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!

how far apart will the rear speakers be, need more information.

Rust,

I was in the same boat as you and went with QS8's and couldn't be happier. Got mine off the auction and they are perfect & blemish free.

Mine are even mounted on the back wall due to limitations on my side walls!

Btw Rusty, your homepage link is killer, very nice...

Just a note, since my recent remodel and enclosing in my theater, my rear Qs8's are on the back wall, and the 2nd row seating couch is right up against it, so they are very close. All sounds great.

Rusty, welcome. The QS surrounds in particular have a much wider pattern of sound dispersion than standard bookshelf speakers and this is an advantage for most of the material which is played in the surround channels. This is especially important when the surrounds are relatively close to the listener(as will be your setup)and there's not much room for the sound from regular direct radiating bookshelf speakers to spread out.

As you describe your room, five feet up on the back wall about two feet behind you should be about ideal. If you can spread them wider than three feet from you do so, because even when they're mounted on the back wall, surround speakers in a 5.1 setup are still side surrounds and play the material from those channels, not the back surround channels. They should be spread as widely as possible. They should point directly forward, not at the listening position.

Thanks, didn't really have anything to put in there and thought why not a link to the list of my DVD/Bluray movies that I own.
And DVD Profier is a great software for keeping track of what you have.

Rustolem

Well the reason I was thinking about the bookshelf speakers was that I thought the sounds from the standard surrounds would be lost on the far and left and right sides, I didn't think about the sound reflecting on the walls.

Thanks

Here's another stupid question since these will be on the wall directly behind me do I choose the Surround or the Surround Back connections on my Yamaha RX-A3000?
Like I said stupid.

Thanks
Rustolem

PS: You have sold me on the QS8's after reading a few reviews as well.

Rust, I'd guess that the regular surround connections would work best. The surround back seems like an addition once you get the regular surrounds set up.

Oh, dude, don't worry about asking even the most basic questions--we've got a lot of helpful people here. This HT hobby can be maddening with all the technical stuff.

Fixed that for 'ya, Sean!

Wow, you think a lot of yourself if you think you even deserve a mention. Kidding!

Fight, Fight !!!

Rusty, as I pointed out in my previous reply, the surrounds in a 5.1 setup(no back surround speakers)are side surrounds and play material from those("Surround")channels. Surround Back can only be played if side surround and back surround speakers are both in use.

I use a combination of QS8's for the sides and M2's for the rears in my 7.1 set-up. I find they sound just fine together and couldn't tell you which speaker I prefer as a sourround, although when I do finally upgrade my entire system in--hopefully--5 years, I'll probably go with all QS8's. But with luck Axiom will have something bigger by then like QS10's to match my M80's and VP160.