# 5.1 setup with back instead of surround speakers?



## Harry Muscle (Jul 3, 2007)

The place I will be moving into has a very open concept living room which is making placing speakers difficult. The front left, right, and center speakers are no problem, however, I'm unable to place the surround left speaker anywhere (it would either have to be in a hallway, in the kitchen, or about 30feet away on the wall), which means that surround speakers are out of the question. However, I can place back tower speakers (or bookshelf speakers on stands) no problem behind the main sofa.

So I'm wondering if this kind of a setup (where there are no surround, but only back speakers) makes any sense and is worth doing? When it comes to configuring things on the receiver, should I configure these as actual back speakers or should I just pretend these are surround speakers?

Thanks,
Harry


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## NBPk402 (Feb 21, 2012)

Harry Muscle said:


> The place I will be moving into has a very open concept living room which is making placing speakers difficult. The front left, right, and center speakers are no problem, however, I'm unable to place the surround left speaker anywhere (it would either have to be in a hallway, in the kitchen, or about 30feet away on the wall), which means that surround speakers are out of the question. However, I can place back tower speakers (or bookshelf speakers on stands) no problem behind the main sofa.
> 
> So I'm wondering if this kind of a setup (where there are no surround, but only back speakers) makes any sense and is worth doing? When it comes to configuring things on the receiver, should I configure these as actual back speakers or should I just pretend these are surround speakers?
> 
> ...


You can do surround speakers in the back too... If you do a 7.1 setup the sides will become the surrounds and the rears will become the rear surrounds. For 5.1 you can do them as side or rear. 

Will you be renting this home or will you own it? In my last house there was a support beam going across the ceiling separating the Family Room and Living Room... We put speakers up by the support beam and aimed them downward. We then used in ceiling speakers (that were in the Living room) for the 7.1 rears.


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## primetimeguy (Jun 3, 2006)

Harry Muscle said:


> The place I will be moving into has a very open concept living room which is making placing speakers difficult. The front left, right, and center speakers are no problem, however, I'm unable to place the surround left speaker anywhere (it would either have to be in a hallway, in the kitchen, or about 30feet away on the wall), which means that surround speakers are out of the question. However, I can place back tower speakers (or bookshelf speakers on stands) no problem behind the main sofa.
> 
> So I'm wondering if this kind of a setup (where there are no surround, but only back speakers) makes any sense and is worth doing? When it comes to configuring things on the receiver, should I configure these as actual back speakers or should I just pretend these are surround speakers?
> 
> ...


You will want to configure them as surround and not back.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Nothing wrong with putting the side surrounds in the back for a 5.1 system. But as said still use the "side back" not the rear back surround speaker outputs.


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