Hi everyone, new to the site and I imagine this has been asked before but I am just about to buy an Epic 60 system and trying to decide if 7.1 is worth it in the end. My new receiver is 7.1 but am trying to decide if I will be able to tell the difference.....it is more a question around the speakers taking up extra home in the living room versus benefits. Other question - I love the look of the Boston Cherry but it wont match with the current furniture (can you hear my wife in the background ) do the Black Oak look as impressive.

Thanks in advance

Welcome to the forum!

7.1 works very well if you have the room behind the seating area, say 4ft or more for the speakers to really work right or a weird corner situation as I had in my old house where the Left side surround was in front of the one side couch adding the rear channel helped fill the void that was in the corner where you entered the room.

Many find 5.1 is all they really need as the rear channels do not receive much information but the new HD audio formats on BR make more use of the rear channels.

IMO, it really comes down to the room and the willingness to purchase extra speakers.

I think the Black Oak does not look impressive but it does blend in to the room decor easier.

Here's where I speak up and say, that I find 7.1 makes a huge difference. But as pointed out, my rear wall is 7 behind me, and my surrounds are directly to the sides. So indeed the rears make the sound field more complete.

As for discrete 7.1 content, that isn't so needed. With Dolby Prologic IIx, and DTS NEO:6 the extra, rear channels can be very convincingly created from the surround. My channels 6 & 7 are always active with some amount of sound.

Thanks Jay and Chris for your replies, issue I have - the rear QS8 will be directly behind the lounge - 2ft at most and the sides at 4-5ft. So it probably won't work. Thanks Jody

Jody, welcome. Yes, with so little space behind you for a rear sound field to develop, a 7.1 setup likely wouldn't be of significant benefit. One step that should help a bit is to position the QS8 side surrounds a foot or two farther back than directly to the side, so that a little phantom back effect can be created.

I just bought some M3's in black oak, and I'm impressed how good they look. Much better than the pictures here.

You could try 1 or 2 QS8s as they would spread the sound out a little, like a direct radiator mounted farther away, if you really want to try 7.1.

Here's another idea, use 5.1, then you can use the surround backs as zone 2 in stereo mode in a different room, or for a different set of speakers for some variety.

Finishes like Boston Cherry or High Gloss Cherry are 'WOW' finishes. When someone walks into the room, they are immediatelly noticed and drooled over. The Black Oak finish won't have any of your guests falling all over themselves when they see them. However, that isn't to say that they look cheap or of low quality in any way, shape or form. All of the Axiom finishes are in my opinion very well made and flawlessly applied to the speaker itself.

I purchased all of my Axiom speakers from the Factory Outlet and had whole heartedly expected a subprime finish to arrive at my door step. No such thing occured. When I opened each box and inspected the speaker inside of it, they all exceeded my wildest expectations. I could not find a seam, blemish, nick, scratch, dent or any other sort of mistake what so ever. Axiom may not design their speakers to be particularly flashy, but the finish is top notch.

So rest assured, no matter which finish you choose, you will have a collection of speakers living in your HT that look every bit as high-end as they sound.

Blu ray may allow for 7 channels... but very few titles have it. That isn't to say 7 speakers in a good sized room wouldn't benifit from the two extra speakers, but don't add those channels with the expectations of hearing a lot of discrete sound coming from them... yet

This site is pretty great for statistics:

http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/TechStats.php

It shows of the 1935 blu ray titles with a known audio type, 135 of them have 7.1 audio. I've gone through that list and there are countless titles in that list I've never heard of.

It's hard to grow a BD collection while they all cost $20 - $30 bucks a pop. I have no problem picking up an unknown DVD title for $3 or $4 dollars down at Hastings just for kicks. But if I'm shelling out $25 clams, it better be a movie I'm going to like well enough to watch over and over through the years.

Has Columbia House started a '12 Blu-Rays for a penny' deal yet?

Most of my BD cost $10-12, and a few at $19 from Walmart.

New releases Randy?

Wow, guess I'll have to start making the trek! Ever since moving in with my Fianceé I rarely go to Walmart because she lives right by Meijers. And for the most part Meijers is very comparable to Walmart.

But I've rarely seen a BD movie cost less than $20 dollars there. Even the obscure titles.

Micah have you tried Amazon.com yet? I noticed they had a quite a lot of BR stuff for under 20 bucks.

I don't buy new releases, I rent those. If something is worth watching again I'll put it on my Amazon wishlist. Every so often I sort it by price, and pick off the low hanging fruit. I already have over 100 BDs, and haven't paid over $20 for most of them.

Thanks for the link roar nice site.

Blu-ray.com also has a Deals page which keeps track of prices at Amazon allowing you to sort them.

Wow Hardrock, the font on my Blackberry makes the 'r' in your name that comes after the 'd' look a little like a 'c'. Made me wonder for a second how you made it through the site filters.

It also made me wanna scoot a lil further away from you!

Netflix my friend! It's how i get to watch all them blu-rays. And if you time the returns correctly, you get to watch new releases on release week, else they can go into "wait" mode.
I only purchase blu-rays when i know the audio is good, and something to show off them Axioms.

Even new releases are usually under $20 if you wait a week, then shop around.