Least worst option for connecting existing speakers wireless for rear surround

[TLS Guy]

@TLS Guy thanks. The room is unfortunately what it is.

I'm assuming your "do more harm than good" has nothing to do with wired or not? Is the issue that I cannot get them far enough behind the listener?

As to the front speakers are you just speaking of bigger, did you know something bad about those in particular?

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Well, I got the unit. The good news is the latency in a brief test with a scope was 16.4ms, well within the ability to correct. I did some experimenting with the output from an ESP32 and the DAC inside PC, and both could not produce a clean sine wave even, so I did not bother trying to do any kind of distortion analysis (and I have nothing at all in the audio realm, just stuff for debugging regular digital electronics).

The mediocre news is I can't manage to get it to pair at 5.6ghz, only 5.2ghz, though that may not be much issue.

The really bad news is that I had mis-read my receiver's manual. It covered two variants, and the variant I have has no pre-amp output. So I'm taking already amplified signals as input, which the device can do, but is an awful approach. I have an unamplified zone 2 out, but it can't be adjusted to be specific channels, only a stereo out.

I'm going to go ahead and hook it up the "bad" way and see what happens.

Yes, the problem is that you can not place the surrounds in a location that makes sense. The bigger issue is that you want to worry about you front sound field before giving the slightest attention to any more speakers.

 

[Linwood]

I use a universal remote with macros, so turns on/off with what activity I select. I find this most useful rather than worrying about individual units

But these don't have any sort of remote, no IR, no 12v trigger... just a physical power switch and power cable. To turn them off would require a smart outlet for the power.

It says they go into standby mode with no signal, it just feels better if they actually turned off.

 

[Linwood]

Yes, the problem is that you can not place the surrounds in a location that makes sense. The bigger issue is that you want to worry about you front sound field before giving the slightest attention to any more speakers.

I ordered some stands to at least get them up and separated as far as the room allows. I'll use the same stands for the surrounds, I can get pretty reasonable separation there, and I don't see a reason not to move the sofa off that wall. There's 12' to the front of the sofa now, 2' won't be a world of difference but it does significantly change the angle of the surrounds from the center. Do those things seem at least incremental improvements?

Or are you saying that the speakers (Klipsch Quintets) are just so woefully inadequate nothing will help?

 

[everettT]

I ordered some stands to at least get them up and separated as far as the room allows. I'll use the same stands for the surrounds, I can get pretty reasonable separation there, and I don't see a reason not to move the sofa off that wall. There's 12' to the front of the sofa now, 2' won't be a world of difference but it does significantly change the angle of the surrounds from the center. Do those things seem at least incremental improvements?

Or are you saying that the speakers (Klipsch Quintets) are just so woefully inadequate nothing will help?

You don't need rear surrounds with your space and should only focus on 5.1.X, with the prime focus being on the front three and the sub for the most reward with the current setup. Good luck moving forward and am glad you're happy so far.

 

[Linwood]

I thought 5.1 meant L/R front, Center, L/R surround? The latter is what I was talking about behind the sofa. I understand they should be about 100 degrees from the listener (relative to the center). So slightly behind, head-live or a bit above? I didn't plan on surround back (that's the 7.x right?).

Postscript: Like this except may be 100 degrees since I have a wall in the way.

 

[lovinthehd]

I thought 5.1 meant L/R front, Center, L/R surround? The latter is what I was talking about behind the sofa. I understand they should be about 100 degrees from the listener (relative to the center). So slightly behind, head-live or a bit above? I didn't plan on surround back (that's the 7.x right?).

Postscript: Like this except may be 100 degrees since I have a wall in the way.

Generally surrounds belong to L/R of seating postion plus/minus 20 degrees or so. Raising them above seated level can work well (but not particularly combined with an Atmos setup).

 

[lovinthehd]

But these don't have any sort of remote, no IR, no 12v trigger... just a physical power switch and power cable. To turn them off would require a smart outlet for the power.

It says they go into standby mode with no signal, it just feels better if they actually turned off.

Smart outlets can work, but just depends on level of convenience you want and what gear you have whether a universal can work.

 

[everettT]

I thought 5.1 meant L/R front, Center, L/R surround? The latter is what I was talking about behind the sofa. I understand they should be about 100 degrees from the listener (relative to the center). So slightly behind, head-live or a bit above? I didn't plan on surround back (that's the 7.x right?).

Postscript: Like this except may be 100 degrees since I have a wall in the way.

Yes, that is the layout we're speaking of and why I asked about whether you were using the wireless setup as rears or surrounds earlier. If you're getting satisfaction from the new setup, that's great, I was referring to upgrades in the future to that setup.

 

[Linwood]

Generally surrounds belong to L/R of seating postion plus/minus 20 degrees or so. Raising them above seated level can work well (but not particularly combined with an Atmos setup).

No plans to add atmos, especially since that would need a separate AVR. And likely wasted in that room. At worst I might add some better speakers, but despite their tiny size, these sound quite impressively good (but again with the caveat of not having experience in what good really is).

I spent another hour or so experimenting and using it, still no unusual sounds from them to indicate network issues; so far so good.

 

[KenM10759]

My son has a 16' x 25' room (about an 8' ceiling) and has his setup in the narrow wall. Also owing to the way the room is constructed in his 150 yr old home, he's got the rear speakers of the 7.1 system at the far opposite end and connected with a Rocketfish wireless amp system. The DSP of his Sony STR-ZA5000ES works great to set everything and it sounds fantastic. Much ado about nothing here.