I am posting this to solicit opinions on the type of speaker to use for the surround backs in a 7.1 setup. I am in the process of upgrading my Yamaha RX-V2095 to the 950 and intend on taking advantage of the 7.1 possibility. I am driving all seven channels with two Acurus A200x3s and one A200. I have Klipsch speakers all the way around:
KLF20 mains
KLFC7 center
RS-7 surrounds
KSB1.1 back surround

My question is would it be better to replace my KSB1.1s with another pair of wide dispersion RS-7s or direct radiating KLF10s. I would mount the RS7s at the same height as my existing RS-7s (1 meter above listening position) but the KLF10s would have to sit on the floor or a short stand.

Thanks for your input. This forum is just as informative as the Klipsch forum.....keep up the good work.

While I am not familiar with Klipsch speakers in any detail, I would recommend that you favor speakers with wider dispersion, than direct radiators. The rear surround signal is mono in origin on DVDs, although the post processing in the 950 'stereoizes' it to some extent.

Thanks soundhound.....I guess also from what I have read here that a pair of wide dispersions are preferred over a single wide dispersion acting in a 6.1 config.

Which mode does that?

Best,
Sanjay

The Cirrus modes seem to spread the mono signal a little bit, at least listening on _my_ system. Of course, too many marguaritas will de-focus just about anything

Actually, looking at pictures of the innards of the 950, there _appear_ to be only 6 heatsinks, that I would _assume_ were the analog outputs (I don't know about the .1). So who knows? They could be doing something as simple as flipping the polarity on one of the rears to de-focus the mono sound.

Scott G.-- I use direct radiators in a 7.1 config. I like this arrangement, especially for multichannel music. Do some reading on the subject and you will find plenty of arguments pro and con for both dipoles and DR's. FYI, here's what these guys are using- direct rad's.

I have noticed in a lot of DVD authoring suites, they have _both_ types of speakers on the wall, and can switch back and forth. Typically, it seems to settle down to most people liking direct radiators for multi channel _music_, with dipoles for movies. There are speakers that have switches so you can choose between both modes. I have addressed this issue by my room using the 'live end / dead end' technique. I use direct radiators for the side surrounds and the backs, but the back of the room is more 'live' than the front, and that disperses the sound nicely, while the front is 'dead' so the front imaging is not messed with. It isn't terribly difficult to do this, but you would need at least a living room sized room.

For the back surround, I would say that it really boils down to how much you would enjoy / dislike the sound of something or an instrument coming distinctly from your back.



[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited October 29, 2002).]

I don't think this is true. There were posts a long while ago how the Rotel and Outlaw did the rears. As far as I remember, the rears are indeed mono for all modes.

Rotel seems to be claiming that they do some steering on the rears. I'm wondering if maybe they mix a bit of LS into LR and some RS into RR, and vice versa, or something like that. It seems like this would be an interesting experiment if nothing else.

I played pink noise through the rears, and it _seems_ spread out a bit verses pure mono to both speakers. If it is in fact only mono, I wonder why they bothered to have the test tone come out of the left and right back seperately on the 950.

Because there are instances where those two speakers do produce different sounds. For example: when listening to stereo material in the 7-Channel Stereo mode, all the left speakers reproduce the left channel and all the right speakers reproduce the right channel. Also, when listening to a 5.1 source over 7 speakers and not using any of the back channel extraction decoders (EX, ES, CES), the side and rear speakers are run in parallel. The right surround channel is sent to the right side & right rear speakers; ditto the left side.

There are also situations where the two rears are not in similar acoustic environments; one may be in a corner that boosts its output, while the other is not. This imbalance can be evened out by the 950's ability to adjust volume on a per speaker basis.

Best,
Sanjay

Check out:

http://ubb.outlawaudio.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/000181.html



Except as Sanjay pointed out, for 7 channel stereo.



Denon receivers do this (among others), but the according to the above, the 950 does not.

Maybe if Scott is out there, he can confirm all this...

Kevin,

Re the rears & sides being run in parallel: I remember during the beta tests that fellow MC-12 owner Gene Lockaby found out that, when using the 5.1-channel analog bypass, two of the 950's outputs were silent (the rear outs, I think). But it would surprise me if this applied to a 5.1 signal that was input digitally. Likewise if you are using PL II without CES; all 7 speakers should be operating. Scott?

Meanwhile, is there anyone running the 950 in a 7.1 speaker set-up that can try this out?

Thanx,
Sanjay

If I was more motivated , you can actually try this on a 6.1 system too. Just configure for 7.1, and see if you can tell the difference between surround left and rear left.

But I know for a fact, that in "std" DD/DTS 5.1 modes, the rears are silent. You have to engage a CES mode before you get anything out of the rear(s).