Upgrading from 5.1 to 7.1

[Soopafly49]

My room is 23ft by 18ft by 11ft. I have the B&W 684 theatre with the surrounds on super dreadnaughts and thinking of going 7.1..Would this be a worthwhile upgrade in this room? what should i have as rears and surrounds. should i get 685 to go on the stands and celing mount the 686's or a nother pair or 686's. speakers will be mounted on a metal support beam about 1ft of the ceiling. Any opinions welcome

 

[nads]

what amp? how many 7.1 discs do you have. and try and get the speakers lower.

 

[Soopafly49]

Denon 2310. I dont have any at the moment surprisingly I thought the ones I did have would be. how low do they need to be? with the brackets im looking at the will be about 14 inches of the ceiling and about 6ft above the head hight listening position angle down.

 

[Soopafly49]

Any more views on this?

 

[Big Chris]

Although there are an ever increasing number of films coming out with 7.1 soundtracks, I think the question is how much space is there gonna be between your listening position and your rear speakers?

I only went 7.1 as I have about 1 -1.5m behind my sofa to the speakers. If my sofa was butt up against the back wall I'd have stuck with 5.1.

 

[Soopafly49]

Although there are an ever increasing number of films coming out with 7.1 soundtracks, I think the question is how much space is there gonna be between your listening position and your rear speakers?

I only went 7.1 as I have about 1 -1.5m behind my sofa to the speakers. If my sofa was butt up against the back wall I'd have stuck with 5.1.

My sofa is in the center of the room and surrounds/rears are currently about the same distance as yours, although there is room for more as I can move the sofa if needed.

 

[Big Chris]

Although there are an ever increasing number of films coming out with 7.1 soundtracks, I think the question is how much space is there gonna be between your listening position and your rear speakers?

I only went 7.1 as I have about 1 -1.5m behind my sofa to the speakers. If my sofa was butt up against the back wall I'd have stuck with 5.1.

My sofa is in the center of the room and surrounds/rears are currently about the same distance as yours, although there is room for more as I can move the sofa if needed.

Go for it. Another pair of 686s should be fine, or you could try the new M1s which apparently give a fuller sound than the old M1s, which I use and have no issues with. The new ones should sound even better.

 

[Soopafly49]

Although there are an ever increasing number of films coming out with 7.1 soundtracks, I think the question is how much space is there gonna be between your listening position and your rear speakers?

I only went 7.1 as I have about 1 -1.5m behind my sofa to the speakers. If my sofa was butt up against the back wall I'd have stuck with 5.1.

My sofa is in the center of the room and surrounds/rears are currently about the same distance as yours, although there is room for more as I can move the sofa if needed.

What do you think about them being celing mounted, while the surrounds will be on stands. This is to avoid having the surrounds in the center of the back of the room if you know what I mean. Dont really want wires across the floor.

Go for it. Another pair of 686s should be fine, or you could try the new M1s which apparently give a fuller sound than the old M1s, which I use and have no issues with. The new ones should sound even better.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm looking at upgrading to 7.1 soon myself, though I don't have the room behind the sofa to house extra rears. In my AV manual it shows a set up with extra fronts and was thinking of this as an option. I currently have the Tannoy HTS101 as the 5.1 and was thinking of moving my Mission MX1's from my Hifi system to bcome the extra set. If I was to do this would they bcome the hight fronts? Am I even making sense, sorry I'm not really that techie and really could do with some impartial advice, rather than going into a hifi centre and making myself look silly. Can anybody help

 

[Soopafly49]

Dont know why my post ended up in the middle of my previous post but do you think having them surrounds backs celing mounted with surrounds on stands will be ok. This is to avoid having speakers in the middle of the floor with wires trailing of.

 

[Chewy]

Dont know why my post ended up in the middle of my previous post but do you think having them surrounds backs celing mounted with surrounds on stands will be ok. This is to avoid having speakers in the middle of the floor with wires trailing of.

If you can wall mount, that would be your better option. Both your surround speakers and your rear speakers should ideally be around 2ft-3ft above seated ear height in a 7.1 set-up if you follow conventional advice.

Ceiling mounting will still work well, just not optimally. In that case, fire the speakers downwards so that the tweaters fire around 2-3ft over the heads of the listeners. The same goes for the L/R surrounds, get them off the stands if you can, and up on the walls otherwise the surround effects will be too localised to create a sufficiently diffuse rear sound field.

 

[Soopafly49]

Dont know why my post ended up in the middle of my previous post but do you think having them surrounds backs celing mounted with surrounds on stands will be ok. This is to avoid having speakers in the middle of the floor with wires trailing of.

If you can wall mount, that would be your better option. Both your surround speakers and your rear speakers should ideally be around 2ft-3ft above seated ear height in a 7.1 set-up if you follow conventional advice.

Ceiling mounting will still work well, just not optimally. In that case, fire the speakers downwards so that the tweaters fire around 2-3ft over the heads of the listeners. The same goes for the L/R surrounds, get them off the stands if you can, and up on the walls otherwise the surround effects will be too localised to create a sufficiently diffuse rear sound field.

I was afraid someone was going ro say that. If I do that I would feel like im waisting some good stands less than 6 months old. Also as the surrounds and surrounds backs do they need tp be exactly same height the surround will have to be quite high on the was as i can only ceiling mount the surround backs if this is the case. This means that me be about 6ft above the listening position depending on what brackets I use. Will that work

 

[Chewy]

I was afraid someone was going ro say that. If I do that I would feel like im waisting some good stands less than 6 months old. Also as the surrounds and surrounds backs do they need tp be exactly same height the surround will have to be quite high on the was as i can only ceiling mount the surround backs if this is the case. This means that me be about 6ft above the listening position depending on what brackets I use. Will that work

I would say have as many speakers at the optimal height as possible, so set your surrounds at 2-3ft above ear level if you can, even if you are forced to have the rears at ceiling height.

I know it is shame to get rid of perfectly good kit, but your set-up would benefit from getting the surrounds off the stands, panning effects will they fly across your head in a cohesive sound field, rather than buymping into it

I'm not overly familiar with the B&W 600 series speakers, but a quick look on their website makes me think that my advice would be to use your existing 686's as rears, ceiling mounted if you have to, then sell your stands so you can add the money to your budget and grab a pair of the DS3's for your new surrounds. They'll be less obtrusive (and therefore a better WAF) than wall mounting a pair of stand mount speakers on brackets, and will be much more up to the job of acting as wall mount surrounds, as thats what they're designed to do. They'll also give you, by the looks of the spec, the option to play around with dipole or normal monopole settings! :rockout: