Hello. I am attempting to put together a rudimentary home theater system.
My equipment is as follows.

Front L&R speakers: B&W Nautilus 804 Speakers
Audiolab Preamplifier
Bryston 3BST Poweramplifer
Entry Level Sony DVD Player
Mediocre PhaseTec Rear Channel Speakers (bookshelf size)

My system is primary for music, but I also watch movies. Being a student, I
have limited funds to spend on additional equipment. I know there are ways
to wire a basic surround setup (Hafler/Matrix method) but I am confused
about which method I should use? Is there a way, based on the equipment I
have, to get reasonably discrete rear channels? If you know of a good online
guide or have any suggestions on how I should wire this up, please let me
know!

Thanks
JG

I know of no other practical passive system other than the Hafler. The rear
speakers are wired "ground-to-ground" with the "hot" sides going to the "hot"
amplifier outputs.

Or to put it another way, the rear speakers are wired in parallel with the front
speakers, then the ground wires are lifted from the amp and tied together.
Electrically, both methods are exactly the same thing.

When I was in college 35 years ago, I used this system with my KLH Model 11 FM
portable, and it worked fine.

Try searching eBay for used equipment. A Sansui QS-500 decoder/amplifier would
be a good choice.

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message ...
I know of no other practical passive system other than the Hafler. The rear
speakers are wired "ground-to-ground" with the "hot" sides going to the "hot"
amplifier outputs.

Or to put it another way, the rear speakers are wired in parallel with the front
speakers, then the ground wires are lifted from the amp and tied together.
Electrically, both methods are exactly the same thing.

When I was in college 35 years ago, I used this system with my KLH Model 11 FM
portable, and it worked fine.

Try searching eBay for used equipment. A Sansui QS-500 decoder/amplifier would
be a good choice.


Or a DVD player with builtin decoders like a Panasonic RP-91. That
is just one example, Im sure there are cheaper players with decoders
builtin.

ScottW

Or a DVD player with builtin decoders like a Panasonic RP-91. That
is just one example, Im sure there are cheaper players with decoders
builtin.

A digital decoder for a specific system cannot enhance existing stereo
recordings -- especially CD music recordings. Not to mention the fact the user
said he didn't have much money to spend.

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
...
I know of no other practical passive system other than the Hafler. The
rear
speakers are wired "ground-to-ground" with the "hot" sides going to the
"hot"
amplifier outputs.

Or to put it another way, the rear speakers are wired in parallel with the
front
speakers, then the ground wires are lifted from the amp and tied together.
Electrically, both methods are exactly the same thing.

When I was in college 35 years ago, I used this system with my KLH Model
11 FM
portable, and it worked fine.

Right, I belive this is the way I have my system wired now. BUT, according
to this website I was looking at, there is a difference between surround and
four channel surround. The way I have it wired now, I have the red wires
coming off of the red terminals of my front speakers, and the black wires
coming off the rear speakers tied together. Now, is this giving me a single
rear channel coming out of both speakers, or is this giving me two discrete
rear channels? According to the diagram I am looking at, in order for me to
get "four channel" surround, I would need to bridge the black terminals at
my amp and then run another wire from that bridge to a 8ohm 10 watt resistor
and then to either one of my rear channel speakers(in addition to my current
configuration). This would supposidly give me 75% seperation in the rear
channels so left rear information would be more "left" sounding and right
rear information would be more "right" sounding. Make sense? I haven't tried
this yet but does this make sense to you? Here is the link that I've been
using.
http://home.earthlink.net/~kantack/surround2.htm
Thanks,
JG