"HiFi" Speakers as surrounds?

[g3rrd]

Currently using a pair of ProAc Studio 110's on Target R1 Heavy stands with the intention of over the next six months putting together a half decent "HiFi" set up. As a stop gap I am using my mid eighties Sansui amp while I try and decide which 2nd hand amp to buy Sugden, Unison etc...

I was happy using this set up with the Ipad and streaming music lossless via Qobuz.

But after running the TV through the amp/speakers I have been impressed enough to be bitten by the possibilities of the Home Cinema route.

I know enough to recognise I need to match a same brand centre speaker with the ProAcs but the rest?

I am tempted to buy a set of ProAc Tablette 2000's I have seen advertised and use them as rears.

Is this a sensible option or are all surround speakers designed for a specific placements frequency/range/effect?

Also would any particular brand of AV amp be best suited to Proac?

[Arif110]

g3rrd said:

Currently using a pair of ProAc Studio 110's on Target R1 Heavy stands with the intention of over the next six months putting together a half decent "HiFi" set up. As a stop gap I am using my mid eighties Sansui amp while I try and decide which 2nd hand amp to buy Sugden, Unison etc...

I was happy using this set up with the Ipad and streaming music lossless via Qobuz.

But after running the TV through the amp/speakers I have been impressed enough to be bitten by the possibilities of the Home Cinema route.

I know enough to recognise I need to match a same brand centre speaker with the ProAcs but the rest?

I am tempted to buy a set of ProAc Tablette 2000's I have seen advertised and use them as rears.

Is this a sensible option or are all surround speakers designed for a specific placements frequency/range/effect?

Also would any particular brand of AV amp be best suited to Proac?

I'd say that unless you're a complete HiFi nut, AV amps these days will more than quell your needs for pure music output. I'm fussy enough about my music to have a Colorfly C4 with very decent Sennheiser headphones - & I'm very happy with my home cinema set-up when used for music alone.

Firstly, for music alone, I'd suggest excluding any surround speakers from the equation - stripping it down to a decent pair of Fronts, plus a subwoofer if your fronts can't go low enough on their own. You then set the amp to only output to the Fronts/Fronts-plus-sub.

Your Centre speaker doesn't at all need to be 'matched' with anything else/Fronts - they just need to be dedicated Centre speakers (speaker), & good for their purpose - primarily speech of course.

Rears/surrounds - the bottom line is that your satellite speakers need between them & the sub, to be able to render a decent/full frequency range.

Amp-matching wise - mainly look at RMS output relative to your speakers' capacity, & impedance.

I personally swear by Yamaha for AV amps, but Pioneer are also great & affordable, & I think there's little 'crap' out there.

I run an SVS subwoofer with Mission floor-stander Fronts, Marantz Centre, & KEF 'Egg' satellite rears. For music therefore, it's only the SVS & Missions in operation.

[Crackie]

g3rrd said:

Currently using a pair of ProAc Studio 110's on Target R1 Heavy stands, after running the TV through the amp/speakers I have been impressed enough to be bitten by the possibilities of the Home Cinema route.

I know enough to recognise I need to match a same brand centre speaker with the ProAcs but the rest?

I am tempted to buy a set of ProAc Tablette 2000's I have seen advertised and use them as rears.

Is this a sensible option or are all surround speakers designed for a specific placements frequency/range/effect?

Also would any particular brand of AV amp be best suited to Proac?

The Tablette 2000s will be fine as surrounds....great speaker and an easy 8 ohm load for a surround amp.

I wouldn't be too concerned about buying a matching ProAc centre though; Proacs are good but there is no magic at work to say is has to be the same manufacturer. The reason that matching speakers are often suggested, and advocated by many, is that speakers from the same speaker range usually employ the same materials for their drive unit's cones & domes throughout the range; this might be paper, various polymers, Kevlar, aluminium, carbon fibre etc. Consequently the speakers within a range usually have the same sonic 'signature' independent of their measured amplitude/frequency response. Because of this signature, it does make sense to choose a centre speaker which uses the same type of cone & dome materials as the Studio 110 to try and keep the L/C/R signature close.

Can't help too much on the amp question, sorry. I've used the same a Marantz at home for donkey's years but I don't know what's the best out there right now. I've used Pioneer at work in the past and we currently use Yamaha & Marantz; all good but imho the Yamaha is the best.

Good luck.

EDIT. Having read IforB's post below; the PMC OB1's woofers are made from doped paper and its midrange & SEAS tweeters both use treated cloth. The B&W's woofers are Kevlar and its tweeters are aluminium so you would expect the centre to sound different and have a difference dispersion characteristic to the fronts.

Edited by Crackie on Monday 6th January 08:22

[IforB]

I don't agree about not matching the centre with the rest of your fronts. I run PMC OB1i's as front left and right and when I had them paired up with my old B&W CMC centre, it was ok, but you really noticed the centre speaker and at times it just got all shrill. When i bit the bullet and replaced it with the match PMC CB6i centre, it transformed the front array. It's seamless now and the whole system sounds much better.

I still run my old B&W's as side and rear speakers (it's a 7.1 system) and they are starting to grate a bit. When I had the same speakers all round, even though they were no where near as good as my PMC's the overall effect was really good. A huge amount better than i thought it would be.

Whilst it's in no way essential, there is something to be said for matching speakers in a home cinema system. Or at least, there is in my experience.

[OldSkoolRS]

I totally agree with having exactly matching centre speakers if good cinema sound is your aim. I've been through various combinations of speakers over the years and my set up always sounded better when the front three were an exact match. The front soundstage is consistent and it doesn't change as sounds pan across the centre. Using a smaller centre sometimes results in that effect where dialogue is harder to hear unless turned up and then surround effects kick in and the listener has to grab the remote. Even the reverse isn't great as I found during one upgrade when I had the next model up for a centre compared to my left/rights. It sounded much better once I upgraded them as well (and worse than it had when I had all three cheaper, but matched, models).

Earlier this year I also got matching side surround speakers as well and found that this further improved the result as the sound travels along the two side walls and gives an image between the left/rights and side surrounds. It sounds like more than 5 speakers (or 7 in my case) are in use and often gives an effect of sounds outside the room too.

Since I've replaced my entire PMC set up with MK 150 series speakers I've had to do the same thing regarding matching fronts and (side) surrounds, so it's not something you want to demo unless you're prepared to commit to... I'm still saving up for another MP150 as a centre since I'm running a phantom centre at the moment and would also like another pair of S150T as surround backs, but even I can accept that it's less important to match these (I have older/cheaper MK K4 instead).

IMHO if you can't get an exact matching centre, it may well be better just to run a phantom centre set up especially if your seat is dead centre.

[Arif110]

g3rrd said:

Currently using a pair of ProAc Studio 110's on Target R1 Heavy stands with the intention of over the next six months putting together a half decent "HiFi" set up. As a stop gap I am using my mid eighties Sansui amp while I try and decide which 2nd hand amp to buy Sugden, Unison etc...

I was happy using this set up with the Ipad and streaming music lossless via Qobuz.

But after running the TV through the amp/speakers I have been impressed enough to be bitten by the possibilities of the Home Cinema route.

I know enough to recognise I need to match a same brand centre speaker with the ProAcs but the rest?

I am tempted to buy a set of ProAc Tablette 2000's I have seen advertised and use them as rears.

Is this a sensible option or are all surround speakers designed for a specific placements frequency/range/effect?

Also would any particular brand of AV amp be best suited to Proac?

I'd say that unless you're a complete HiFi nut, AV amps these days will more than quell your needs for pure music output. I'm fussy enough about my music to have a Colorfly C4 with very decent Sennheiser headphones - & I'm very happy with my home cinema set-up when used for music alone.

Firstly, for music alone, I'd suggest excluding any surround speakers from the equation - stripping it down to a decent pair of Fronts, plus a subwoofer if your fronts can't go low enough on their own. You then set the amp to only output to the Fronts/Fronts-plus-sub.

Your Centre speaker doesn't at all need to be 'matched' with anything else/Fronts - they just need to be dedicated Centre speakers (speaker), & good for their purpose - primarily speech of course.

Rears/surrounds - the bottom line is that your satellite speakers need between them & the sub, to be able to render a decent/full frequency range.

Amp-matching wise - mainly look at RMS output relative to your speakers' capacity, & impedance.

I personally swear by Yamaha for AV amps, but Pioneer are also great & affordable, & I think there's little 'crap' out there.

I run an SVS subwoofer with Mission floor-stander Fronts, Marantz Centre, & KEF 'Egg' satellite rears. For music therefore, it's only the SVS & Missions in operation.

[g3rrd]

Thanks for the info fella's. Now to keep a look out in all the usual HiFi classifieds for ProAc Centre speakers. Saying that the online search could be on hold as cancelled my TV/broadband and phone hoping for a better deal and they've not played the game. So as of Tuesday 7th I'm offline for a couple of weeks

PS Arif110 I appreciate the Stereo approach