[schiss]

Taoster,

If we stay away from music and stick strickly with home theater, I still don't think that more channels is absolutley going to be better. The more speakers you have in your "space", the more chance there will be for room interactions, and for home theater, I think that's the most overlooked part of the equation. Most folks think they can just mount the surrounds any old place beside or behind them and get the same results, when they may actually be robbing themselves of a better sound experience. I just see more speakers as increasing your chances of poor speaker placement, smearing the sound all the more. I believe that very good HT speaker systems have high directivity, so that they don't interact with each other... isn't that what surround sound relies on? Sound coming from different spaces around you? Well, those types of speakers are pretty expensive, and I'll bet not in may peoples budgets. I've got to agree with those who've said that the technology is excellent, but the execution is poor. And the superstores really do want to sell the gimmick. They'll do nothing to tell you about proper setup.

Schiss

 

[scrypt]

I haven't had a problem with surround speakers per se: Martin Logans sound beautiful, no doubt, but they're out of my budget and space requirements. My problem has been finding speakers that are small and inexpensive enough to justify purchasing for bedroom 5-to-6.1. If I were buying stereo speakers, I'd be done by now.

Thing is, recognizing the relative unimportance of current 5-7.1 doesn't make the purchase any easier. I still want to be able to listen to stereo signal in my room and have sufficient quality to not be made ill. Unfortunately, money spent on bedroom home theater is money lost for my creative work in the music room -- work that provided 100% of my livelihood for over ten years. That's what I really do, so I'm a bit frustrated looking for budget HT solutions that don't actually offend me. Every time I go into a hi-fi store, I end up hating the sound of any HT system or solution below $3000. The Linn Classik Movie with Uniks is the closest thing to a solution I've found and I just can't spend that kind of money on a sonic novelty item. If anyone happens to see a good price ($1500 and under) on a musical (as opposed to moviable) small room-configurable system, used or new, please PM me pronto.

 

[TimSchirmer]

well... i don't have 5.1 ears, so i don't need 5.1 speakers.

 

[taoster]

schiss, very good and valid points!

It's kinda like throwing in more processors into a system and expect it to perform better.. doesnt work like that. (im a computer nerd, i relate better to computer terms

)

 

[Hirsch]

I like 5.1 sound for movies, and am going to add more amp channels and a couple more speakers to bring it to 7.1, as soon as I can figure out where to put them (will probably have to sell 3-channel amp and get 5-channel amp, and hang speakers from ceiling). However, the music setup is two-channel. I'm trying different configurations, but the one I like best has the main channel pre-outs of the HT setup going to my two-channel preamp. In that mode, I can run the analog setup without ever going through the pre/pro, while the front channels of the HT setup get preamped twice (no big deal). The alternative is to use my analog preamp strictly as a phono section, with everything going through the pre/pro. I've just got to figure out if the pre/pro (Outlaw 950) is good enough to handle this...so far I prefer the first option, even though it's awkward sometimes.