Using small surround speakers with big floorstander front speakers?

[newguy484]

Hello people

So, I want to get a nice 5.1 system, with floorstanders for the front speakers, probably Kef Q500 or 700's at the moment I'm thinking.

But space and money for the surround speakers is lacking. So I wondered how bad/good it would be to spend the vast majority of my money on the amp and the front/centre/sub components, and then a lot less on the surrounds (say around 300 total) and to have them be really small, for example the KEF T101's (which are almost totally flat) or the KEF E301's or the B&W M1ii's?

At the moment I have a very old cheap Sony 5.1 package and for the amount of actual sound that comes out of the rear speakers I am loathed to spend £500+ on bookshelf rear speakers that are going to be a pain to position as well.

What are people's thoughts on this matter? Will small rears be drowned out completely by front floorstanders?

Thanks in advanced for any replies!

 

[cheeseboy]

shouldn't really be an issue as you can always alter the volume of the rears to output louder if the fronts are a bit overbearing. Rears do very little anyways. Have a look at some of the small dipole ones.

 

[Son_of_SJ]

David at Frank Harvey is the best person to advise.

 

[toyota man]

Hi I use my SCM40s as fronts with a monitor audio radius 200 as a centre speaker and a couple of kef eggs as rears and it all works ok this isn't my main surround system but even with this mix it sounds very good my main surround sytem has all kef speakers and a kef sub .in my second system useing the SCM40s my pioneer surround amps auto room calibration sytem thinks there a sub connected

 

[Glacialpath]

The balance with your fronts and rears is very important to get a good surround stage. This can be achived quite well with large front LRC and small SUR/SUR Backs.

Some films like dialogue based ones, the surrounds do very little, mainly atmosphere. Big action block busters though will use them quite a lot. The better they are blended well with your sub the better your surround sound will be. Otherwise any surround sounds will sound weedy and not have much presence and you'll be turning them up to hear them better but they will sound aweful.

I have Mordauntshort Front floorstanders and center. I also have small JVC satellites for my surrounds and surround backs. I know I got them set up right with my sub as when watching the Tommy Lee Jones film Volcano and the fire engine landed behind me it sounded huge and weighty and not just like a tin toy.

So the simple answer to your question is, Small surrounds are fine if set up correctly.

GP

 

[Pistol Pete1]

I had the KEF Q500's and matching centre speaker running with a pair of KEF 3005 SE egg speakers......no problems at all. In fact the combo worked really well in terms of sound and space.

 

[Series1boy]

Hi,

i have focal jmlab 716 floor standers and centre at the front with matching sub and small def tech rears and it sounds fantastic. Set all your speakers to small(even with floor standers) in your av reciever and your sub will do the work for the base.

you don't need big basey speakers for the surround rears but it wouldn't hurt if you did..

cheers

 

[jerryapril]

What you suggest is correct and you'll be pleased with the overall sound, both for movies and the music.

Good front pair even eliminates a need for a sub.

Go ahead and trust yourself. Not everybody here would give a fair advise, anyway.

Enjoy!

 

[Xanderzdad]

Shouldn't be an issue. I'm using floor standing Monitor Audio's for the L&R and Q Acoustics 1010's for all the surrounds. A modern AVR will easily remove most tonal & volume differences between them all.