If you have a decent sub and your crossover set correctly, your front speakers need be no bigger than your surrounds yet just about every one has bigger fronts?
I know mine are bigger because I had them first, before I started put my system together.
I think they should be about the same size, but what I have noticed over the years is that most of the hard core sound comes out the center channel, so maybe a top quality center is where its at as long as everything else matches and as long as you are look for seround sound. when I get a new center I am getting the best one in the diamond series.
And front speakers are the only ones that have the tower design right? to produce richer sound with a bigger cabnet? so maybe sometimes it may appear bigger than what it is. thats what she said
In a pure sense 5 or 7 identical speakers would be the way to go. Five Paradigm Studio 20 around would sound nice, if you don't mind your center standing upright.
In the very early days of Dolby Surround---sometime in the mid-to-late eighties---people started adding a couple of rear speakers. Since the matrixed analog rear signal was of a fairly narrow frequency spectrum, wide range low distortion/high dynamics speakers just weren't needed for the rear effects then. The front speakers remained the primary signal producers.
Even later, when Dolby Pro Logic required a center speaker, people a) didn't have any idea how important the center channel would become, and b) still had that stereo speaker mentality. After all, that's how one listened to music wasn't it?
thats interesting, a center standing upright, I wonder who thought of putting it horizontal, I mean I like it that way it has it`s benefits like placing it under or above the picture, and keeping close speaker alignment to fronts, but I gess it wouldn`t have to be horizontal.
It's all personal preference, and nothing more. I have towers for surrounds, and I even know a guy who uses 7 Identical towers in his 7.1 theater. (the center channel tower is behind the screen)
To produce the lower frequencies, you need a bigger box. I know a lot of people that use towers all the way around. I do not know of a full range speaker that is not a tower. Since 90% of the music information comes from the front channels, investing in towers up front is a logical solution. Also, base frequencies below 80Hz are omnidirectional so it does not matter where the bass is coming from, as long as some of the speakers in the room are able to produce them when not using a sub. Frequencies above 80Hz still are a struggle for smaller speakers and are directional so towers are an accepted solution.