Mixing speaker companies

[Malakei]

I currently have a pair of monitor 3s and a cc370 paradigm setup at the core front of my HT. I only have the three speakers that i bought so that i could go with better speakers and buy the rest seperately at a later date. That date is approaching and im curious as wether i should rule out all buy paradigm or could it be possible to miatch similar timbre speakers. And if doing so is reasonable. Is athena a relatively close match for my surrounds?
if i dont go with the athena mkII surrounds then i will likely be picking up either a pair or mini monitors, a pair of psb stratus front floors and moving the monitors to the rear OR simply pick up a pair of itans or atoms. Which sounds the most reasonable. The MKII setup is cheapest, then the atoms/titans, then the mini monitors and then likely the PSB fronts. Taking economy into perspective. Which will make the greatest difference in my HT without making the greatest difference in my Checkbook!

Cheers

Justin

 

[Leprkon]

if the front three match, the rears generally just need to be a decent quality, regardless of the brand. you will, of course, want the rears to all match each other. timbre from front to back is not exceptionally critical and for a sub is not important at all.

 

[Electone]

If you have a Yamaha receiver with YPAO, you can have the receiver equalize all the channels to match the timbre of the front mains.

 

[markw]

Eq's don't timbre match.

EQ's can adjust levels within certain frequency ranges but timbre matching entails a lot of acoustics that relate to the speaker type, diffraction of sound from the drivers, and other items that deal specificaly with the interaction of the drivers, crossover, enclosure and the room itself.

EQ's have their uses but to lay that at their door is like trying to use a band-aid to close a gaping chest wound without stiching it up

 

[Fb111794]

EQ's can adjust levels within certain frequency ranges but timbre matching entails a lot of acoustics that relate to the speaker type, diffraction of sound from the drivers, and other items that deal specificaly with the interaction of the drivers, crossover, enclosure and the room itself.

EQ's have their uses but to lay that at their door is like trying to use a band-aid to close a gaping chest wound without stiching it up

I quite agree markw.....

Malakei.... I'm a bit confused.... do you want to stay with Digms for your mains or switch to the PSB Stratus line? I mean the Stratus "mini" monitors are like a GRAND per pair or something like that right?

Obviously, it would be "cheaper" to stay in the Paradigm family and find a better set of fronts and center (the MOST important speaker in your HT system), and moving your existing Digm monitors to the rear for surround duty. That way you will be staying "in the family" of over all sound signature within your system.

To mix and match everything will work if all you want is "sound" coming from your speakers, but you won't have a nice balanced, over all cohearent sound field by doing so.

Just my $.02, YMMV, IMHO, FWIW and all that....

 

[dloweman]

I am using a pair of titans to go with my monitor7 and cc370. They do a great job. When the money permits i will probably get the adp370's, look into those if you like dipoles, if not then the minimonitors or titans would be fine. I bet the atoms would also probably do the trick.