Use floor standing as rear in 7.1/2?

[Bones3DFC]

Hello, any and all - I do appreciate reading and learning so thank you in advance. Please stop me if this is one of the most horrible ideas you’ve ever heard.

With a new, modern AVR with at least 7.1/2 and floor standing front, left and right speakers. Surround speakers on the sides (center and sub also of course)- is it a terrible idea to go for the aesthetics of using floor standing rear speakers?

Book shelf speakers would be ear level on the proper shelf or stand but floor standing would make me feel like.... A GOD.... am I an idiot or a rock and roll genius?

 

[Drunkpenguin]

I don't think its too crazy. I almost did this as I have a pair of un-used towers sitting around, but went against it for aesthetic reasons. Do the towers timbre match your surrounds? Same brand? Same family?

 

[everettT]

unless your room is really long, you might consider 5.x.4. instead.

 

[Drunkpenguin]

Edit , wrong post.

 

[Bones3DFC]

Yeah - the idea is - Klipsch rp 280 F’s in the front and while looking at Klipsch I thought, hey these (must be “older”) r 28 F’s for less than the 280’s but more than bookshelf’s would be “pretty cool” as my rears.

So yeah - matching/aesthetics
And yeah - the room “feels” long to me at almost 20 feet - but the whole system stands a good chance of ending up in the basement at 40 feet long. Also - if I decide I don’t like floor standing rears I could always use the r 28 F’s in a different room/zone.

 

[Montucky]

I'm gonna go with answer B: Rock and roll genius. Do it. DO IT!!!

 

[shadyJ]

If you are setting up an Atmos type system, you want the side surrounds and back surrounds to be at ear level, so no it is not crazy, in fact it is becoming the standard.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Not crazy. I am an advocate for towers generally so...
Performance wise, you can likely do just as well with good BS speakers, but there are a lot of factors. Not all towers are created equally and some are just nothing more than BS speakers with built in stands and usually not that great.
What kind are you planning on using, and what’s the room like? Also, content for the surrounds is less demanding than the fronts so the necessity isn’t real high. But if you’ve got money and floors pace, there’s no reason not to.
@lovinthehd has a set of jbl studio 580’s for surrounds. Maybe he can help here.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Not crazy. I am an advocate for towers generally so...
Performance wise, you can likely do just as well with good BS speakers, but there are a lot of factors. Not all towers are created equally and some are just nothing more than BS speakers with built in stands and usually not that great.
What kind are you planning on using, and what’s the room like? Also, content for the surrounds is less demanding than the fronts so the necessity isn’t real high. But if you’ve got money and floors pace, there’s no reason not to.
@lovinthehd has a set of jbl studio 580’s for surrounds. Maybe he can help here.

 

[Bones3DFC]

Woo Hooooo!
That’s one small step for beginners and one huge step for Rock N Roll!

- I’ll have the surround’s totaling out the 5.1
those should have near-perfect placement.

I just wanted to make sure floor rear’s wasn’t a really bad idea. They won’t have anything blocking them - I’d like to have floors as opposed to placing stands or shelves or end tables or wall-mounting. I guess because - I’m a beginner - I’m making sure rear speakers don’t have a built in function I’m over-looking. Sounds really stupid but.... like a sound bar is specifically designed to do more than “just be a speaker” I guess I’m making sure rear speakers in a 7.1 are/could be just about any speaker before I expand my personal technology and understanding.

I just figure nice towers will look good now and can be repurposed in the future if/when my tastes/desires/tech changes.

 

[snakeeyes]

The front 3 and sub or even dual subs are the most vital. The towers tend to use more power so adding extra towers sometimes means buying external amps and an AVR with preouts for external amps. You can get away with smaller surrounds and crossovers higher than 80hz easier with dual subs. Just giving you more information. I had a 4 tower setup back in 2002 in 6.1. It’s not crazy but just be prepared on the costs associated.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

The front 3 and sub or even dual subs are the most vital. The towers tend to use more power so adding extra towers sometimes means buying external amps and an AVR with preouts for external amps. You can get away with smaller surrounds and crossovers higher than 80hz easier with dual subs. Just giving you more information. I had a 4 tower setup back in 2002 in 6.1. It’s not crazy but just be prepared on the costs associated.

I just wanted to point out that many towers, are actually more sensitive/efficient than a lot of BS speakers. Mine for example have 12” drivers and are 92db sensitive. The matching surrounds had 8’s and were 88db. Obviously it’s more complicated than just driver size, but towers can be a lot easier to drive. Just sayin...

 

[snakeeyes]

I just wanted to point out that many towers, are actually more sensitive/efficient than a lot of BS speakers. Mine for example have 12” drivers and are 92db sensitive. The matching surrounds had 8’s and were 88db. Obviously it’s more complicated than just driver size, but towers can be a lot easier to drive. Just sayin...

Yes but a cheap receiver with no preouts may not be able to drive a ton of speakers to reference levels depending on the speaker sensitivity etc. A Denon with preouts such as the 4300 or 4400 might be a smart move. Just in case the need arises for an external amp. YMMV.

 

[Montucky]

I just wanted to point out that many towers, are actually more sensitive/efficient than a lot of BS speakers. Mine for example have 12” drivers and are 92db sensitive. The matching surrounds had 8’s and were 88db. Obviously it’s more complicated than just driver size, but towers can be a lot easier to drive. Just sayin...

That can indeed be true, I'm sure depending on the speaker. I've honestly been shocked at some of the tiny amps I've thrown at hudge towers just to see how it'd work out.

One thing that we sometimes forget is that it's mainly when we're running a 2.0 setup that we want big power (especially with large bass drivers), since driving all speakers full range is gonna like having some juice. However, when implementing subwoofers to take over the most power intensive duties (all that low end), it takes a huge burden off the speakers. Thus, if utilizing subs, I don't see any reason why using towers all over the place would be too much of an issue.

BUT, if it ends up being a problem, you can always just toss more wattage at it. ^_^ MOAR POWER!!!

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Yes but a cheap receiver with no preouts may not be able to drive a ton of speakers to reference levels depending on the speaker sensitivity etc. A Denon with preouts such as the 4300 or 4400 might be a smart move. Just in case the need arises for an external amp. YMMV.

I think the 4300/4400 is a good choice for sure all the way around, and good insurance for future proofing.
My point was that it’s likely easier to drive some mid to high range towers than some power hungry 4ohm(or lower) BS monitors. And again, it’s way more complicated than that. I was just kinda generalizing.

 

[Bones3DFC]

Wow you guys are really blowing my mind but in a good way. I appreciate all the time and patience. At this point I really need to get my hands and ears on something to more fully comprehend.

If it’s okay to kind of switch topics and I still have anyone’s attention and patience - can I ask -
Does anyone have a particular dealer or website to watch - it’s my understanding (at least it seems this way) Klipsch speakers can be slightly cheaper as a package - and even slightly cheaper still, if packaged with a AVR.

So, say you know you want a Denon 4400 and Klipsch rp 280 F’s and Klipsch 450c and a Sub and Surround’s - seems to be the general package, always add an extra Sub and rear’s - but as a package - does anyone “have a guy” or watch certain websites?

As a beginner and as this system will be my cherry-popper - I don’t know If I can immediately handle parts-ing it all together from different manufacturers/dealers - and Ill have a lot of anxiety if I just opened up a can of “who buys Subs from whom.”

I’m a virgin, starry-eyed Klipsch fan-boy, dazzled by those copper colored circles inside the beautiful black boxes.

 

[lovinthehd]

As far as having towers for surrounds and/or rear surrounds, I usually use bookshelf speakers for placement reasons particularly, but recently had a chance to get some towers in the same series as my mains in my primary setup and have the floor space for them for use as surrounds. As long as you can position the speakers appropriately I wouldn't get too worked up over the form factor. I am a little confused if you're talking about surrounds or rear surrounds for the towers, and if anything I'd prefer the towers as surrounds rather than rear surrounds just for content reasons. You might need to put risers underneath them to position them correctly for proper height, too.

As to making a package purchase, have no experience really. I've generally bought piecemeal. You might check out accessories4less.com for avr and speaker sets (but don't think they have Klipsch but not sure). For a Klipsch package deal your local Best Buy might be a good way to go; I wouldn't get the Klipsch subs particularly unless you really like the aesthetics of the copper colored cones....but I'd look to Hsu, SVS, Rythmik etc for subs, if not DIY.

 

[Bones3DFC]

I should clarify for 2 reasons
Help those helping me, understand me
And I may actually have this wrong.

In my layman’s yet slightly technical jargon
I want to rock. When resting from air guitar and head banging I want to hear Tom Cruise on a motorcycle behind me (Mission Impossible - great chases)

I have limited knowledge due to no actual hands-on, yet.
In my mind I have the Denon 3400 7.2 or 4400 9.2
I have two towers in the front accompanied by a center and at least 1 woofer (in my mind). Add to this, two surround speakers (either side).
At this point it’s a 5.1 or with two subs a 5.2 - (?)

So with the Denon 7.2 capability I figure I can add two rear speakers further back from the surrounds. I figure these two can be towers - floor speakers.

I’m definitely picking up the hints that I should start with the Denon 4400 which is 9.2 which leads me to believe I could potentially add ceiling speakers or those bouncy-off-the-ceiling speakers.

Hopefully I understand at least that much or I’m really out of my depth.
Floor speakers in front - with center and sub/s.
Surround’s on the sides.
Floor speakers in the rear (slightly less powerful).

 

[lovinthehd]

Thanks for the clarification, many mix up surround and rear surrounds....and yes 5.2 would indicate using 2 subs (but there's only a single LFE channel, so 5.2 only indicates the number of subs, and a nice feature of both the 3400/4400 is they have the Audyssey SubEQ feature to handle separate level/delay for two subs...and subs don't necessarily need to be up front fwiw).

As to Denon 3400/4400 depends how many channels total you want and whether you want to use external amps to extend processing/channels; the 3400 can process 9ch, the 4400 11 ch with external amps (so depends whether you want two or four atmos type speakers).