705s vs. 805s

[jayhawk75]

dealer says for rear surrounds price difference for 805 isnt worth it. any other opinions?

[dknightd]

My opinion is it is your money, so you should listen to both and decide.

If you have 800 series for front and center I'd seriously consider getting 805 for surrounds. Especially if you like listening to music recorded in five channels (where idealy you would have 5 identical speakers). Not only would the 805 better match your fronts sonically, but also visually. So I guess my opinion is if you have 800 series in front then you should have them all around if at all possible.

[Pez]

I have the same issue, currently have 804s/HTM3s for front three and will eventually upgrade my surrounds. I was thinking of going with either DS6's or DS7's as the DS8's are bit more than I can justify for surround speakers (my system use is almost entirely movies/tv). However I do strongly believe in matching speakers whenever possible. If money isnt an issue (which is rarely the case) match up and get the 805's. Otherwise I would say consider how they will be used and go from there. If music is more important matching would make sense.

[alpina]

i have gone with 705s for rears and will go with 804/htm3 for front.

if i went 805s, i would have done it all round with a htm3.

using an aws750 sub

julie

[Briz vegas]

I recently moved my old fronts (705) to the rear and slotted in a pair of 804s. As I have said elsewhere, for multichannel audio (DTS 90/24) I found that the tweeters on the 705 can tend to drawn attention to themselves in this setup. This may be partly because I have the surrounds fairly close to me (about a metre back from either side of the couch). I found that pointing the speakers away from the listening postion reduced this significantly. Otherwise the setup works well.

I should also say that the 705s at the rear are being driven by my Marantz 7300OSE receiver which is less than ideal for these revealing speakers. When I introduced a 2 channel power amp earlier this year (prior to the 804s) it significantly improved the treble on the 705. The power amp is now driving the 804s at the front.

[junior77blue]

For movies, I wouldn't think you 'need' matching speakers. It's nice to have but not a MUST. You could probably get away with a 600 series speaker for movies.

Now for 5 channel audio, same speaker or at the very least the same speaker class is a must.

[weijst]

For movies, I wouldn't think you 'need' matching speakers. It's nice to have but not a MUST. You could probably get away with a 600 series speaker for movies...

That's exactly what I'm planning on doing. I have a pair of 805S and I'm probably getting a pair of DM601 S3 or DS6 for my rears.

[htsteve]

Same Issue

jayhawk,

I had the same issue. I have N804 mains, HTM1 center and had older onwall B&W dipole speakers. We rearranged our room and the decision was to get bookshelfs for rears. I also was deciding between the 805 and 705. I did some research, talked to trusted sources. I decided that for rear channels, the 705 was fine. I was told that the current 705 is quite similar to the Nautilus 805 (last generation 805, not the 805S). I figured the N805 would have been the perfect match to the fronts. I have been very happy with them as rear speakers. I am mostly HT, so exact matching speakers for 5 channel music wasn't critical to me.

Hope this helps.

[Djas_Puhr]

Hey Jayhawk,

I've run N803 fronts with 603s3 surrounds for a couple of years and can't really complain for movies, but that's my opinion. To echo what dknightd wrote, you should listen to both and decide for yourself if it is worth the money.

Enjoy!

Mj