matching surrounds to mains

[jakies]

How important is it to try and match the surround speakers to the LCR speakers?
I've been looking at floorstanding speakers in my next setup with a matching center. However, my room is fairly small (11.6' x 16' x 8') so I want unobtrusive surround speakers.

My listening would be primarily HT with some music. I realize matching surrounds is more important in a multi channel audio situation but I wanted to hear some opinions on HT duty. I was looking at eD 6T6 towers/6T6 center with the smaller 5tc bookshelf speakers for the surrounds.

I'm also considering SVS speakers with SBS-01's all the way around.

 

[Pyrrho]

It is much less important to match the surrounds to the front than it is to have the front three all match. That said, all of my speakers are identical, and I like it that way. You should audition some systems where they match and compare with different surround speakers to get some idea of what you will give up in having "mismatched" speakers. There is a good chance that you will not care very much about the surround not quite matching the front.

 

[dtaylor0319]

My LCR all match to keep the same timbre, however i experimented with my surrounds. Just be sure to audition them.

 

[Exit]

Surround speakers don't need to match the LCR. The LCRs need timber matching for the smooth movement across the front, particular voices. The surrounds basically carry ambient or background sounds and seldom have special effects moving arround them and I have never heard voices from the surrounds. Therefore surrounds don't need to match the fronts to do their jobs properly.

 

[tomd51]

I'd have to echo Pyrrho and Exit's sentiments. I currently have surrounds that timbre match my mains and center, but have previously had other surrounds (direct radiating, dipole/bipoles and quadropoles) from different companies.

While the performance may differ, the need to match your front soundstage from a sound signature standpoint is negligible, particularly so for movie soundtrack listening... -TD

 

[Pyrrho]

I'd have to echo Pyrrho and Exit's sentiments. I currently have surrounds that timbre match my mains and center, but have previously had other surrounds (direct radiating, dipole/bipoles and quadropoles) from different companies.

While the performance may differ, the need to match your front soundstage from a sound signature standpoint is negligible, particularly so for movie soundtrack listening... -TD

I am not so sure I would use the word "negligible" for the importance of matching the surrounds with the fronts, but it certainly is less important than having all three fronts match. I like having the surrounds match, and do not plan on ever having another system without them matching, but if one cannot reasonably do that (due to price, space, or whatever reason), I would not worry too much about it.

 

[tomd51]

From my own experiences, the differences were minimal for movie soundtrack purposes. As for multichannel listening, it is more noticable, but still wasn't a large difference in sound.

One's listening preferences would definitely play more into the choices, but for myself, I found it made little difference in timbre matching for movies... -TD

 

[Soundman]

Having the surrounds match the front speakers is not as critical. It probably won't make much of a difference. That being said, i prefer to have all my speakers be timbre matched, mainly for multi-channel music, but it also just looks a lot nicer having a matching set. This of course is just a preference.