Ceiling Rears

Ninja

Good morning,

I'm a fairly new poster to the Polk forums and have recently changed my speakers over to the RTi A series, I'm looking at changing over to 7.1 and possibly 9.1 after a future speaker upgrade to my fronts. For the 7.1 I have no room to add the left and right rear on the floor as that would be in my kitchen so I have decided to make the best of it and go in ceiling. It looks like the TCi series and the Vanishing series sell a few pairs that are timbre matched to the RTi series but seem really expensive, my question is how important is timbre matching the rear left and right speakers? I have never heard a 7.1 system and have no idea how much content will pass through them so does $599 and $699 seem a bit high for the 2 in-ceiling rears? Also if its not that important to timbre match them does anyone have a few suggestions that are more reasonably priced? As always, thanks in advance.

Todd Lee

I've got the same front soundstage that you have, and I'm using RC80i's in my ceiling for surround duty. I think they sound just fine for their purpose. I'd never spend $600 for inceiling speakers.

dougr

I've never been a fan of in-ceiling speakers for anything but ambience... just does not sound right to have surround effects coming from above (at least not to me). Given that, you have three options... sacrifice surround (e.g. soundbar, 3.1 or plain old stereo), go in-wall if possible, or get the most affordable timbre matched ceiling speakers you can. just my 2 cents

Ninja

I have a 5.1 setup as of now, I want to add the 2 back surrounds not the sides. The problem is the back part of the listening area there is a couch running lenthwise and it is open into the kitchen where there is a breakfast table and the one side is open into the dining area so I'm stuck adding them to the ceiling it would appear. I'm not sure how much sound actually comes out of the surround rears with 7.1 was my original question I should have been clear on that. I'm leary of in ceiling as well but I have never heard them before so I am unsure of the quality they produce and the amount of audio that will be sent to surround rears. I included a crude layout not quite to scale so you can get an idea of what I'm trying to explain. The two circles in yellow are the preposed installation areas of the ceiling speakers for the surround rears.

dougr

Don't get me wrong, there are some nice in-ceiling speakers. But for the purpose of 5.1 or 7.1 surround, the rears are supposed to be placed at ear level... placing them in the ceiling provides the wrong spatial clues. For some this is annoying, for others not so. You will not know until you try. Certainly no more 'spatially annoying' than any soundbar, but generally at a much higher cost.

Ninja

I see what your saying, the sound that is intended to be produced at ear level from directly behind you would be coming from above and not create the intended effect it was meant to reproduce. Thank you for the explanation and advice, I will probably do the left and right wides instead after reading about audyssey dsx from the audyssey website since I already have a pair of RTi A3's that will not be used once I move the RTi A5's to the rear for surrounds. Again thank you for the advice.