Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Bookshelf vs Surrounds

Okay here's question.

I am the only person listening to my HT and my seating postion is dead center of the tv with my towers towed in towards me.

My surround or back speakers will be about 5 feet off the ground and on the wall right behind me about 3 feet from my head on either side.
Do the "Surrounds" produce a sound that the "Bookshelf" speakers can't?

I was planning on putting a swivel mount on the wall so that I can turn the speakers inward toward my seating position and down to matcht the towers.

I would be either using the QS8 or the M3's.


Thanks for reading and any responses

Rustolem

I don't own any surrounds. But from what I know about the Axiom surrounds, you would want them to be as even with the wall as possible. I say this because the lower and upper speakers would fire straight up and down and should sound off of the wall also. The tweeters just fire into the room at an angle, so I can't really comment on them much, other than you would probably hear the one pointed towards you well. If the center of the speakers were angled to point towards you, you may not get the benefit of the tweeters as much. (Just my thoughts.)

Rustolem, the QS8s will produce a more disperse sound which, in most cases, should be a bit more enveloping. Direct radiating speakers, like the M3s can work as surrounds too, but will be a bit more directional. If you plan on doing mostly multichannel music the M3s may work better for you. If it's mostly HT the QS8s may work better.

Preference and room acoustics may also sway the decision. The QS8s are pretty forgiving in terms of placement.

Yes they do, however the improvement you get will depend on speaker and seating placement, more so since you are planning to be the only one listening from the sweet spot. It would be easier to comment on your situation if you could post pictures or a diagram of your room. There may be options you haven’t considered yet.

I will be dead center of the tv, the wall behind is only about 2ft away and the speakers will be on that wall about 5ft up, if I recline all they back I can almost reach out and touch the bottom of each speaker.
And also I am the only person here, there will be nodboy to the left or right to hear the sound the surrounds may produce.
That's why I was thinking about bookshelf speakers so the sound is directed at only me.

Thanks

Do you have side walls, if your room is that small, I would not worry about rear speakers and just go 5.1. Is ceiling mounted a posiblity? If you don't have side walls, then I would widen the rear speakers as far as possible on the back wall and raise them up higher. A drawing or better description might help us. if you go 5.1 and still use the back wall, you still want to hook them up as side surroungs. Q's are better for surroung purposes.

i went from using polk tsi200 for sides and tsi100 for backs and went to 4 QS8v3; i have never been happier. at one point i had a pair of Q's for sides and a pair of M2v3's for backs but ultimately decided that the Q's were better for the back and went with another pair. the surround field from all of the speakers is many times larger than the direct speakers as they really couldn't produce a large field they just forced sound directly at you and you never had to wonder where the sound was coming from because of their directness. it's like someone just out of sight yelling your name, you look around for a second or so because you can't see them.

my vote is for QS8v3's all around or get 3 of them and go 6.1

No the back wall is the only place, no side walls and no on the ceiling, they will have to be in the same spot all my other surrounds have been/
The others I have had all sounded great, I just wanted to know if I needed to be using those "surrounds" considering where they are located or can I get by with just bookshelf's instead and also maybe save a few dollars.

I would strongly recomment the QS speakers. You want a diffuse soundfield for your surrounds.

Just for fun hook up the mains to your surround channels and unhook everything else. What you get is 'reflected' sound and assorted effects to put you in the middle of the sound field.

The lord of the rings, special eddition set has a really good section on how they built the layers of sound for the movie. It's very enightening.

Rust, I would recommend the QS-Series as well. Universally loved, they produce a wide soundfield that's important / helpful when the speakers can't be positioned perfectly or far enough away!