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Thread: Speaker issues - advice welcome |
    
New member Username: Moldyegg
Post Number: 1
Registered: Sep-05
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| Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 06:41 pm: |
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I have a tricky situation and thought someone here might be able to
advise me.
I have 2 good, medium speakers. 2 small, bad speakers. One good looking
13x15 living room which is arranged in such a way that the front
speakers (next to the screen) cannot possibly fit in a respectable way.
There are antiques, paintings on the walls, it's pristine, and my
medium speakers just don't fit there at all. The bad speakers fit, but
they are $50 Sonys. Aesthetically I'd rather have no speakers there at
all. I can't rearrange the room. I keep the screen in the closet and
pop it up when I want to watch a movie. All electronics are hidden,
other than electric lights.
The center channel sits atop a molding and is pretty well hidden. The
subwoofer is also hidden. The receiver is a decent 5.1 capable
Sherwood.
These are my potential solutions, any comments welcome:
1. Use the Sonys as front speakers that make the room a bit uglier, and
good rear speakers. This actually sounds fine for home theater but
really hurts me when I listen to CDs, which play out of the front (bad)
speakers instead of the rear (good and larger) speakers.
2. Use the good speakers only, with a center channel and subwoofer. Set
the receiver to "no rear speakers." The good speakers in their
current position would be set as "front" but would actually be
about 12" behind and 3' to either side of my gal and I as we
watched movies. Aesthetically, this is the ideal solution and it's
also the best for CDs, but would I be ruining my audio experience?
3. Buy new, small, but high quality front speakers. These would have to
be quite small to disappear like the center speaker does (about 6"
high). I'd be willing to spend the money, but if I did, my CDs would
play out of the little speakers instead of my beautiful big speakers
that only fit in the back of the room. Could I possibly get small
speakers that would deliver good CD sound? Or, is there a way to toggle
between front and rear speakers, where CDs would use the transpose the
front and rear sets?
Thanks for any advice or opinions you can give. |
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Gold Member Username: Dmwiley
Post Number: 1009
Registered: Feb-05
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| Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 07:49 pm: |
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Your first decision is to determine what is more important, sound or cosmetics, assuming with your current equipment you can't have the best of both. |
Bronze Member Username: Em69
Ottawa
Canada
Post Number: 25
Registered: Mar-05
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| Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 10:39 pm: |
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Why can't you replace your Sonys with decent small speaker for HT, but use your big speakers to listen to music. |
Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucks
Post Number: 2277
Registered: Jan-05
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| Posted on Saturday, September 03, 2005 - 01:16 am: |
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I agree with dale......
That's something that only he can decide. If he wanted my opinion, I'd suggest selling the antiques to make room for bigger speakers But hey, it's his living room, so he's going to have to deal with it himself. |
New member Username: Moldyegg
Post Number: 2
Registered: Sep-05
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| Posted on Monday, September 05, 2005 - 12:52 pm: |
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Em69 - I could replace my sonys with good speakers for HT and use my big speakers to listen to music - if I could figure out how. With my big speakers in the rear channels, CDs play out of the front channels - where the small speakers are. I don't know of any way to switch them based on whether you're listening to a CD or a DVD. I might build a manual switch that would transpose the front and rear speakers - I'd have to figure out how to do it first, though. |
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