Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater 5.1 to 7.1 - Surrounds Question

I am torn between going for a 5.1 or just go for the 7.1.

Mostly music and movies usage with the occasional PS-3 shoot 'em ups for some socially acceptable stress relief. Room is 14 x 16 and I don't do loud volume.

I plan to use M22's as the fronts, a VP150 center and QS8's for the two surrounds. I have an existing active Velodyne 12" sub that provides more than enough thump for my tastes.

My goal is balance as opposed to raw volume capability.

My question is if I go the 7.1 route should I pair the 8's with QS4's for the rear duty.

Or should I do four QS-4's?

The question is how much room do you have behind the listening position to make use of the rear channels? Generally you need about 4' or more to really utilize the rear channels, if it is less then you could think about a rear channel QS8 otherwise the M2s are a popular choice.

The answer to your question lies in your room size, and where you are sitting in relationship to the back wall. From the dimensions you listed, 7.1 might be difficult.

I would keep the sides and rears the same. In that size of room I'm not sure how much benefit the rears will be though. My room is the same width and about 3 ft longer and I'm utilizing a 5.1 setup. If I had closer to 2500+ cu ft, I'd consider rears but really they need to be placed 3-4 ft behind your seating position to work best.

Why not go 5.1, try it out first, then if you feel you still want to try a 7.1 system, go ahead and order a couple more "Q's" afterwards?

Wow - thanks for the prompt replies!

I think I underestimated - the room is slightly larger - 16 wide by 19 long (screen is at one side of the length). There is about 3 - 4 feet in back of the couch.

It may be sage advice to go with the 5.1 first and rough in the wires for the extra rears while I'm in the crawlspace.



Can you clarify? You mean a single QS8, or a pair of M2's, even if there is less than 4 feet?

ps any tricks for fishing cable down an insultated (fiberglass)wall?

To echo what's already been said, the 5.1 vs 7.1 argument really boils down to the room size & dimensions. In oddly shaped, large, or rooms with weird acoustics, you can see a benefit in those extra rear channels from increased rear fill-in. But 14x16 is a pretty small room, as far as HT goes. That's not a problem - of course - I just don't think you really will need the extra fill-in that you get from the 6+7 speakers. Just calibrate & balance the 5.1 well, and you'll get that all-enveloping, smooth-transitioning sound that you're after.

My den is about 18x30. I've tinkered with setting up rear 6+7.1 channels in the past. It didn't do much for me. There just wasn't enough of a difference to really make me say, "oh wow!". I run 5.1 with the QS8's and am thrilled with the setup. The dimensionality and transparency of the QS speakers are simply stunning. Audio effects move seamlessly behind us and have an absurd amount of spaciousness and depth. So much so, it's sometimes creepy. We've heard people running around in the room upstairs, above the den. We've heard people talking in the yard behind the den. Fellow NFL fans screaming obscenities from the bathroom adjoining the den. Whispers from the other end of the couch. Cannons firing from all around the room. All thanks to those QS8's. Or the house is haunted.

My advice would be to start with a pair of QS8's now and see how that works for you. You can always add more channels later.

And actually, I *think* that I remember reading somewhere that the 6+7 channels in a 6/7.1 setup are supposed to be normal mono-directional speakers (M22's, M2's, M3's, etc) and not the omni-directional kind like the QS's. But maybe I'm mis-remembering that. Might want to check into that before (if/when) you ever do go 7.1

Good luck! And welcome to the Axiom owner nut-house.

My room is a little bigger than yours with a bit more room behind the couch. AND going from 5.1 to 7.1 was really a pretty subtle change for me. I like QS8's for the back, too. If your experience is like mine, the 5.1 setup with QS8's will be pretty darn satisfying.

Tom, you have to calibrate your speakers correctly. lol.

It is fair to point out there is a very, very small percentage of material that will actually give you distinct sound to 7 channels and of those titles on blu ray I've listened to the difference has been so subtle I wouldn’t' go to great lengths to do 7.1 for myself and I have a very similar room size to you. In larger rooms as already mentioned it can serve a purpose to help fill the sound out in the room, but for the point of hearing 7 distinct channels I don't think the source material has a high enough penetration right now to bother.

As far as fishing the wire, is your ceiling finished? Dry walled? Drop ceiling? Do you have access to it from an attic maybe? If you can get access it isn't to bad to fish down insulated walls if there is some sort of vapour barrier or something between the wall and insulation... if there isn't then it can get a little tricky... here's hoping you don't have any horizontal bracing on your walls or you're in big trouble

I actually pulled my baseboards off and fished from my baseboards up for my surrounds and ran my wires behind my baseboard. Or rather I fished from the hole I made, down to the baseboards.