I know it is an overkill, but I found Athena AS F2 speakers on a very tempting sale, so I got them (as I have the same pair as my fronts already, and I love them).
Now the question is: Till I setup a new audio system for my bedroom (where I will be using these speakers) I will hook them up as my rears in my current family-room HomeTheater setup. (I already have a pair of al-cheapo speakers hooked as rears,so I am gonna replace them with tose high-end speakers)...
Will they sound very good, consideringthat they are not gonna be mounted or elevated or anything (though they are high enough to align with your ears when sitting). Will this setup work? Will they sound good, or maybe better to get less expensive bookshelf speakers and use them as my rears?
I am not taking about price, I am talking about perfrmance, specially concerning 3D imaging and sound stage blah blah
I presume when you are watching DVD's and listening to surround music you are generally sitting. They should be very well aligned at your hearing level. Although I would think the only reason to buy full range tower speakers for the rear is to not use a subwoofer. It strikes me as rather pointless to buy rear towers if they don't go deep enough to forego using a subwoofer. My attitude is the same for front speakers, unless you listen to stereo also on your fronts and don't mind if they don't give the deepest bass sounds.
That said, even if you use a subwoofer and crossover on the rear tower surrounds there is no loss--except in money spent on towers.
Oh yes it will work, if you have the room. Is this a big room? What kind of amp/receiver?
The problem is you may spoil yourself because of the full-bandwidth your nice F2 rears will reproduce. Specially on DTS recordings. You may not like small speakers once you have enjoyed the F2's back there. If you say your F2s are at ear height that will be wonderful for music. For movies you might like to adjust their position slightly depending on what school of thought you follow. Some like direct radiating speakers firing into the room from behind or rear corners (I prefer that). Others prefer side firing surrounds over the listener's head (sometimes dipole). Still others will toe-out or toe-in their large rears to create some diffusion and change the early reflections that hit the ear for more ambience. I have both rear towers and side overhead dipoles and switch to the side overheads when I want a real ambient feel with less impact. I use them for about 10% of movies and almost always prefer the rear towers for everything.
Athena has some info on using F2s as rears in their create a system flash http://www.athenaspeakers.com/create.htm
Many believe that all 5, 6, or 7 speakers should be identical including the center. That way the surround sound, timbre, voice, effects, are seamless as they move around the room. Many people however, cannot make room or budget for 5+ full size speakers and have gone to micro sat/sub or bookshelves. (which cans still be excellent)
I use towers for my rears that are the exact same drivers as my front mains. (medium-large room) If you listen to well produced surround music, movies with lots of information in the rears, and like higher volumes, you are going to LOVE having identical speakers for your rears. Get F2s for center and rear center and you would have a really sick setup. The AS-C1 would also make a superb center (and rear-center for 6.1)
There is a hi-fi shop near me that has two very nice AV rooms. One is DefTech bipolar towers all the way around, and the other is Magnapan's all the way around. Simply awesome sound that cannot be pointed at if you were blindfolded. You get lost since they are so seamless. For tremendous impact on movies and music, you must give this setup a good listen before you switch to bookshelves. Then borrow some bookshelves and do a side by side comparison to make your final decision.
Gemini
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Thanks a lot guys for the info..
NC AV Man, yes I do have a AS-C1 center. I tried many speakers, but the athena line is what turns me on
The room is medium to large, and the receiver is Yamah HTR5650.
Thanks for giving the link from the athena website. I believe I will setup my rears as shown in their flash presentation (I wish I can make my room look as cool as the one they showed , probably they used graphic rendering that presents products better than real life )
Thanks a lot for help..
I will let you know how it goes after hooking them up..
No doubt that a surround system with DefTech tower speakers that have their own self-powered subwoofers in them would create a great surround system. You have no need to buy a subwoofer and the tonal aspects will be identical all the way around.
The planar Maggies also toss out a big soundstage--if they are one of the bigger Maggies. Although with the Maggies you will generally need a subwoofer or two, depending on room size.
But Maggies usually need considerable space from the wall as they project both ways--nature of a planar system. And most high end Maggie set-ups will require a big room with a spouse that doesn't mind speaker intrusion.
But I have a great bookshelf system upstairs---4 identical Monitor Audio Gold Reference GR 10's and a Gold Ref. center with a HSU VTF-3. They also create a wonderful soundstage with great imaging. Then again, like you mentioned above, the speakers are tonally identical and the horizontally placed center fills in the off-axis sounds amazingly. When I have people over to listen to music or watch movies they all think they have a great seat---of course, I generally keep the truly best one to myself :-)
But I concur, that both systems you mentioned above when set-up correctly should sound great. They will sound different, but they will sound great. I would love to listen to jazz, blues, and chamber music in a Maggie system like that.
"4 identical Monitor Audio Gold Reference GR 10's and a Gold Ref. center with a HSU VTF-3."
I bet that is terrific. I would love to hear those MA Golds in that configuration. That is bliss.
I am going to look for subs soon and plan to listen to the HSU's. I've not heard them yet.
By the way, I was listening to airy jazz on the Maggies that day. It was a dim room with big overstuffed black leather couches and cold beverages were served. You can imagine how hard it was to get up and leave.
Gman, Saw your post on your"upstairs system". I'm sure it sounds great. I was about to go with Monitor Audio, but at the last moment decided to go with magnepan 1.6's to replace my Def/Tech BP30's. See my post review to Hawk 2/19/04 under receivers if interested. Keep up the good work.
