Secrets of Home Theater and HiFi's Page

I don't want to rain on your parade here. I'd encourage you to try all possible combinations and choose the one that sounds the best. That one of the most enjoyable oppurtunities in this hoby. But don't do anything that risks damaging equipment that you can't afford to replace.

Best of luck! We'll help out if we can.

I'm not sure adding a second pair of front speakers will add much to your sound quality. the biggest problem, really is a way to drive the second pair of speakers unless your reciever has A&B speaker outputs. That used to be a rather common feature, but you don't find it much anymore.

You probably don't want to just attach 2 wires to your main speaker outputs as this would decrease the resistance pretty significantly and could damage the AVR. There are such things as speaker selectors that could allow this while protecting the reciever, but they'll cost upward of $100.

Thank you
For responding so quickly I have experimented in many different ways. And I was wondering if there was a best way to hook up four front speakers and and center to get the most power and quality sound.

I think th first thing I'd try is just using a stereo processing mode on your reciever. That would put the sound in your front right and left speakers only. If you need the support of your center speaker, the only option I can think of is to go to speaker setup on your AVR and set all of your surround speakers to "no" then use a dsp mode like prologic or some wide screen mode on the reciever. That would force all of the sound to you front three speakers, but you'd have to change everything back to use 7.1 processing for a movie.

As always, the best bet is to try all the options and see what you like best. The search can be fun.

good luck!

I set my system for 7.1 to watch movies and now realize that I use the system much more often listening to music. I'm thinking I like the sound coming all from the front. How should I set up the speakers and get the best sound. I am just starting to rebuild a system after many years of traveling around. Picked up several not expensive pieces here and there. 7.1 AVR, sub, good center, 2 small polks, and 2 tiny Bose cubes, also have a cheap Onkyo 7 speaker set. Any ideas on getting the most out of what I now have or maybe what I should be looking to get would be much appreciated.
As of now, out of work and looking to make the most of what I have.