Not a lot of money to spend...are DM303's okay for surround?

[corysmith01]

Hi-

I'm currently in the market for my surround speakers, the last piece to my audio puzzle (for the time being any way). My current set up is DM601 s3's for my fronts, an LCR 60 for center and an SVS PB10-ISD sub. I'm on a really fixed budget and was initially looking at getting some Athena AS-B1 surrounds...everything I've read has said that, as long as their good quality, pretty much any bookshelf will do for surround speakers as they only get about 10% of the information that your fronts/center do. The Athena's are $150 a pair...a bargain when considering the glowing reviews they get for a budget speaker. However, I am a little bugged by them not being B&W, so I started looking some. The cheapest I could find (in a bookshelf style) are the DM303's...and even then, they're $300, double the price of the Athena's. I'd be willing to do that, but want to make sure they'd suffice, not only for surround, but work well with my current set up. I've read a lot about the DM303 sounding significantly different from the 600 series...but then I also know that, based on them being surround, they won't get worked/driven as hard. Can anyone speak to this. The DM600 s3's would be out of my league for sure at $350 a pair...$300 for the DM's is going to be a massive stretch (not on me, but on the girlfriends threshold :B ). Can anyone help out with knowledge of these speakers...or, dare I say, suggest just sticking with the Athena purchase idea?

Thanks in advance.

[rick c]

First of all the surrounds are not as important as the front three.Second if you can stretch for the 303's forget about it and go for the 600s3's.Not much difference in price and you'll probably get a discount anyways.Or go to ebay or audiogon and look for a used pair.But deffinately go for the 600s3's.FWIW i have the 603s3 with the lcr600 center,my surrounds right now are from my old system a pair of def.tech. promonitor 100's.They'll do until i can get the 601s3's to replace them.

[PewterTA]

I was going to say, the 600s are like 300/pair, so the 303s should be even cheaper than that.

The Athena's will do well as surrounds, you are right that they are a good budget speaker. They don't image as well as B&W speakers, that's the only warning I can give you...but in the surround, it's not as much of an issue...

I'd say if money is that much of an object, get the Athena's and be done with it, you'll be happy with them and you won't have spent the money on the speakers, put that money into something else useful.

Plus Upgradeitis will hit at some point and you'll probably want to move away from the B&W 600 series... I know, upgradeitis is kicking in on me and it's killing me I can't afford the N802s that I want.

[corysmith01]

So true, so true. The 'itis is getting me already...I love bookshelves and I can't think of a sweeter speaker than the N805's....I love those! So yeah, if I eventually went with those, I'd be moving away from the 600 series anyway. Decisions, decisions.

[rick c]

Just so you know i beleive there is only a 50.00 difference per pair between the 303's and the 600s3's.150ea and 175 ea.

[PewterTA]

Good point rick!

Cory, with you already knowing you'd love to have the 805s, don't spend the money on the 600s unless you want to.

Go with the cheapest (get by) speakers you can find. Then once you get the money for the 805s, move your 601s to the surround, they will be much better in that position and will (honestly) match up decently with your 805s. But of course you will be easily able to tell how much better the 805s are!

[stantheman2]

a (somewhat) disenting opinion:

If your primary focus is 2-channel music, then I'd agree with most of other posts here...focus your $$ on the best stereo pair. However, if you listen mostly to DVDs, then my recommendation would be to get five speakers from the same manufacturer and model line - that will have the best timbre matching, and you will get the best re-creation of the surround sound field, whether movies or concert videos.

I started my HT with mix and match speakers, using an older but expensive pair of B&Ws as the front stereo pair. Over time, I moved to five B&W 600 series speakers, and I'm much happier with the overall sound. I might have given up a small increment in sound quality when listening in stereo, but all suround sound was much improved. With different speakers, I could tell I was listening to speakers. With five matching speakers, there is much more of a sense of the speakers "disappearing", leaving only the sounds.