Designated Speaker Placement... (7.1)

[Mani-aX]

ok, i have been looking at the forums and have found a lot of pictures of some really NICE setups. my question is concerning 7.1 and speaker placement. i have noticed that very few use a set of RS-* for their REAR surrounds. but use the RB-*

i have a set of RB-81's and they were a bit on the heavy side for my rear surrounds. i am investigating a CEILING mount that can support them. i am about to purchase a pair of RS-52 for my surrounds but i wanted to get some input here b4 i do. would a set of RS-52's sound good as REAR surrounds, or would they "reflect" the sound and make it appear to be coming from a different angle?

thanks for all input,

-Mani

[DrWho]

What is the size and configuration of your room? A rough sketch would speak a thousand words. But generally speaking, the RS series of speakers generally don't sound as good as RB's when they're far away from the listening position. In my opinion, anything short of 7 identical speakers all around is a compromise - so if it's possible, I would encourage you to use two pairs of RB-81's to achieve perfect timbre matching.

Welcome to the forum!

[chitown2477]

I have the RS-42's for left and right surround sound and think they are great. I am looking to go to 7.1 at some point into the future and will most likely get the RB's for the rears due to the directional sound. I also think the RB's are better for dialogue vs. sound effects. I think the rears are intended more for dialogue anyway. I would only say to match the speaker model levels across the surrounds and rears, e.g. match RS-42's with RB-42's not RS-42's with RB-52's <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Just my thoughts but I am not nearly an expert.

[DrWho]

The rear channels for 7.1 and 6.1 are matrixed from the information in the side surrounds (the rear left and rear right of 5.1). It's not entirely discrete so what you end up with is the same thing in both speakers...just spread out further to recreate a more natural surround image. The reason we have 7.1 and not just 6.1 is because sounds mixed directly to the rear in 6.1 will be directly behind the listener's ears - if you've ever played the blindfold game in elementary school you should be familiar that we can't tell the difference between directly in front and directly behind....so since our attention is towards the front where the screen is, we percieve sounds in the back as coming from the front. Then when things pan around it sounds really distracting. Way back in the 70's Bell Labs determined that 4 surround channels would be the bare minimum for an accurate image []

If you're happy with the RS-42's on the side right now, then you should probably be satisfied with RS-42's in the rear too - provided their location would be about equidistant from the listening position. Anything closer than the side surrounds and I would stick with RS-42's, but if you have to go further back then I would recommend the RB's.

The way sound is matrixed for music however is a completely different world. I'm not sure if you're doing surround sound music listening (SACD and DVD-A), but the image is generally more focused with the RB style speakers. And if I remember correctly, I believe the side surrounds are the only ones used with these formats (meaning that the direct-radiating style speakers should be used for the side surrounds). I'm sure someone will chime in if I'm incorrect. I have a feeling it might be slightly different with every reciever (or perhaps even a selectable option - like on my receiver).