5.1 surround sound into a 2.1 setup

[admin_exported]

I'm putting together a home cinema system in a room that is decorated in the house,my little retreat! I was originally going to put 5.1 surround system in there, but because of reason to do with decorating and the layout of the room, I might have to drop the rear speakers.

My question is, if I did drop the rear speakers, how would my system handle 5.1 surround sound in a 2.1 setup. What I mean is, I'm still thinking of having two front speakers, a centre, and a subwoofer, so would my amp (DENON AVR-2310) just drop the sound effects from the rear speakers or merge them in with the sound with the front left and right speakers.

I'm pretty new to this home cinema lark, so the technical details of how these things work is a bit of a mystery to me.

Thanks in advance

 

[moosey]

i've posted a very similar question, and unfortunately i've not had any responsse, either.

Are there any experts out there that can inform?

please

 

[Andrew Everard]

You just have to set up the receiver with 'none' as the rear speaker and centre speaker values, and it will run in 2.1 mode

 

[moosey]

Andrew,

thanks for that,

Is it possible to use a centre speaker (3.1?) and would that improve overall sound? I have a budget total of £1200ish, and rear speakers have been banned

thanks

 

[ear]

whar about puting the rear on the front ? more facing the side walls...some efect there. 2 fronts + 1 centre is much better than 2.1