# quadraphonic hookup



## ech0419 (Mar 10, 2007)

Ok, I have 2 Polk floor standing blow the windows out loud and very high fidelity speakers. I also have a pair of mediocre Sony's and I have a very low end receiver/amp. It pulls 120 watts a channel (2 channels). I want at least a quadraphonic setup or 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 etc etc. 

Can I incorporate these 4 speakers (or just the polks) into a 7.1 system and make it sound decent? I really want a surround sound system but I don't want to discard the Polk's, they're just too nice. I was looking into buying a new receiver but they're as much as lower end full surround sound systems ($2-300) my price limit is $350. 

I can buy a Yamaha 5.1 system for $320 and it's pretty nice, could I plug the polks into it and configure this so it doesn't sound horrible? (loud in front, not as loud in the back - vice versa) I want fidelity and I want to keep using these nice old speakers. Any recommendations? I'm not sure what to do.


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## yustr (Sep 27, 2004)

In a word - yes. But...

The key to surround sound is the center channel speaker. For movie sound tracks, most of the dialog and a lot of the music comes from this speaker. Your Polks will be great for the front L/R and your Sony's will be fine for the rears (very little is actually sent to them anyway). Your challenge is to find a center speaker to match the Polks in quality and sound. You're not going to do that and buy a receiver for $300.

As far as setup goes, all SS receivers have the ability to match levels, some do it automatically.


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## ech0419 (Mar 10, 2007)

Well this is a bit expensive but I may get it eventually: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882115124

The best part is I can hook up the polks with the system and the extra 2 speakers and the sony's can be hooked up in another room or another area. It has 2 sets of outputs, for 2 different rooms. 

Let me know what you think


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## ech0419 (Mar 10, 2007)

Well this is a bit expensive but I may get it eventually: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882115124

The best part is I can hook up the polks with the system and the extra 2 speakers and the sony's can be hooked up in another room or another area. It has 2 sets of outputs, for 2 different rooms. Pretty sweet because I will have 4 extras. 

Let me know what you think.

Let me know what you think


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## yustr (Sep 27, 2004)

Yamaha make good products. That said, this one might not be robust enough to drive your Polks to their true potential. Also, you'll still need to find a center channel to mate with them. I doubt the tiny center speaker that comes with this set will do it; but only you can decide that.


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## ech0419 (Mar 10, 2007)

Sorry for the last post. Firefox flipped out on me when I tried to post it. Dunno what happened. 

Alright well I'm going to hold out for a little while. Money is hard to come by right now and I'm going to save up for a while. 

Off to buy a new hard drive! yay.


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## ech0419 (Mar 10, 2007)

eh, I ripped all of my CD's in apple lossless and there is definitely a huge improvement over my typical 192kb/s -320kb/s standard I had. I can live with this sound for now.


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## pharoah (Aug 28, 2006)

yustr said:


> In a word - yes. But...
> 
> The key to surround sound is the center channel speaker. For movie sound tracks, most of the dialog and a lot of the music comes from this speaker. Your Polks will be great for the front L/R and your Sony's will be fine for the rears (very little is actually sent to them anyway). Your challenge is to find a center speaker to match the Polks in quality and sound. You're not going to do that and buy a receiver for $300.
> 
> As far as setup goes, all SS receivers have the ability to match levels, some do it automatically.


with this being true for the most part.receivers can be set to 4.1 which will incorporate the center info to the front left,and right.how effective this is depends on how well the speakers image.my klipsch speakers image so well i set up a center that wasnt even hooked up.then i asked someone where the dialogue was coming from,and they pointed at the center channel.i laughed and said oh really picked that center up set it on the couch.they were just amazed lol.


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

I have an Onkyo HT-530 head unit driving 7 satellites and a sub. Sounds AWESOME.


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