What's the difference between using "surrounds" or "floor standing" speakers for rear effects??

[easy2533]

I have a pair of KLF-30 mains, a KLF-C7 center and four KSB1.1's as my surround and front effect speakers (Yamaha DSP-A1 Amp). Obviously, the KSB1.1's are washed out by the Legends. The Klipsch "perfect match" for surrounds are the KSP-S6 surrounds which, of course, are no longer inproduction/no longer avaliable.

I have the opportunity to pick up a pair of KLF-10's that I am thinking of using for rear effect/surround speakers. Why should I buy "di-pole wide dispersion" surrounds vs. a perfectly matched (voice/timbre) set of KLF-10's. Do the smaller surrounds contribute that much to the creation of the rear sound field as to outweigh the KLF-10's?

Thanks for your input......

[skonopa]

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On 1/30/2004 12:45:38 AM easy2533 wrote:

I have the opportunity to pick up a pair of KLF-10's that I am thinking of using for rear effect/surround speakers. Why should I buy "di-pole wide dispersion" surrounds vs. a perfectly matched (voice/timbre) set of KLF-10's. Do the smaller surrounds contribute that much to the creation of the rear sound field as to outweigh the KLF-10's?

Thanks for your input......

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Oh boy, another "di-pole diffuse vs monopole" question! . Yes, this is a topic of much debate.

In your particular case, I'd say go for the KLF-10s.

There are two camps to this issue.

One side says you are better off with the full-range direct/monopole speakers for the rears, especially with the newer digital/discrete sound formats, and even more so with the newer multi-channal music formats (SACD, DVD-A, et-al).

The other side says that the to get the proper ambient sounds in movies and such, you need to put up some diffuse style surrounds (the Di-pole/Bi-pole, etc).

I guess it all depends on what you prefer and what you plan on doing with your system (and often, what is readily available - this seems to be a real consternation for folks that want to expand thier Legend based systems to a full HT setup, as the KSP-S6s seems to be a pretty rare find these days, but they often do not have the space for the full towers. There are no book-shelf style speakers in the Legend series.

Again, I'd say go with the KLF-10s in your particular case, espeiclly if you are getting them for a good deal, and have the space for them.

[easy2533]

skonopa........

Thanks for your (rapid) response. I was leaning towards the KLF-10's especially because I cannot find any KSP-S6's.

Just needed an encouraging word (a push) I guess :-)

Moving from a "living room" to a dedicated 20' X 20' home theater. I think the KLF-10's will be fine but will await and ponder any feedback from the dipole enthusiasts.

Regards.......

[T2K]

The ultimate setup would be to use both.

Keith

[Darren]

Not sure it matters as much on the satelite speakers. Until a few weeks ago, I was also using the Yamaha DSP-A1. Those channels only get about 40 watts, if I remember correctly (less than half the rear channels).

[dantfmly]

go with anything in the klf series. the are timbre matched. So do do that you have to get a floor standing model. because all th klf series had was some floor standing models and a center channel, I'm about to do the same. I do have floor standing now, and love it, but they are not klf series, so I'm going to be working on that along with the center channel.

[j-malotky]

Easy

I am a big fan of using full range monopoles for surrounds mainly because when I fell in love with the Heritage sound 25 years ago, nothing else satisfys me.

So - While I am watching Bill Bruford drumming and the sound is in the rear right of my HT. I NEED to hear the snap of the snare drum sounding REAL in the rear right of my HT to make me happy so I need a floor standing Heritage there to do the job properly for me. A di-pole just would not make me happy.

Now what I have found is to mount your surrounds over your head, not on the floor, pointing down to your sweet spot works the best. This way you get the best sweeping 3D sound effects generally associated with Dipoles, and the REAL monopole LIVE direct sound all rolled into one.

JM

[Snails_Pace]

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On 1/30/2004 12:45:38 AM easy2533 wrote:

I have a pair of KLF-30 mains, a KLF-C7 center and four KSB1.1's as my surround and front effect speakers (Yamaha DSP-A1 Amp). Obviously, the KSB1.1's are washed out by the Legends. The Klipsch "perfect match" for surrounds are the KSP-S6 surrounds which, of course, are no longer inproduction/no longer avaliable.

I have the opportunity to pick up a pair of KLF-10's that I am thinking of using for rear effect/surround speakers. Why should I buy "di-pole wide dispersion" surrounds vs. a perfectly matched (voice/timbre) set of KLF-10's. Do the smaller surrounds contribute that much to the creation of the rear sound field as to outweigh the KLF-10's?

Thanks for your input......

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I would also encourage you to go the KLF route. The timbre matched performance of the KLF series pulling surround duty (in my case, 4 KLF-C7s tipped on end) has FAR outperformed the KSP-S6s I used to have. The overall soundfield is much more uniform and the transition from speaker to speaker is far less noticeable than when I used to listen through the smaller dedicated "surround" speakers. The change in effect wasn't night and day, but it was appreciably different enough that I ended up selling the vaunted KSP-S6s in favor of 4 direct-radiating speakers. Although the C7s aren't as capable as the KLF-10s down low, I think you'll be VERY pleased at the results if you add a set of KLF-10s to the rear of your HT. The only thing you have to consider is that the floor standing KLFs are going to be slightly more directional than smaller surrounds (that you can mount higher) or WDST surround speakers (that purposefully diffuse the surround channels). In our case, we don't move around in our HT at all when we're watching movies, nor do we have seating to accommodate a lot of off-axis listeners, so we didn't need the benefits of the "surround sound from everywhere" capabilities of the KSP-S6s--which I'm sure is part of why we're so happy with the job the KLF-C7s have done for us. If this also describes your situation, then I personally think it's a no-brainer to go with the KLF-10s. Let us know what you finally end up choosing.

- J.T.