Adding surround speakers

[sathyan]

I currently have a 3.1 channel setup (receiver is a 5.1 Onkyo AVR) and would like to upgrade to 5.1. The fronts/center are Wharfedale Diamond 8.2 and have a Wharfedale sub (the bookshelf monitors themselves go down to 45Hz). My intention was to buy 2 more 8.2's so I could have voice matching but they do not seem to be available anymore (it has been a few years).

I will be using the surrounds for:
1. SACD Multichannel (primary use)
2. DVD-Audio multichannel
3. DD/DTS movies

Can you recommend some bookshelf monitors that might go well with the other speakers?
Budget? Around $300 for a pair (somewhat flexible)
Room is 11 x 18 ft, carpeted. This is an apartment but no problem laying speaker wire on the floor.

 

[Anubis]

Holy SHIT im not the only person with Wharfedale

There are some internet stores selling the 8.2s IDK how reputable they are but they are worth looking into. other then that IDK simply because of the range on them, Getting something that goes as low as the 8.2s will be difficult without spending more then you want to.

 

[Patranus]

Go onto AVS forum and look at what the best currently available "remanufactured" store brand there is and buy that.

Many times you can get a sweet set of speakers made by a reputable manufacturer with an off brand label for significantly lower costs.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=89

 

[richardycc]

http://www.tsto.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=diamond+8.2.

I was able to get 3pr of Wharfedale diamond 8 dfs at WWE for ~$80/pr awhile ago. nice surrounds speakers. I almost got the OPUS 2 II, but got a pr of used Thiel CS2.4 instead.

 

[electroju]

Voice matching is OK to think about for today's systems. It is required for prologic type of AV receiver or surround sound processors because they have no way to equalized besides the sensitivity of each channel. Today's AV receivers and surround sound processors includes an independent parametric equalizer to help create a near flat frequency response compared to AV receivers in the past that does not include this type of equalizer. Since rear speakers have narrow frequency response, you can pick any small bookshelf or monitor speaker and it will still work.

You can go with Mirage OS3-SAT as your rear speakers. They are small and they can be placed anywhere. They have a directional and reflected type of sound, so they are like a dipole/bipole and a directional speaker in one. Some content may work better with reflected sound and others may work better for directional sound for the rears. You do not have to get this speaker for the rears. You can go with a traditional directional speaker for rears, but I think it looses ambiance that surround speakers should be producing. Directional speakers used for surrounds should be turned away the listening area and at a diffused material to scatter the sound in the room.

 

[CubanlB]

In my experience mirage my be an ok option for HT but for music listening they are pretty terrible. And they tend to be over priced.

Voice matching is still pretty important, Parametric EQ is great, but it can't work miracles. Unless you count the magnets in the speakers as miracles, then there is no helping you .

In my experience the is a pretty quick but accurate rundown of the mirage sats.
http://www.productwiki.com/mirage-os3-sat/

 

[electroju]

In my experience mirage my be an ok option for HT but for music listening they are pretty terrible. And they tend to be over priced.

Music is not meant to be used with surround sound. Two channels for music is just fine.

Voice matching is still pretty important, Parametric EQ is great, but it can't work miracles. Unless you count the magnets in the speakers as miracles, then there is no helping you .

Maybe for your preference that voice matching is important. To me it is not not. Setting up a surround system is a matter of preference. Since the original poster used the same brand for the fronts, the original poster could go with a different brand the surounds.Though I suggest when using different brands is go with pairs of speakers.

 

[CubanlB]

I will be using the surrounds for:
1. SACD Multichannel (primary use)
2. DVD-Audio multichannel
3. DD/DTS movies

SACD and DVD Audio are both surround sound MUSIC formats... (Up to 5.1, but depending on recording, many older classical recordings are 2 and 3 channel. Thriller SACD is 5ch with no sub track, lame) And depending on how you are connecting the sacd player you may have no bass management making full range rears that much more important.

And in a surround sound SACD recording the surrounds generally get full range and a bottom end of 70hz for the os sats just cant be EQ'd out. (What the rears get is up to the sound engineer that mixed the SACD) You can't make the speaker reproduce frequencies the driver can't reproduce.


My main point is that Mirage is almost never a good value at msrp for standard setups, not that they should never be bought. I had a pair of floor model OMD15s and sold them because I thought my cheaper Polk RTI8s sounder better and had better imaging. The omnipolar design is gimmiky unless you really can't get good speaker placement in your listening room.

But, just like most things in audio, this is just my opinion.

anyway, OP, if you get another pair of monitors, what are you going to run to the back of the room cabling wise?

 

[sathyan]

anyway, OP, if you get another pair of monitors, what are you going to run to the back of the room cabling wise?

I'm planning on making custom speaker cables with CAT-5 for the ~10m run. I have biwired cat-5 for my fronts, terminated with banana plugs. Probably, mono-wire for the rear channels.