are these speakers suitable for surround sound? I was just given a set and they sound good. I was thinking about just buying 4 more and making them my surrounds. Good idea?
If you like them, stick with them. I think those are bookshelves. If they are, then you would most likely need a powered sub to pick up the lack of bass.
The Polk R15, yes by all means add on 4x more for the surround array two for the back surround and two on each side wall and with using the pre-outputs on your AVR the split-stereo surrounds, and a few more affordable amplifiers and EQ's to balance the sound out using a SPL sound level meter and RTA to see the room response..
The Polk R15 frequency response is 65Hz to 20 KHz adding on more will extended the frequency response and range too lower and keeping in mind the 85dbA weighting max SPL in centre of the room, with around 111.5 db C weighting the lowest response maybe around 50Hz....
With slight problems below that but well worth the chance at least it will sound better than before trust me.
They reproduce bass, but not very deep bass. The speakers only go down to 65Hz, whereas the human ear can typically hear down to 20Hz. The lower the Hz, the deeper the bass. A lot of music and movies go well below 65Hz, therefore without a sub, you won't be hearing all of the recorded sounds. Even though the speaker goes to 65Hz, it also doesn't mean it's too clean. To truly hear and feel your music and movies, you need a good powered sub. A lot of people like the SVS subs. They are supposedly very deep and powerful for a very good price. I don't own one, so I can't really comment much more on it.
Forget about all the things Andy is saying for right now. Just try to connect everything together the right way first before you start screwing with all of the extras. It'll just confuse you more.
I guess you must be a former cinema projectionist as well, who cares, the guy wants to know yes wants to know add on 4x more David, make sure you calculate the speaker cable as well and you do the cinema approach or the Stu, approach clearly the guy knows a whole lot more than I do.
That's why I was invented Stu, so wear it out Stu wear it out.....
yes David, the R15s would be more than adequate for HT surrounds. The only time you'd want better surrounds would be if you were doing a lot of multichannel SACD/DVD-A music, if not there are much better ways to spend your money.
Go for them David 2+4=6 times more the fun and angle them downwards 15º at seating position two on the back wall and two for each side wall, just like the professional cinemas...
And if you use the pre-outputs going into a secondary Dolby processor with its outputs driving amplifiers and EQ's and with the low pass output on the Dolby processor send that to the sub bass with a level control on the low pass output to set the level as not to over power the whole, or curse what I call surround low bass audio masking.....
If he doesn't know about bass response, then I don't think he will really know what you're talking about (not a bad thing because neither does anyone else most of the time) with all of the other stuff. My point is keep it simple, then start tweaking as he becomes more knowledgable.
Simple hell no, do you think professional cinemas keep it simple, oh no go and install 6 full surround loudspeakers David, there will be no hitch what so ever, and think about it sound doubles for every loudspeaker you add by +3db and so on, but at certain frequencies there will be peaks that need EQ to give a flat response.
Now I say this and to every new person setting up a home cinema the idea of it is mostly about recreating the sound of your favourite cinema or something total different, with one purpose in mind spectacular sound presentation.
And if there is one word that I don't want to hear, that's word impossible
