# Need advice with rear speakers



## NYGuy7 (Jul 23, 2010)

Hi everyone. This is my first post and after Googling around I found this site. After reading though a few threads you guys definitely seem to have a lot of good ideas. I'm not sure how unique my situation is but here goes. In my old apartment my roommate and I had a sort of mismatched surround sound set up by combining our speakers and equipment. I moved out a few months back and with it took what was mine which was the plasma TV, a Panasonic receiver and my Bose 301 series 3 speakers. He had rear speakers. Where it gets tricky is I moved into a studio. So my placement options are somewhat limited as a result. I have the TV and speakers set up but my main problem was picking out a set of rear speakers. The problem is I can't really mount them on the wall behind the couch because there's closets back there. That also would make it hard to put brackets on the ceiling to mount speakers there too because it would obstruct the doors. What I had considered was finding a small pair that maybe came with stands and just placing them at the corners of the couch behind it so they wouldn't be in the way. I figure that's probably not the optimal place for surround speakers but if I lowered the volume on them they wouldn't overpower the front. Any recommendations?


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

Would your current speakers on stands get in the way? or do you not currently have surround speakers.

My parent have very little room behind their couch, so I just put surrounds on the floor pointing up and it actually works pretty well. You get a lot of reflected sound of the back wall, so it's definitely a more diffused sound.


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## NYGuy7 (Jul 23, 2010)

As of now I have no rear speakers or any type of stands. Just my front two speakers on book shelves,


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

I think stands with speakers on them is your best option. Do you have a budget in mind?


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## NYGuy7 (Jul 23, 2010)

tonyvdb said:


> I think stands with speakers on them is your best option. Do you have a budget in mind?


I didn't want to spend a lot. I figured there must been some relatively inexpensive good sounding small speakers that would work pretty well as the rear left and right.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Well many people say that for the money the Behringer 2030p are the best deal going. you would then just need some stands


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

From the OP's post, I'd day the Behringer are probably going to be too big. Can we get more info on what you're looking for. Budget/size? Maybe post a picture of your setup.

Would the Bose work as surround for you? I'd look to invest in a better front stage, 3 matching or paired speakers, before investing a lot in your surrounds.


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## NYGuy7 (Jul 23, 2010)

eugovector said:


> Would the Bose work as surround for you? I'd look to invest in a better front stage, 3 matching or paired speakers, before investing a lot in your surrounds.


You mean my current Bose 301s? No, they'd be too big for rear speakers. I think sound fine and they were used in my previous system as part of everything and thought they sounded fine. What about the Bose 161 speakers? They're about $160 a pair.

I can probably post a picture later on tonight.


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

A common opinion that I share is that Bose Speakers are radically under-engineered and over marketed resulting in a poor value proposition. In short, you could get performance equivalent to the 161s for much less money.

I think first, the size issue needs to be address, and before that, we need to decide what mounting option would work best for you. The 161s are 4x11x5...is this the size you are looking for? Will these be stand mounted? Do you have stands picked out yet?


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## NYGuy7 (Jul 23, 2010)

I saw a pair of stands on amazon for that were height adjustable for small speakers. The 161s were a little bigger than I wanted but they'd be doable. Something small like the cubed speakers you see from some systems would really be the ideal size. As far as price I'd rather not spend over $200 but again, I haven't really looked around that much so I'm not really sure what are good speakers.


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

Well, those little cube speakers aren't going to give you very high quality sound, but for your application, it's better than nothing. I'd certainly try to find a way to wall mount them though, no sense in spending more on stands than on the speakers.

Here's the 4" cube speaker, the same site has a slightly small 3" driver version: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=310-2008#windowcontent


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## Trick McKaha (Oct 7, 2009)

My recommendation is to have the surround speakers mounted on the two walls left and right of the sofa - not at the rear behind the sofa. I don't think the surround speakers need to be behind the listeners at all. Also, I'd recommend you get a center channel that matches or nearly matches your two main speakers, and also a subwoofer, before you get surround speakers. That is the order of importance or greatest benefit, in my judgment.


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## NYGuy7 (Jul 23, 2010)

Trick McKaha said:


> My recommendation is to have the surround speakers mounted on the two walls left and right of the sofa - not at the rear behind the sofa. I don't think the surround speakers need to be behind the listeners at all. Also, I'd recommend you get a center channel that matches or nearly matches your two main speakers, and also a subwoofer, before you get surround speakers. That is the order of importance or greatest benefit, in my judgment.


Unfortunately that wouldn't be an option to the sides since one wall has a doorway on it and the other wall is all the way in the kitchen. My place is just one big open space. It would probably be possible to mount them on the ceiling as long as they were small and light


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## Trick McKaha (Oct 7, 2009)

OK, no walls. My surround speakers are mounted next to the ceiling and I like them fine up there. But there's nothing wrong with speaker stands behind your sofa, either, though.


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## NYGuy7 (Jul 23, 2010)

Well I ended up going with the acoustimass speakers from Bose. I got them pretty cheap off of Craigslist and I think they sound really good.


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## antr (Jun 10, 2010)

recomendation is t ohave same brand at least preferable same spekaers on front and side/rear. you will be disappointet otherwise


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