Who makes inexpensive surrounds?

[glen]

I have SVS mains and will add an SVS sub and center over the next year.
Their surrounds are $399:
http://www.svsound.com/products-spks-sbs01.cfm#sss02
I am not convinced that the quality of the surround matters much at all.
I have the bookshelf mains which cost $199.
I just cannot see paying twice that for the surrounds.
Suggestions for cheaper alternatives to the SVS surround?
Has anyone used cheap surrounds and love it or regretted it?

 

[sdifox]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16882290203

120 a pair

 

[SithSolo1]

I have SVS mains and will add an SVS sub and center over the next year.
Their surrounds are $399:
http://www.svsound.com/products-spks-sbs01.cfm#sss02
I am not convinced that the quality of the surround matters much at all.
I have the bookshelf mains which cost $199.
I just cannot see paying twice that for the surrounds.
Suggestions for cheaper alternatives to the SVS surround?
Has anyone used cheap surrounds and love it or regretted it?

Couldn't you just get another set of the bookshelf speakers and use them as surrounds?

That said I would get a center, then a sub, and then surrounds in that order.

 

[vi edit]

Couldn't you just get another set of the bookshelf speakers and use them as surrounds?

That said I would get a center, then a sub, and then surrounds in that order.

I personally would get decent sub and then the others whenever I got the money. I'd take a full range quality, 2.1 system any day over a penny pinched 3.0 or 5.1 system. Especially when my mains are small bookshelfs.

As far as surround options, I like dipoles more than traditional speakers. A directional speaker is too..well...direct and and feels more processed than the more "misty" unfocused sound of a dipole. Plus dipoles are usually intended to be wall mounted and are a lower profile so they stick out less. So that's a nice plus too. They just blend in better than a bookshelf in my opinion.

I only spent $100 on my di-pole surrounds from the now dead "The Speaker Company" and I have no complaints. My mains are $1000 a piece Phase Technology speakers and they blend in just fine.

I'd scan around used equipment forums and look for a Emotiva ERD, TSC TSS, or a Rocket RS-Dipole for used values. Every now and then they'll pop up. The Emo or Rockets will be around $200-$250 and will be one of the last speakers you'll ever upgrade unless they mechanically fail to function.

 

[glen]

Surrounds should be bipole or dipole I believe.
If I used another set of bookshelf speakers, the sound would be too direct.
Herein lies one of the problems - bipoples have 2 times as many drivers and tend to be a whole lot more expensive.

 

[sdifox]

Surrounds should be bipole or dipole I believe.
If I used another set of bookshelf speakers, the sound would be too direct.
Herein lies one of the problems - bipoples have 2 times as many drivers and tend to be a whole lot more expensive.

You can use monopoles as surrounds.

 

[dpodblood]

In my experience bookshelf speakers do just fine as surround speakers as long as they are good quality and placed correctly. If you are set on dipoles take a look at Fluance. I don't have personal experience with them, but I have heard a lot of good things.

http://www.fluance.com/fluanbipsurs.html

 

[queequeg99]

I have SVS mains and will add an SVS sub and center over the next year.
Their surrounds are $399:
http://www.svsound.com/products-spks-sbs01.cfm#sss02
I am not convinced that the quality of the surround matters much at all.
I have the bookshelf mains which cost $199.
I just cannot see paying twice that for the surrounds.
Suggestions for cheaper alternatives to the SVS surround?
Has anyone used cheap surrounds and love it or regretted it?

One thing to consider is that if you get speakers outside that SVS family, they might not be (and probably won't be) timbre matched to the speakers you now have. How important is this? It depends. If you listen to multichannel music (SACD and DVD-A), this can be very important as you are concentrating on the audio only and most of these discs have been carefully mastered to take advantage of the multiple channels. Significant differences will show themselves readily.

If you use the surrounds solely for movies, timbre matching is most likely less important, and can be lessed even more by getting dipole/bipole speakers, which inherently put out a more diffuse sound (i.e. it can be harder for your ear to pick out the differences). Again, however, you might occassionally find yourself watching a movie where some sound engineer got a bug up his ass to really stress the surrounds (usually involving something flying around the sound stage), in which case the difference in timbre might easily become noticable.

Timbre matching is sort of an art rather than a science. Speaker designers tend to use similar (if not identical) drivers, similar crossover designs, and cabinet tuning within speaker lines. It's very possible to get a speaker made by another company that is complimentary to what you already have. But you'll have to do a little investigation. It might be helpful to ask around on a few other boards that are dedicated to speakers. With luck, someone else has gone through this exact chore with SVS speakers.

 

[glen]

One thing to consider is that if you get speakers outside that SVS family, they might not be (and probably won't be) timbre matched to the speakers you now have. How important is this? It depends. If you listen to multichannel music (SACD and DVD-A), this can be very important as you are concentrating on the audio only and most of these discs have been carefully mastered to take advantage of the multiple channels. Significant differences will show themselves readily.

If you use the surrounds solely for movies, timbre matching is most likely less important, and can be lessed even more by getting dipole/bipole speakers, which inherently put out a more diffuse sound (i.e. it can be harder for your ear to pick out the differences). Again, however, you might occassionally find yourself watching a movie where some sound engineer got a bug up his ass to really stress the surrounds (usually involving something flying around the sound stage), in which case the difference in timbre might easily become noticable.

Timbre matching is sort of an art rather than a science. Speaker designers tend to use similar (if not identical) drivers, similar crossover designs, and cabinet tuning within speaker lines. It's very possible to get a speaker made by another company that is complimentary to what you already have. But you'll have to do a little investigation. It might be helpful to ask around on a few other boards that are dedicated to speakers. With luck, someone else has gone through this exact chore with SVS speakers.

Yes. Good points.
I agree.
What about Audyssey? Shouldn't that more or less Timbre match the speakers electronically?

 

[vi edit]

What about Audyssey? Shouldn't that more or less Timbre match the speakers electronically?

No. Tibre matching is like taking two people with the same voice and sticking them next to each other. Audyssey EQ is taking two voices and leveling them out to the same volume and trying to calculate an even frequency response across the dynamic range.

Two very different feats. EQ can't make one speaker sound like another. You need similar hardware (tweeters in particular) to timbre match.

For movie based rear/side channel effects it's not incredibly important.

 

[gorb]

I have SVS mains and will add an SVS sub and center over the next year.
Their surrounds are $399:
http://www.svsound.com/products-spks-sbs01.cfm#sss02
I am not convinced that the quality of the surround matters much at all.
I have the bookshelf mains which cost $199.
I just cannot see paying twice that for the surrounds.
Suggestions for cheaper alternatives to the SVS surround?
Has anyone used cheap surrounds and love it or regretted it?

I use cheap bookshelf speakers that I got for $60/pr as my surrounds. They sound fine. You can always get the matching bookshelfs from svs as your surrounds but any decent speakers will work.

I understand your point about not wanting to pay double for surrounds but look at the speakers you're buying...the matching surrounds are basically twice the size with twice the number of drivers so it makes sense for them to be twice the cost

 

[BurnItDwn]

I have a pair of BIC Accoustech PL 66's for my rear channels.
http://www.bicamerica.com/showpage.php?brand=1&type=7&spkrID=96
I paid around $180-190 or so.

They are very efficient, and put out more SPL vs my mains in front. I have them in the back of my home theater, about 15 feet behind ear level of the 1st row, and they suit me very well. (my front speakers are about 8 feet in front of 1st row ear level)

They sound a bit brighter than my other speakers, but that's most likely due to the horn tweeter.

Overall, I'm very pleased with them.

In front I have a pair of older BIC RTR1530 speakers and a JBL EC35 center that I picked up a LONG time ago. And I have a BIC PL200 sub.

Eventually, I'd like to upgrade my center channel and my fronts, then maybe pick up a second sub, and eventually 2 more channels to complete a 7.1 setup (in a 10x27 room, so it makes sense in my case)