Rear surrounds or front height

[mkess]

Just upgraded my HT from an HTIB to a real setup. Samsung Blu ray BDC5500, 50" Samsung Plasma, Onkyo HTRC160 receiver, Monitor 50's up front, CS1 center, PSW10, Monitor 30's rear and have an old pair of Bose little cubes that I will either use for the front height or surrounds. Will I notice a difference if I put them as the front highs or on the side walls as my surrounds? Another issue with these is I really have no way to hide the wire. Dont want to go through the walls, have no way to go through the ceiling, and no carpet.

[Huck344]

I don't have an answer regarding placement of the Bose. I'll let someone else answer that. Regarding the speaker wire, you can always go with flat wire and then paint it.

http://www.flatwireready.com/index.html

[Knucklehead]

Thats a good suggestion on the wire Huck......as for the Bose speaker cubes, I betcha they are not 8 ohm speakers to begin with so to wire them to your AVR might damage it and/or the speakers.....if it were me I wouldnt bother with the Bose speakers....just my .02.

David

Oh yeah....Welcome to CP.

[mkess]

Is there a way to see what ohm the Bose are? I was wondering the same thing about those but didn't see anything on the speaker that told me what they were. All I know is my Dad bought these in like 86 and they still sound good.

[kuntasensei]

Yeah, regardless of the ohm issue that Knucklehead mentioned, the Boses won't match up to the sound of the Polks at all. If you're dead set on adding another couple of speakers, I say snag some more Monitor 30s (they're typically $90 a pair at Newegg). If you have the room to place 4 surrounds per Dolby's specified angles (look at dolby.com), I recommend doing that. If you can't place the 4 surrounds at the correct angles, do height channels instead.

A caveat though: Height channels are a subtle difference. I really like the way mine sound on my 9.2 setup, but the height channels aren't going to be a very obvious slap you in the face difference the way side/rear surrounds are. The way I would describe it is that the front soundstage is taller, like your main speakers extend from the floor to the ceiling... and when environmental effects like wind and rain kick in, it will sound like the whole room is full of sound more than "hey, it's coming from those height speakers up there."

[rooftop59]

I don't have an answer regarding placement of the Bose. I'll let someone else answer that. Regarding the speaker wire, you can always go with flat wire and then paint it.

http://www.flatwireready.com/index.html

that wire is a little pricey but way cool and could come in handy. Anybody ever heard it in action?

As for the cube question, I had some crappy sony htib cubes that I used as surrounds for a short time and they worked and certainly added to the experience even though they did not match the polks I had at the time. But I have never done 7.1 so I don't know if they would add anything or be worth the trouble. Some guys on here think that a good 5.1 setup is just as good if not better than 7.1, so personally I am not sure if I would mess with it. Just my 2 cents...