[delenda est Sony]

Am just about done with revising my penny-pinching 5.1 home theater system which will feature Athena AS-B2s in front, the AS-C1 in center, and my carried over AR sub. Now as for the surrounds, I have a few options:

A) get AS-B1s, $115, (the conventional choice) to match the voices of the other speakers. However, I have heard that voice matching on the surrounds is not that essential. These will need speaker stands too. Therefore the other options;

B)get Paradigm Atoms, $190. I would like to try these as I had heard great things about the brand but thought an Athena based system offered more bang for fewer bucks. I am still convinced of that, hence the composition of the front three speakers, but maybe mismatched surrounds would be good trade-off as an intro to the Paradigm brand. Plus the size of the Atoms makes them easier to place and means I could save money on stands. The downside is that the ¾” metal tweeter is different from the 1” silk Athena tweeters on the rest of the speakers.

C)Get a pair of AR2062s, $100, which have 6.5” woofers and 1" silk tweeters. These speakers are cheap and powerful, and will offer some cheap low end oomph to the rear of the area. However, these are not exactly beloved of the audiophile community and might well be lower quality than the other brands. These will also need stands. And it also seems that not much bass gets shipped to the surrounds in most applications anyway, so the big woofer may be wasted.

So whadaya think, community?

des

 

[fyleow]

Have not heard any of those speakers personally but I've heard lots of good things about the Atom. Actually I think I've demoed it once but didn't like it but it wasn't the speaker's fault. The showroom sucked and made a pair of celestions and NHTs sound like crap. I don't know if celestions are good but they were nice floorstanders.

 

[soundboy]

I voted for the Athena AS-B1 because it will give you the same timbre as your front speakers. In a surround sound system, it's best to voice-match every speaker. Besides, I am not so sure of the Atoms being better than the B1, either as surround speakers or stand-alone speakers.

 

[Mr.PD]

I voted for the BS-1 also because they will match up better with what you have. While some say voice matching isn't important, I think it is. It makes for seamless presentation.

 

[delenda est Sony]

Thanks posters! It is good to get opinions on this as it is really tough to get to hear cheap speakers in the NYC area. The Paradigm dealers generally have setups featuring the higher end stuff, and the Athena dealers (i.e. Best Buy) often have less than ideal audition environments.

No one so far likes the AR2062 I see... My current surrrounds are PS 215s which have proven surprisingly good sounding through a few different incarnations of speaker sets (RCA, Klipsch, and now Athenas on the front), save for the lack of bass extension so I had some fondness for the brand, but the 2062s seem to be lacking audiophile love...

des

 

[soundboy]

AR (Acoustic Research) is one of the most respected names in loudspeakers. However, the brand has went through so many owners who doesn't care for its heritage. Its previous owner, International Jensen, was able to revive the brand with input from NHT (another International Jensen brand). AR is now owned by Audiovox and looks like there will be new designs coming. IMHO, AR needs another speaker company to buy it in order to foster new developments, like what Boston Acoustics did with Snell.

Since you have already invested in your front speakers, I would complete the system with corresponding rear channel speakers.