5.1 speaker system with no rears

[csaag]

Not sure if this is the right forum,
but if you have a 5.1 home theatre system without hooking up the rear surrounds, would it still work as far as getting the front/center signals (i.e it doesn't mess the system up not having all the speakers connected)? Would the sound that was meant for the rear speakers also come out the fronts or not at all?

[CapeKO]

You just wont get the sound that comes from the rear speakers, other speakers will work normal.

[BJ_M]

on SOME systems you can make the surround come out the front -- SOME systems from denon and bose LS38/48 (and most likely others) allow you to set up no surrounds ... but surround info is matrixed into the fronts ..

is this a good thing ? not really

[3dsnar]

Matrixed?
U mean downmixed...

This may be good, if it is meant to generate some sort of
emulation of surround panorama, e.g. with with HRTF
and ITD cancellation, and other techniques
U can read more about all this here:
http://www.sensaura.com/whitepapers/index.php

I am not sure if your equipment has such algorithms.
Worth checking.
---
If it does not, and the incoming stream is prologic (stereo-surround),
it is better to set the decoder to decode it to 5.1 and simply forget the
surround channels.

Cheers,
3d

[BJ_M]

on the systems i mentioned above - there is no emulation .. on the bose 321 , it is (it is 'surround' two channel system to start with) - as with the 2 channel 'surround' denon mini system (which sounds much better than the bose system (most things sound better than bose speakers anyway ..... there is a saying in the industry on bose "no highs, no lows , off to service it goes - it must be bose" ) ....

[enstg8er]

and among audiophiles-"bose sucks"...

[Kurt S]

"Bose sucks"

Indeed!

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html#thx