How important are matching surrounds?

[gnorthern]

I am curious, "How important are matching surround sound speakers? Earlier threads did not give me clear guidelines for making a decision.

An earlier thread convinced me not to spend money on Atmos speakers, meaning I got money to spend and want to upgrade my system. I replaced my Klipsch front and center speakers with Paradigm 800Fs and 600C. I still have Klipsch THX surround sounds and in ceiling speakers in back (top of the line in ceiling ten years ago). An earlier thread also convinced me replacing my Marantz SR6013 would not do much.

Replacing the front speakers was so much of an upgrade maybe I should call it quits.

Side note - I was surprised when a woofer went out in the THX surround sounds how cheap the woofers are. Even replacing the speaker, the used THX was still much cheaper than new.

Thank you for your answers.

 

[lovinthehd]

Generally I wouldn't get too concerned about it. If they work well and sound good.....

Ideally I want the same speaker all around, but that can be difficult I do like matched sets when I can, but have some that are quite different sets of speakers that work just fine together.

 

[TLS Guy]

I am curious, "How important are matching surround sound speakers? Earlier threads did not give me clear guidelines for making a decision.

An earlier thread convinced me not to spend money on Atmos speakers, meaning I got money to spend and want to upgrade my system. I replaced my Klipsch front and center speakers with Paradigm 800Fs and 600C. I still have Klipsch THX surround sounds and in ceiling speakers in back (top of the line in ceiling ten years ago). An earlier thread also convinced me replacing my Marantz SR6013 would not do much.

Replacing the front speakers was so much of an upgrade maybe I should call it quits.

Side note - I was surprised when a woofer went out in the THX surround sounds how cheap the woofers are. Even replacing the speaker, the used THX was still much cheaper than new.

Thank you for your answers.

Probably not worth the trouble and expense.

 

[Nondemo01]

I am curious, "How important are matching surround sound speakers? Earlier threads did not give me clear guidelines for making a decision.

An earlier thread convinced me not to spend money on Atmos speakers, meaning I got money to spend and want to upgrade my system. I replaced my Klipsch front and center speakers with Paradigm 800Fs and 600C. I still have Klipsch THX surround sounds and in ceiling speakers in back (top of the line in ceiling ten years ago). An earlier thread also convinced me replacing my Marantz SR6013 would not do much.

Replacing the front speakers was so much of an upgrade maybe I should call it quits.

Side note - I was surprised when a woofer went out in the THX surround sounds how cheap the woofers are. Even replacing the speaker, the used THX was still much cheaper than new.

Thank you for your answers.

Eh, not as important as some would have you believe. Human hearing is very good at localizing sounds from the front, but less precise with sounds from the sides, rear, and especially above. Variations across the LCR are much easier to detect because that front stage carries the most image-critical information. That’s where you really want the closest match possible.

For surrounds and heights, exact matching to the fronts is less important than making sure they can cleanly reproduce the bandwidth and output being routed to them. There is plenty of full-range information in side, rear, and height channels, so you still don’t want to cheap out. But capability, placement, and coverage matter more than insisting every speaker be identical to the fronts.

 

[j_garcia]

It depends on what you listen to. If you want to critically listen to multichannel music, then I would say match them. If you're primarily watching movies or streaming shows, matching them won't make any difference.

 

[Nondemo01]

It depends on what you listen to. If you want to critically listen to multichannel music, then I would say match them. If you're primarily watching movies or streaming shows, matching them won't make any difference.

Eh, sound localization occurs in the ear itself and relies on detecting if certain frequencies are boosted or muffled to tell the brain where the sound is coming from. (Above, below, front, behind etc.) Pinna Filtering. You could match every speaker to within a fraction of a DB and your ears will still see them as different. It's not a flaw, it's as intended. You can certainly attempt to match them so that when you move your head all of the sound is similar, but I'd argue little, if anything is gained.

 

[j_garcia]

Eh, sound localization occurs in the ear itself and relies on detecting if certain frequencies are boosted or muffled to tell the brain where the sound is coming from. (Above, below, front, behind etc.) Pinna Filtering. You could match every speaker to within a fraction of a DB and your ears will still see them as different. It's not a flaw, it's as intended. You can certainly attempt to match them so that when you move your head all of the sound is similar, but I'd argue little, if anything is gained.

Having actually done it and listening to multichannel music, I can tell you it does make a difference. This isn't level matching, it is timbre matching. I went from a mismatched system to having identical speakers in all spots, and it is very apparent with music when things are playing either from all of the speakers or moving from speaker to speaker. The same way you can easily hear the difference between a not well matched center vs. matched as something pans across the front. With movies, it is a lot less of an issue, and the rears a lot less critical because there isn't as much primary sound playing there.

 

[TLS Guy]

Having actually done it and listening to multichannel music, I can tell you it does make a difference. This isn't level matching, it is timbre matching. I went from a mismatched system to having identical speakers in all spots, and it is very apparent with music when things are playing either from all of the speakers or moving from speaker to speaker. The same way you can easily hear the difference between a not well matched center vs. matched as something pans across the front. With movies, it is a lot less of an issue, and the rears a lot less critical because there isn't as much primary sound playing there.

This just reinforces my point that most commercial speakers are not very good. They should very, very little different when you move from one speaker to the next even of they are not the same. I have different drivers in my center versus left and right, but the front stage is totally seamless. The surrounds and rears are very different designs also, but you still hear essentially the same sound from all of them.

I have been listening out of interest to more commercial speakers of late. You can go from one to the next, even from the same manufacturer and they all sound significantly different as rule. Well they shouldn't. I have to say I have always been unimpressed with a great many speakers on offer to the public and high price does not guarantee a good speaker from what I can tell.