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hi
was wanting your advice on best speaker set up.
Just bought a new amp as my last one blew. Went for the Sony STR-DN1040 (What hifi product of the year 2013) and using my existing BandW MT60 and M1 satellites for the surround (5.1) speakers.
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The amp is capable of 7.1 surround, and has one set of speaker terminals on the rear which is assignable to either surround back / bi-amp / front high / front B.
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I dont have any more M1 sattelites to connect but have a set of BandW 601 S2's like these
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in another room not really getting used and wanted to put them to use. I have connected them up and assigned the channel to front high, but wondering due to their size they would be better assigned to front B and use them for stereo only? will mismatched speakers cause any problems? also putting at the rear not really an option due to limited space unless I hid them under the sofa.
Ive also got a decent marantz stereo amp kicking about to so is bi-amping an option, but I must admit I dont really understand this.
cheers
I would have thought the 601's would be front A's with the satellites filling in the other positions. The front high, B's or rear would depend on your room layout and putting them under the sofa may as well not bother at all.
Very little is actually recorded in 7.1 sound ....
Or, at least, I have never heard it ...
I wouldn't bother with 7.1. Does your amp have multi room capability? You'd be better off setting them up in another room and utilising the multi room capability.
What craigxxl said, can you not wall mount the rears, or just bolt them to the sofa corners 🙂
601's as front A's, with the centre satellite where it ought to be, and the others at the back, then you set the amp up with L/R Front as Large Speakers, the rest as small, and switch effect off when listening to music, which leaves you with the 601's as a stereo pair.
something like that, which is how mine is set up, except I have satellites all round.
I have a similar set up to what you propose. I have some 5.1 kef eggs for tv / surround and some kef ls50's on output b on my pioneer amp for stereo music duties. A couple of times I have accidently put the amp to use output a & b when watching a film and the sound seems out of balance. Most of the vocals come from the centre 5.1 speaker but this is overpowered by the ls50's so although it may be loud overall the vocals are too quiet.
In short the kef eggs are amazing for tv and blu rays and the kef ls50's are reference level speakers that are amazing for stereo music but they don't match well together. You may be able to balance the system but I want the 2 sets of speakers to perform at their best for the intended purpose.
Hope that makes a bit of sense.
Andy