Speaker mix for HT

Paulpt

Active Member
To the home theater experts:

How important (or not) is to have the same speaker type (or brand or model series) for a home theater setup.

My question is because, I have a pair of BW 685 that I plan to use as back surround and a pair of Infinity Crescendo (for the front) and probably will get a BW for center channel.

No idea what or if I will get a sub woofer (honestly I am not a big fan of them and the Infinity delivers enough bass for me). Will this be a reasonable setup or the rule of thumb is using all the same series (for example get a pair of floor standing BW;s 683 or 684) ?. - Thanks

P.
 
The main issue is sensitivity. Mains that play much louder than rears can create a problem if you cannot turn them down enough to get the surround sound balanced. Same deal with a center channel speaker.

Action movies are much more fun with a sub, imo. Like the cannon fire in the beginning of Master and Commander.

Murray
 
Timber matching I think will be a more common problem than sensitivity. Sensitivity issues aren't unheard of, but generally you have at least 24dB of adjustment to play with in the receiver/processor itself, and the surrounds are often closer which increases their apparent (effective?) sensitivity. Or, perhaps better, reduces the effective/apparent sensitivity of the main speakers.
 
Front left front right and centre should be same series or at least same brand as most of the fine detail comes from them. Rears and sub should be at least similar quality but don't need to be just as good as they primarily fill. I would however ensure that the sub is reasonable quality.
 
Thanks for all the responses. As I am not aware I can get a center for the Infinity Crescendo I may have to sell them and get all BW. Anyone interested?
Unless anyone knows of a matching center speaker for the CS3007
 
I'm really not familiar with Infinity Crescendo but Infinity does market new cntr chnl speakers under the Primus line. Relatively inexpensive so check it out.

While it would be cool to have a "timbre matched" speaker, it isn't absolutely necessary. Dome tweeter mains/dome tweeter center should work. 99% of what comes out of a cntr chnl is just dialog with little dialog from the mains. Something to think about and maybe worth a try. $150-$200.

Murray
 
Thanks Skippy.

I believe the CS is a series that infinity manufactured for circuit city many years ago and it has some components from the Kappa series (I believe) Emit tweeter, etc. Actually they are excellent speakers. I am going to check on ebay to see if there is anything close to them (or maybe they did make a center channel for this series)

If you search on yahoo you will find pics.
Thanks again.
 
I'm really not familiar with Infinity Crescendo but Infinity does market new cntr chnl speakers under the Primus line. Relatively inexpensive so check it out.

While it would be cool to have a "timbre matched" speaker, it isn't absolutely necessary. Dome tweeter mains/dome tweeter center should work. 99% of what comes out of a cntr chnl is just dialog with little dialog from the mains. Something to think about and maybe worth a try. $150-$200.

Murray

I disagree. Dissimilar makes for discontinuity on any pans across the front.

Course it depends on what you accept as necessary/important. Some have higher expectations for HT than others.
 
Last edited:
It depends on what one's goal is. Perhaps not the optimum but it will get the job done. BTW, mine are Polk Lsi9 mains with LSiC center.

Murray
 
There's an Infinity Crescendo CS center speaker on eBay now (not mine). It's a Buy-It-Now; hurry! I'd go for that, since it has the same Emit-R tweeter, and polygraph mid-woofers, that would match your existing Infinity's. And I'm another home theater user that believes in timbre matching too, as such, match at least the front 3 speakers. :yes:

Also, when I set up my 1st home theater, I bought NHT speakers that used the same tweeters and woofers in all 5 speakers. This made for a very cohesive listening experience with both movies and music! Especially with multichannel SACD. The system produced a sonic bubble of sound, music bloomed into the room, with no localization of sound coming from the speakers! I really need to set up that system again! :scratch2:

Good luck!
 
Back
Top Bottom