Surrounds for heresy fronts.

[bliss53]

I am looking for options for my new 5.1 setup. My room is 15 x 15 with a big right angle sectional in the middle of the back wall. See the picture. I am moving to heresys for the right, left and center. I have wall mounted PSB bipolar surrounds currently. I am worried that if i add 2 heresy surrounds they will be to close to the outboard listeners ears if they are on stands behind the sectional. Is there a wall mount that would voice well with the heresy?

[bliss53]

Bump. Did I ask a stupid question? There are some surrounds for sale in the garage sale section. Would one of these be a better option?

[SilverSport]

I found KSF-S5s and KSP-S6s do very nicely...I preferred the KSP-S6s...although not timber matched to Heresys, I use my Home Theater for Movies and the signal they get and the "spitter" design seemed better than rear Heresys in my situation...I also thought they took up less space too...

Bill

[Frzninvt]

You cannot and should not use surround speakers (WDST or Dipole/Bipole) as your rear speakers, you should have at least one pair of monopoles in the rear and use the sound sprayers as your rear center/effects speakers otherwise you'll have nothing but an echoey mess going on back there. If you can't work a Heresy/Heresy II something from the KG line will sound better than a KSP or KSF speaker. The KG .5 is wall mountable, the KG1 is sealed and the KG 2.2's while rear ported would do a decent job in lieu of a Heresy which is obviously ideal. You can use the receiver's channel levels to dial them into the desired levels so the rear seated positions aren't blown out. FWIW. YMMV

[colterphoto1]

You're sitting much too close to the back wall (read: on it) to get much effective use of rear speakers. Do you sit in the back row at the movie theater and expect to hear rear surrounds? Of course not.

My advice? Get high quality WDST speakers and mount on the SIDE walls across from the front edge of the sofa. Some of the sound from these will reflect off the rear wall and give you good surround action. Channels 6&7 are not really called for. If you like, on wall small cabinets like Frzn mentions may be employed at very low volumes. My only other suggestion would be in-ceiling speakers mounted above you but reflected off the rear wall.

Scoot that sectional away from the back wall at least 1-2 feet to vastly improve any surround capability and to reduce room modes in the bass regions. Sitting against the rear walls gives your brain auditory clues that you are sitting against a wall (which you are), therefore it's very difficult to fool yourself that some of the movie action is occuring behind you.

Michael

[seasterl]

I actually was about to post the same question as the original poster of this thread when I found this thread. So I decided to joing this thread. I have H3 as my mains, an inexpensive Klipsch center channel I got from Audiogon, and now I'm looking for some surrounds. My room is only a 12'x13' with the sofa against the backwall. I was considering the KS-525 THX speakers for surrounds, and mounting them (sideways) directly behind the soft. This would have the drivers pointed downward directly as the listener sitting on the couch. I know there are the other two speakers that would then be pointing up at the ceiling, but can I just not hook them up. Ideally, I would find a speaker that has this slant to it (like a dipole, I guess), but only has the one set of drivers to point to the listener and avoid reflections. What do you guys think of this? Sadly, this is also expensive as this model retails for $1300 and I would only be using half the speaker (if possible).

[Cal Blacksmith]

It is never a good idea to have the seating against the back wall, I know the room is small but you really need to move the seating forward. Though the best match for a Heresy is another Hearsy those might be a little big to mount in your room to the wall. You might think of something like KG1s to mount back there. These are small size bookshelf speakers that play well with heratage. The best match for a center is an Academy, though they are a little spendy due to the limited production run, aside from another H3, it will likely be your best match across the front. The front 3 are the most important to match to present a unified seamless soundscape. As you move to the sides and rears, the match becomes less important due to the lessor amount of information that is played through them.

[seasterl]

Thanks for the advice. I'll check into the KG1. My sub is in the middle facing the listener (below the TV), so there's no room for an H3 there. The benefit of having a small room is that the TV does not have to be as big to give a cinema-like visual experience. If the room was larger, I'd have to use a projector. Needless to say, our room is what it is and I just have to make the best of it. Should I consider ceiling-mounted speakers,.... or something small mounted in the ceiling-corners?

[seasterl]

BTW, would it be a crime to use something like the KHO-7, AW-500-SM, or the AW-650 outdoor speakers for my rear surrounds? These would mount nicely to the backwall and can be angled a little more directly to the listener and not break the bank. Of these three, which would work best? I've not heard any of the outdoor speakers and can't afford to just buy-n-try and buy-n-try,... not for surround speakers.

[Cal Blacksmith]

The simple answer is to move the sub. The audio that the sub produces is such that you can't tell where it is comming from. You need to move the sub to get the best sound anyway, you may have it in a node where though it is pumping it's little heart out, you are not hearing all of what it is producing. Try placing the sub in the listening position then while a test tone is playing if you have one, walk around the room and find where the sub is the loudest, this is where you want to place the sub.

It is never a good idea to mix lines of speakers. If you have heritage, stay with them, don't for example mix in RF series with Heritage, you will not like the result even though both speakers are excelent on their own. I have not heard the outdoor speakers but I would guess that their voice is quite different than the H3s

You can keep the H3s for stereo listening and go with in wall / ceiling if you want to go that way, again, don't mix speaker lines if you can help it, the results are possibly very disapointing.

[bliss53]

Thanks for the input. I think I am going to try to use 4 heresy speakers that I have and find a single heresy for a center channel. I follow the logic on the seating placement. I have tried a single chair in many locations before the sectional arrived and the sound is better a couple of feet forward. The problem is that my wife likes the 100" screen from 14 feet, she does not like it at 12 feet. I keep inching it up but for some reason after my wife cleans it moves back. I am also considering new seating (the corner seat in the sectional is shot). I think a set of three chairs would be better and more movable. What position should the heresy take in the back corners? Firing perpindicular from the wall, to the middle of the room or to the listening position? What should I use for stands?

[Cal Blacksmith]

The size of screen is a personal choice that is what it is. How about a compramise? When she is in the room, zoom the screen down to say 90" and have the seats in the proper place to get the best audio and if you and the guys are having a night, zoom the screen back to full size?

A rule of thumb is that if you can look down the throat of the horn and see the bottom, you can hear it well. There is nothing that says that you can't make your own angle brackets to mount the speakers to the wall, securley! I have 24" risers to hold my rears up off the floor to get the horns in the right place, they are sold online and in some stereo stores, just get them strong enough to hold at least the 50# that they weigh.

Try partsexpress.com they have lots of stuff, a quick example is this search page, if the link works.

Link

[iwillwalk]

i would use heresy everywhere w/ a sub your all set

[seasterl]

I'd love to do the all-H3 plus my sub arrangement, but there's just no room for it. The room is only a 12x13' and shares space (on both sides of the sofa) with two pieces of exercise equipment that get frequent use during some shows. Now if I had a dedicated 16x20' room with an extra $2k, an all-H3 would nice be nice!... but that's not a reality and hence, my question.

[bliss53]

All heresy it is. Noah teased me with an offer to sell a single heresy. I have an older monster Mirage BPS 400 sub that should work fine. I will set it up and compare to my psb setup. My current setup is two psb image 3lr, two psb 10s and one psb 9c.

[HudsonValleyNoah]

Pete,

Are your fronts the HBR or HWO?

Noah

[bliss53]

Oiled walnut all around.

[HudsonValleyNoah]

I thought the NOS ones were HBR...

But WO is good also!

PM and email sent.

Noah

[bliss53]

I responded to you email.

[HudsonValleyNoah]

Yup...