mick wrote:

On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 20:36:23 +0000, DMHenrie wrote:

snip

So what are your thoughts and recommendations as to which rear, and center
speakers would be a match for what I want. For those who dont know about my

snip

You don't *need* a centre or a sub. They are definitely optional and their
use depends on how well your front speakers perform.

The centre speaker helps to "tie" voices (in particular) to the action on
the screen. If you use one then it should be tonally similar to your front
speakers otherwise voices will sound very odd as they pass from one side
to the other. The main thing about a centre speaker is that it needs to be
magnetically shielded. You really need to get it as close to the screen as
possible otherwise there's no point in using one.

I forgot to mention. I use large full-range speakers in the
front(JBL 4410) and the center channel is optional. I only
got a JBL 4208 so that my son could listen to TV in the morning
without shaking the house. (it's not hooked into the
main A/V system)

Big towers also make a sub optional. You don't need it for
frequency response, so it works as it should - reinforcement
for deep, loud bass. I run my system without one just fine.
OTOH, I have 2 10 inch and 2 8 inch woofers. Heh.

My friends are shocked at my "4.0" system - that it sounds like
a typical 5.1. Then I tell them how little it cost(About $1600
or so today) and their eyes get glassy So, yes, keep the
towers if you can.

If you want to sell the DQ20s(which IIRC, you can get a good price
for), then also sell the JBLs and replace them with 4410s and 4408s.
Add in your JBL sub and you're set. Center channel is moot with
this setup. Running only 4 channels also is a bit less load on
your receiver. I have three old Yamaha CA-1000 amplifiers as the
power source(one just runs the center channel seperately, though,
so it's really 2 of them for HT). I may upgrade to 6.0, so I keep
the third amp.

In any case, even numbers is nicer as it means you can just get two
big amps and a processor if you want to later on.

www.musiciansfriend.com - best prices on these speakers.