Need to solve the 1050's DD EX issue. Was considering the trade in promo, but just found out that we are expecting baby #2, so that expenditure isn’t going to happen.

Now I am looking to buy a 6th speaker (rear center surround). Would there be any benefit to that speaker being a center speaker as opposed to a surround? The price diff is $40, so if a center provides any incremental value, it’s worth it. Both speakers match my current speakers setup.

Alternatively I guess could get 2 other surrounds and bi-wire them, but I am not so sure I want to do that, unless it is clearly the optimal solution.

Thanks so much,
-chris

p.s - Any of you bass freaks into Taiko? It Japanese music (the genre started out as War drum music). It is absolutely intense. I can highly recommend a band Kodo- in particular their album Ibuki.

I'd go with either one or two surround speakers. Most current 7.1 systems use the same signal to the rears anyway, and the 1050 amp should have no problem driving two speakers with the relatively small signals generally present on the rear, as long as you're not running something insane for surrounds, like 1 ohm ESLs or something.

Some folks feel two are much better than one.

I read a thread somewhere, probably on this board that horizontal center channel speakers had dispersion or other issues that made them less then optimum for any use. If you are interested you might want to do a search.

FWIW, on my own system, I tried a NHT 3 speaker center channel speaker first and found it to be great from a sound perspective. Unfortunately it didn't fit location wise and I had to replace it. I am now using a single NHT Superzero. While I was unable to AB the two, mMy sense was that when I sat closer to the speaker location, the center channel speaker sounded better, whereas the Superzero sounds better if I am sitting further forward. Potentially this may be related to the dispersion issue.