Playing 4 speakers at once

So many questions, I am figuring where to start.

 

This is where I started.
But my little 4 ohm epos bookshelves were always louder than my towers.
It was easy to turn them down with the AVR .
Now that I'm going back to a 2 ch preamp I was just gonna get a 2nd amp for the epos, but I am afraid that they will again be louder than the mains and frustrate me.
I like the idea of being able to tone then down and balance out the room.
Problem I'm finding is all the amps I like dont have this option.
All the "commercial" amps crown, Niles etc have this option, but I know nothing about them.

 

??

Is this the dial under the peachtree?

 

Yes, and it's the "axis" I mentioned, being about to hear the high-end tweeter directly clearly - with four speakers, it gets you exactly there in more areas of the room, not just a sweet spot or two.

 

I'm not a stickler for exact same model or even brand from front vs. rear speakers, but they should be very similar and not radically different unless there is not the space to have them, or budget constraints at the time to work with. I have Infinity speakers for front rears and center. All are slightly different models but sound nice together. Rears are smaller (than fronts), but they are up on stands a foot off the floor.

 

3 across the front sound be the same, back not so much but like you said, they should be very similar.

 

Yea, in a perfect world!
My mains were from the late 80's.
When HT came around they stayed and Klipsch went rears and center.
Going back to stereo after raising kids, hated the horns and added the epos.
Then was finally able to upgrade the mains. Epos didn't make a tower that suited me, so I'm where I'm at due to slow upgrade part and/or bad planning.
But I'm happy with what I have!
Thats a battle of itself!!

 

I no longer run a center.

 

I don't know. Sounds pretty good to me.

 

It really sounds like it works, and that is the bottom line. And do what it takes to get them leveled in sound and leave it . Have you considered, you are almost in 4.0 and 5.1 land which is really cool too. And it still sounds good with all mix-matched speakers. Ideally, you want matching, but if each pair sounds a bit different, go with it anyway. Different content comes from F vs R channels we should note.

 

I like that each speaker brings something to the table.
But while I am content....
Tweaking it is a PITA.

 

I am glad that there are others who think like me.

 

Yes.

 

I can walk around all over the room, turn around in any direction and still be in a sweet spot

 

If you are using a pure 2-channel stereo source, than the same program material will play through both the front and the rear speakers.

Speakers don't have to be matched but do need to be able to play together in the same way that different singing voices must blend together in a choir.

There is an advantage to using mixed speakers. That being that slight differences in how the sound is rendered will add some slight difference and thus add some extra dimensionally to the overall sound.

 

+1000

If it sounds good, it is good

 

64 years old, have listened to all kinds of setups from the very cheap to the very expensive, mono/stereo/multi channel, over the last 50 years+. Have worked in audio stores, as a musician, in the music business. I don't have to convince myself, you, or anybody else of anything. I simply do what I like and what sounds best to ME. And my current rig, which includes a McIntosh MC2300 amp connected to AR3 speakers, a McIntosh MC2105 connected to AR3a's, run through a McIntosh C34V preamp, which in turn is run into a McIntosh CR7 remote control system to manage and balance overall volume, sounds fantastic. If it didn't, I wouldn't have it connected this way.

Trying new things, experimenting, and enjoying the results is one of the truly great things about this hobby. To argue that using more then 2 speakers for stereo just can't sound good because, well, it just can't, is pointless. That it doesn't for whatever reason sound good to your ears only means one thing...that it doesn't sound good to you.

 

Sorry to be off-topic, but I have the same clock. Mine belonged to my Grandmother, then my dad. Ours sadly, which worked when I was young isn't functioning.

Bill

 

I can't remember the last time I played stereo with just my 2 fronts, always all 4.

 

Have you guys ever played around with quadraphonic amps?

 

I run two pair of Advent Legacy speakers from my Denon 100 wpc receiver. Speakers are in all 4 corners of the room. I know the stereo image and separation gets messed up this way but overall it sounds pretty good.

 

This one stopped working. But there are people on eBay that restore Jefferson clocks.

 

I have 10 hooked up: 4 Klipsch floor-standing, a Klipsch 'center channel'; 2 more Klipsch surround speakers on the side, 2 Ohm/Walshs, and a powered sub-woofer; with so many speakers, the sound is pretty dispersed at low levels of volume, and I really don't know how loud it would get as well below the clipping threshold is plenty loud enough for me (not to mention my wife...).
I'm guessing, but the room is roughly 20' x 50' probably, and a fair amount of my listening is done from another floor.

 

No, but I use multiple stereo amps and I listen to quadraphonic recordings regularly. Does that count?

 

Sounds like a perfectly sensible way to go. Seems like people on this thread would enjoy quadraphonic recordings, surround sound or 3D audio (in the near future).