much I "bargin hunt"… My Thiel PowerPoint rears were $1200, which is probably more than what I should've spent, but sounds amazing and the sound is completely coherent as it pans across the room.
rlwainwright
1,904 posts
 
Timbre matching is greatly underrated. I found that when I added the Gallo Ref. AVs as surrounds for my Gallo Ref. 3.1s the sound improved dramatically...

RW
fingerpaws
51 posts
 
I think I will just be another voice in the chorus, I have five speakers, all Boston Acoustics, in my system. You can't beat having that kind of blend. I did read in Get Better Sound that the tweeters of the front speakers should be as matched in height as possible. When I inverted my L/R speakers the imaging really improved. Also, move any coffee tables out of the way, they just block and reflect the sound.
internetmin
258 posts
 
You do indeed want to timbre match all your speakers and it does make a difference. If you're budgeting, then go most to least expensive front to back. If you need to cut corners due to budget then do it in the 6th and 7th channels. The side surrounds, 4 and 5 are indeed very important and you'll notice a quality difference.
bacardi's avatar
bacardi
663 posts
 
I have Casta Acoustic speakers with dipole surrounds. They are made in Italy with custom made horns and drivers throughout. The surrounds were very pricey but compared to the Axion Qs8's I used to have the Casta's improved the information by 40-50%. That's huge. I've mounted them about 6-8 inches from ceiling on side wall behind the listening position with amazing wrap-around/front-back panning. One of 16 mounting positions available from Casta. This is the only surround speaker I've heard that has great dynamics/punch/extension which all the others I've tried had none whatsoever. For home theatre you just can't beat horns....Simply amazing........highly regarded.
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