Shall i bother with rear speakers?

[Tiggsy]

My current amp is an all in one Sony with rear speakers. I am about to get an LG 60ps8000 plasma and run the sound through an Onkyo TX-SR507 (mainly because i like the idea of running the 360, ps3, sky HD, etc into the amp then a single HDMI feed to the TV a couple of meters away)

My seating is L shaped and the room isnt a simple square either....we also have 4 kids so (with 6 people) its very hard to set up the rear speakers for everyone - i found the sony ones just distracting...im sure in a proper "tv room" where you are dead centre of them all it owuld be ok.

So - new amp, new speakers.....shall i just get floorstanding fronts, a center and a sub and not bother with rears or am i really missing a trick doing that? What about a sound bar?

[WeirdNeville]

I would go for rears as well - with such nice other kit you'd be missing a trick not to.
MIssion do some nice "on wall" speakers that aren't an eyesore and don't need stands.

Re set up, you're never going to get it perfect if everyones around the edge of the room. ONe thing to try is to lower the rear volume (it's often too high for the "wow" effect) so that they add ambience and do the once or twice a film fly-by effect without distorting the sound field the rest of the time.

[hairyben]

Few real life cinema/lounge setups are perfect, just not normally possible within practicality constraints.

I'd try backing the rear level off a bit, just get a bit of ambience without being a diversion.

[OldSkoolRS]

Try to get surround speakers that are bipole/dipole/tripole: They make the effects more diffuse and really help with positioning in that they sound less 'obvious'. I picked up some end of line M&K K4 tripole surrounds that I use in my conservatory setup (they are quite close to the sofa, yet work well enough). There are other makes such as Mission 77DS bipoles (discontinued long ago but do turn up occasionally secondhand) that hang on the wall. Putting them higher up may also help give a more diffuse effect, plus resisting the temptation to turn them up to hear them working all the time: Many films don't use the surrounds alot of the time, even at the cinema you'll often find the mix is predomenantly from the front.

[Tiggsy]

ok, sold!