Surround Speaker Advice Needed

[witchdoctor]

I have an immersive home theater of Paradigm Speakers (5.2.4) and was wondering about mixing brands for my rear surround speakers. I am thinking about adding a pair of Klipsch R14-S as rear surround speakers or should I just stick with the paradigm brand and get the Paradigm Cinema 200? I need speakers I can mount on the wall. The Klipsch use something called Wide Dispersion Surround Technology for better surround coverage. The Klipsch are on sale for around $150 a pair, the Paradigm are almost $600 a pair. Which pair should I choose? Thanks

 

[MTB Vince]

Well I'm pretty OCD about this sort of thing. My belief being that when you are attempting to create a continuous sound field across an array of multiple speakers, they should be identical. And failing that, as nearly identical as practically possible. What we are attempting to do is to create a stereo soundstage between any adjacent pair of loudspeakers, whether they be our bed loudspeakers (LCR mains & surrounds) or the Atmos/DTS-X overheads. Imagine trying to achieve a decent stereo soundstage in a simple 2 channel setup with a mismatched pair of loudspeakers from two different companies. To that end with my similar 5.4.4 system, I use five identical ATC SCM20ASL Pro active loudspeakers at "ear level" and the overheads are the next closest model that could be practically ceiling mounted and offered nearly identical voicing- the SCM12i Pro.

So my advice is likely self evident at this point but here goes anyway. At a minimum I would stick with the same brand and ideally sister models in the same product family that have been identified by the manufacturer as being expressly voiced to work together.

 

[witchdoctor]

Thanks MTB Vince, good advice. My bed channels are Paradigm Active Studios and are matched. Active 40's for front L-R and for surround L-R. I was using a matching Active 40 for the center channel but happened to find the matching Active Center channel and it was designed for this set. I think I will stick with Paradigms. The space I have requires I use on wall speakers for my rear channels. The Paradigm Cinema 200 use the same tweeters as the Reference Studio line so the timber match is pretty good. I'm going to stick with the Paradigms, thanks.

 

[MTB Vince]

You are most welcome @witchdoctor and Happy New Year. A further related thought occurs to me. If your room layout and size is anything like mine (20.3x14x11), the additional surround pair may not be worthwhile. The photo I provided makes it look even less but in our room the rear wall is only 5' behind the MLP. As a result the single pair of stand mounted ATC surrounds, placed at Dolby's recommended 120 degrees (for 5.1 music), are also only five feet from a centrally positioned listener's ears. I too considered switching to 7.4.4 by trading out my stand-mounted active rears for two pair of ATC HTS11 wall mounted passive speakers- one pair on the rear wall and the second pair at 90 degrees on the sidewalls. But when I put some rational thought into the exercise, the wall mounted side + rear surround speaker alternative only slightly increased the listening distance to about 6.5 feet and 7 feet respectively. And the HTS11 wall mount loudspeakers sport inferior higher distortion non-SL drivers. If I had a significantly larger room the decision might have been different but in my particular case, fewer speakers proved to be the better choice.

 

[witchdoctor]

It's interesting that we both use active speakers. I already have the additional amp so I'll post when I get the additional speakers set up and let you know how it goes. Happy New Year!

 

[MTB Vince]

Best of luck with your install then @witchdoctor. As for active loudspeakers, I've been a big fan of that approach since owning my first pair, some gorgeous rosewood Meridian M3s, over 35 years ago! While my current professional studio variant ATC actives with their "nubbly" black painted finish are far from pretty, they are the best active's I've had home to-date. In fact at this point I can state that though their strengths are somewhat different, these would be tied with a pair of ARC monoblock powered Merlin VSMs for best sound I've had at home.

 

[witchdoctor]

I bought the Infinity RS152 surrounds to use as my rear surround channels in a 9.2.6 home theater. My primary speakers are all Paradigm and I did not have space to mount the matching book shelf speakers at the proper height for my rear surround channels. The matching surrounds to my reference speakers are Paradigm ADP and Atmos guidelines specifies not to use dipoles. I decided to try another option in another brand of speaker from Infinity that uses Hemispherical Soundfield Technology (HST) which is patented by Harman. The speaker has tweeters that are positioned to fire to the left and to the right. The 5 inch woofer is mounted on the BACK of the speaker and the mounting bracket positions it about 2 inches from the wall. My current rear surround speakers are Paradigm book shelfs mounted high up on the wall near the ceiling. This doesn't work because the sound bleeds into the height channels for Atmos and Auro 3D making a mish mash of what should be two distinct soundfields, a base layer and a height layer. After installing the speaker I was able to A/B the two setups by having a friend toggle back and forth. The RS 152's just envelop you like a donut. The technology radiates sound 180 degrees and having two of them is amazing. It is almost like having an additional phantom center channel behind you. In music replay it feels like you are sitting in a stereo sweet spot that is emanating from all around you when listening in immersive audio. With movies instead of the sensation that there is sound coming from behind you on the left, the right or together it is more like the entire rear wall becomes a speaker. My rear wall is also well treated which may contribute to the effect but WOW! The speakers are solid like a traditional bookshelf instead of a satellite speaker. They are about 8 inches deep so don't stick out from the wall like a book shelf would and mount easily with 2 wood screws. If I had paid full retail of around $450 I would call them a bargain. I got them on sale for about $150 which was a little scary, I was worried that the SQ wouldn't be there. Directional sounds are still pinpoint but music swells in soundtracks, and sounds like crashes, storms, etc, are like the entire back wall is a speaker, GREAT! I have tried monoploles and dipoles in the past. In the future I would feel fine using these speakers for all of my surround duties, even in a system where the front channels are much more expensive. The timber match was a non issue for my system.

 

[witchdoctor]

Here is a diagram of HST technology:

 

[Lampie519]

Bloomline Acoustics: inventors of Omniwave