Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater best speaker type for rear channel of 7.1

i'm working on putting together a new 7.1 speaker system.
here's where i'm at thusfar:

• mains - m22s on fms16 stands
• center - vp150
• sides - qs8
• sub - svs 20-39 pc+

all that's left is to decide on what speaker to use for the rear channels. is it be better to use a multipole speaker like another qs8 or a direct speaker like another m22 (maybe qs4 vs. m2 for cost savings)?

the primary listening position is about 4' from the back wall.

cheers.

It's not so much as which is better as some find the rear surrounds to be better if they are direct radiating, M2's or M22's, while others like the diffuse sound of the QS8s. It is a question of which will you like better and only you can find this out.

IMO, if the listener is far away, say about the same distance or more from the mains, then direct radiating would work better. As you are not far from the rear channels I would think more QS8s would work very well. I have a 6.1 system and have a QS8 for the rear channel and it really spreads the sound around filling out the center rear between the side surrounds.

My non-technical view is that personally, I'll be reactivating an old set of direct radiating speakers as rears to compliment my QS8 sides. QS8 would not be a bad choice for rears but I personally don't think the nice enveloping effect that they produce is as necessary for rears. Not as much will go to that channel and what does go there will be distinctly intend to be interpreted as behind you, anyways.

I'm not sure if that last sentence makes sense but I'm struggling to word it differently.

Murph, you still get the sound from behind you, it is just not located in one spot like a direct radiating speaker, the QS's tend to blend with the sides a little more and you would be surprised at how much actually comes through them, especially with action movies. I do think that direct radiating designs have more impact for some scenes like bullets and such, but when the scene moves to a more generalized sound the direct radiating design doesn't do as well as the QS's.


Another perspective I have is that if you are going 6.1, like I have, the QS8 is the only way to go. I tried a direct radiating speaker and the rear channel was just too locateable and left a hole between the side surrounds, I would guess the 7.1 set up would eliminate this hole I was sensing.

I originally was using direct radiating speakers as my rears then switched over to QS4s, my side surrounds are QS8s and I prefer the more enveloping sound of the Q's all around.

Homedad

It seems to me that medium to large sized rooms would benefit from having QS's. However, a small or narrow room would benefit from having direct radiating rears. In order to justify having rears at all one probably needs at least 4-6 feet from the seating position to the back wall though.

How large is your room? How far is the sweet spot from the back wall?

- Nick

My rear speakers are about 7 to 8 feet behind my listening position with no back wall to speak of, the entire room is over 1000 sq ft. If I had a narrow walled in space perhaps direct radiating speakers would work just as well.
With the new 7.1 sound formats on several Blu-ray movies out now, if you have the room rear speakers Imo will be more than justified.

I know Mojo and I want to try my M22s in place of his rear QS8s to see what the difference is in his large room. I know the sound is very enveloping right now, but lacks some punch for some of the more impactful scenes. The problem is getting time to take down the QS's and install the M22s.