Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Best place to use crappy speakers ?

So... I weakened a couple of days ago and picked up an HK AVR receiver, so I'm slowly moving into the 20th century. Currently running the M60s as mains and M2s as surrounds; no center (yet) but if I tell the HK there is no center it seems to route the center channel info to the mains just fine -- dialog is very clear and well centered. QS8s and VP100 are probably next on the list but the "toy budget" is maxed out for a while.

And from there comes the problem. This home theater thing is all a terrible mistake; I just wanted to buy a couple of M2s to have a nice little stereo system upstairs. They just sounded really good and one thing sort of led to another...

There seem to be two options -- put the M2s upstairs with the stereo receiver and use my crappy old speakers as surrounds, or keep the M2s as surrounds and put the crappy speakers upstairs. I don't really want the crappy speakers upstairs (I do >50% of my listening there) but not sure how much different it's going to make if my mains and surrounds are so different.

The other speakers are your typical "shopping mall stereo store specials" -- 2 way 10"/1.5", ported, tower, kinda boomy, no real deep bass, a bit thin in the midrange, not all that bad really but not what you would call "good speakers".

Any thoughts on mixing these speakers (M60s + cheapos) ? I promise it will be temporary

Thanks,
JB

Use the cheapos as surround. No reason to torment yourself with bad sounding music!

I agree... for testing purposes, I used an old set of Sears woodgrain cabinets, circa 1977 as surrounds for about a week (well, not entirely true, I had replaced the drivers with 2-way poly cones when I was about 16 or so)... and they did... not so badly, considering they were a "hey, dad... still got your old stereo speakers" acquisition.

Bren R.

Hi,
I agree. Use the crappy speakers as surrounds temporarily. They won't be too offensive in that role, although you may notice that as you become accustomed to music reproduction free of coloration, you will start to get increasingly critical of bad speakers no matter where you hear them.

Back in the early '80s I was experimenting with surround and I put a freebie Bose powered speaker in the center (surround receivers and processors back then lacked a center channel amp so the Bose was convenient). I tolerated it for about 2 weeks but had to remove it. It was fairly awful on dialog compared to the neutral Canadian brands I had as mains.

Regards,

As you said you do >50% for listening upstair, then why put your ears to a crappy speaker if you can put M2 upstair. You'll frustrate if you use your crappy speaker since you've tasted the 'wonder' of M2.

Though surround is part of HT, yet the M60 could give you most as this is the logical and most beneficial approach until you save yourself a pair of QS8 and VP100.

I agree with all the gentlemen - place your M2 upstair.

Thanks, everyone. I guess I'll be hauling speakers up and down the stairs this evening...

Now that I have heard 5.1 with good speakers (most of my friends spend $4000 on video + $400 on audio) I'm starting to think this home theater thing might have some promise. I had listened to a bunch of friends HT systems but never heard anything that made me think it was worth the money.

Turn it around, spend $3000 on the audio and $300 on the video, and this is starting to show some potential

JB

Ahhhhhh. Much better. Everything is where it belongs.

Crappy speakers are in the surround position, and not sounding too bad as long as I don't run much content through them. M2s are back upstairs, in a smaller room, hooked up to the HK 3270 receiver and sounding mighty fine.

Q - How do you know you have good surrounds ?
A - Neo-6 and Logic-7 sound better than Pro-Logic II Music

Q - How do you know you have crappy surrounds ?
A - Pro-Logic II Music sounds better than Neo-6 and Logic-7