Recommendation for surounds

[k7geek]

O.K., finally, after a miserably long 18 months riddled with delays due to work and my own inability to measure twice, cut once and a sacrificial tweeter (they don't seem to get along with a 3 foot fall onto concrete) I've completed the TMWW and WTMW mains and center. Re-tweaked the receiver and am impressed.

But...now the front stage sounds so much better than the surounds I have the urge to build more (evil evil addicting hobby :twisted: , got a Maelstrom-X sub project finishing up now to go along with everything else).

So, given that I'll just be running 5.1, what would be some recommendations for a decent match to the LCR set ?

Thanks

J

[Dennis H]

Which TMWW and WTMW?

[k7geek]

My bad...

The Dayton RS set

https://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15323

[Dennis H]

The Modula MT should be a pretty good match.

[DS-21]

I think people often put too much effort into the surrounds. I think the ideal is really just to take a decent sounding driver with good HF extension and a decent motor point it upwards for a semblance of omnidirectional radiation. Something like the Aura NS6 in a tube-shaped enclosure (Linkwitz Pluto-style) strikes me as a good fit for what's really needed in these channels. Maybe two per side if you insist on dipolar surrounds. (I seem to prefer omnis to dipoles for surrounds.)

I noticed no sonic improvement at all when I "upgraded" my surrounds in my old 7.1-channel system from KEF Q-Compacts (5.25" coax) to DIY speakers with 8" Tannoy dual concentric drivers (S) and Tannoy i8AW (S-back). Honestly, I'm not even sure I noticed a difference between the two setups. Note that I'm talking about listening to music and watching football. I'm not into special effects-laden movies. When the TV's on and there's no football to watch, it's usually tuned CNN, MSNBC, MHD, or Comedy Central.

Now, as LCR speakers the small Tannoys romp all over the baby KEFs, with far superior dynamics, better extension, cleaner mids, and a more precise soundstage. So it's not simply that they were comparable speakers.

(In both cases, they provided a greater sense of space and envelopment firing up as opposed to pointing towards the listening area.)