7.1 Front Wides Underrated?

Richard M

Community Member

Hello,

I am experimenting with few different speaker setups with my Arendal 1961 set and I quite like the 7.1 variant with towers as front, monitors as front wides and surrounds as surrounds (at about 120 degrees).

With 7.1 or atmos signals, it seems that surround signals get split between the front wides and the surrounds and you no longer have the problem that the outer seats sit too close to the speaker or block sound for the middle seats.

Rear surround signals are sent to the surround speakers only and at 120 degrees, sound still comes from behind.

I would be grateful if somebody could point out theoretical limitations or even runs a setup like that and can share experiences!

April 19, 2022 at 12:25

Tagged: Speaker placement, surround speaker setup

All replies (6)

Matthias Nyberg

Community Member

Front wides require 9.x and a receiver that supports front wides specifically. Placing the rear and side surround speakers in the wrong places, in order to try to simulate front wides, is never a good idea.

#38104 April 19, 2022 at 13:25

Lukas

Customer Support

Hi Richard,

I was going to say the same as Matthias.

You will need the right electronics and setup for situations like this.

#38105 April 19, 2022 at 13:27

Richard M

Community Member

Thanks for the input.

I am afraid I was not clear in one aspect: I already have the electronics and speakers running in the mentioned configuration and was surprised that it worked so well with some test scenes from movies. (Denon x8500)

– I have configured and placed the monitors as front wides at the correct position for front wides

– I have placed the side surrounds slightly more behind the listening position but still according to the recommendations in the arendal manual.

– The receiver indeed automatically splits the signals to the speakers as described in my first post and sends surround signals to the front wides as well (Confirmed with a test sequence from a test blu ray)

– I like it better compared to using the monitors as rear surrounds and placing the surrounds at 100-110 degrees so far but I am still in the process of testing.

#38108 April 19, 2022 at 14:11

Lukas

Customer Support

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the info about the Denon AVR.

But for it to work you will always need the AVR to upmix the soundtrack to your configuration.
So you need to use DTS Neural:X for example.

#38331 April 22, 2022 at 14:15

Peter Mee

Community Member

If that configuration sounds best to your ears in your listening space, than that’s the best configuration for you, and don’t worry about what others think or say.

im playing with front wides myself in. 9.1.4 setup and find it interesting, but they don’t seem to activate for atmos soundtracks, only upmix modes. (Marantz av8805)

I’ve also tried duplicating the side surround signal and feeding it to the front wides. This works well, and may be a solution for two rows of seats. Like you, I continue to experiment.

#39778 June 18, 2022 at 15:16

roman-tissera

Community Member

So are you only using 1 sub?

#42795 September 23, 2022 at 03:52

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7.1 Front Wides Underrated?

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