What Dipole surround to go with SVS system to make 7.1

j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
I don't think you are going to find any bi/dipole surrounds that are going to match ideally. I'd get a pair of SBS-01s. That is a recommendation for setup, not a hard and fast rule.
 
jliedeka

jliedeka

Audioholic General
If you aren't hugely concerned with timbre matching, the Emotiva surrounds and Axiom QS4/8s might be reasonable choices. If you want a more seamless sound field, I'd agree that another pair of SVS SBS-01s would be best.

Jim
 
E

Exit

Audioholic Chief
You might want to consider Klipsch surrounds as they look good and provide a 180 degree soundfield, which gives good sound to a broad seating area. The Klipsch S1 are $299/pair at the site below and you may be able to shop more for a better price.

http://www.sounddistributors.com/buynow.asp?action=detail&prid=497&crid=237&cat_name=Search

You can also find similar design Cambridge Soundworks speakers for less ($200/pair) at the site below.

http://www.cambridgesoundworks.com/store/category.cgi?category=spk_surround
 
lsiberian

lsiberian

Audioholic Overlord
Just go with 2 additional SVS speakers. You will want to place them slightly behind 90 degress to help avoid localization, but they will provide the best seamless sound stage. FYI that setup your looking at is for THX modes not for Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio

http://www.dolby.com/consumer/home_entertainment/roomlayout2.html

is the dolby guide. I suggest following it instead.

Buying non matching di-poles is a bad idea IMO.
 
tomd51

tomd51

Audioholic General
If your main listening source will be movies and your room isn't very large (less than 3,000+ cu. ft), I'd suggest sticking with a dipole, bipole or multipole speaker of some sort for surrounds. If you do have a large room and multichannel music listening (DVD-A, SACD, DTS 5.1 music, etc.) is the predominant source of your listening, you may want to timbre match your surounds with some of the SVS bookshelfs as suggested. While I do multichannel music listening and stereo/matrixed stereo listening (PLIIx Music), I still find a good set of dipole/bipole/multipoles do an excellent job with creating an enveloping soundfield while still allowing for smooth panning from fronts to rears without creating obvious differences in timbre.

The Cambridge SoundWorks surrounds are decent surrounds for the money (in fact, I'm using them in my secondary HT setup), particularly if you can go with the white ones from their outlet store, they're hugely discounted right now, here's the link for them.

While some of the Klipsch surrounds would a decent job, they're rather bulky and expensive for their performance. From my experience with a good friend's Klipsch Reference surrounds, they're very efficient and throw a good soundfield, but with music, they aren't terribly appealing (my personal preference, obviously). This, coupled with their cost and footprint/size, would put them lower on the list of my suggestions. I can't imagine the lower end Klipsch surrounds perform any better, so I would be hesitant to suggest them.

One recent deal I've seen is for some Polk Audio FXi3 surrounds that look like they're being cleared out. Here's a link to Newegg that's selling them for $149/pr., I think some other places are selling them discounted recently as well. I'm not personally familiar with them, however they seem to have decent specs, positive feedback from users and are fairly well constructed. Similar to the Cambridge SoundWorks surrounds I'd suggested above, the only drawback is they're white in color, so if that's a no-go, than that rules it out fairly quickly.

As for the Emotiva ERD-1s, these surrounds would be hard to beat for the money whether the source is mostly music or movies. They're highly configurable, easy to mount, can't take goobs of power and are one of the best performing surrounds I've had, which are quite a few priced anywhere between $200-$600 a pair, including CSW's S300s, Boston Acoustics VRXs as well as Axiom Audio's QS8s. I bought them when they were a bit more than $300 and they were an excellent deal at that price, so for $250/pr., they're the deal of deals for surrounds, IMHO.

Whether you go with direct radiating or multipole surrounds, I wouldn't put a ton of emphasis on timbre matching, get the best surrounds that will fit your application, preferences (sonically and aesthetically) and ultimately what you can afford...;) -TD
 
lsiberian

lsiberian

Audioholic Overlord
I have 7.1 and have a small apartment living room and get plenty of envelopment from my surrounds. In an action movie the speakers will pan and sound properly as long as you are sitting within the listening area. The only time I can localize is when I am sitting beside my couch and watching an event with constant sound from all channels.

For movie watching I think direct radiating are just fine. In a 5.1 setup however it may be better to have a dipole. I just don't think they are worth the money for most of the lower cost setups.

You would be better off upgrading the fronts or subs in many cases.

Of course if I could I would have 4 ES 250s so I am speaking cost vs benefit not what's best.
 
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