I'm abandoning HT

dcarlson

I had a listen to some Totem Hawks today and liked them very much.

Looks like I may have my Denon, rear center and surrounds sold. That leaves me with my center, mains and sub to go.

dcarlson

SDA's are so hard to come by up here. I'll still keep my eye open for some for pickup. I would like to add a system in the basement and go crazy with treatment and all but all in due time.

The Hawks are nice and small which would be perfect for my livingroom setup with no compromise. The demo I had was with a Jolida CD player and integrated. My gear should match up well.

organ

Originally posted by madmax
Organ, there are several ways to do it and yes, it would work great in your configuration. Do you have an extra amp to do it with or do you want to use one amp? PM me if I loose this thread and you are still interested.
madmax

Oh yeah! I'm very interested. I have another amp to power the surrounds and my pre have 2 pre outs which should be perfect.

Maurice

madmax

I'm assuming your surround amp is SS. With tubes you would have to take some precautions.

So here is what you do. Position the surround channels to the left and right rear. Connect the speaker leads as you would normally. If your preamp has more than one set of outputs you can hook up both amps, otherwise you will need two Y connectors. OK, so now you have the two amps hooked up. One to the front speakers and one to the back speakers. If you were to put on some music all 4 speakers would play normally.

Now, to get to the surround mode. At the surround amp remove the (-) speaker wires to both speakers, connect them together and put some tape around them. You are done. Nope, nothing is hooked to the two (-) terminals on the amp. Give it a try!

madmax

organ

Great! Thank you so much, Madmax. I'll give it a try when I find some spare cables and a day to kill. I'm using a SS amp which has a variable input. This should work great because I'll be able to control the gain for the surrounds.

Is this configuration just for a simple HT or does it work well with music as well?

Thanks again.

Maurice

dcarlson

Maurice,

how are those Polk Cobra's treating you?

madmax

This is especially good for many types of music. My favorite with this setup was ZZ Top Degualo. (SP). If you don't have it then buy it as a demo disc. Alice Cooper Goes to Hell is excellent as well. These are just the two that come to mind because they really work this type of system. Like SDA there are a lot of good discs out there. Pretty much if the music works the SDA then it will work this setup.
madmax

organ

Derick,
I've still got the Cobras connected to the Dyna and Klipsch. I love them. Very neutral with excellent HF extension. I'm still looking around for another pair so I could bi-wire. It's my first pair of exotic speaker cables:).

Madmax,
Thanks for the info. Can't wait to try it out on some of my reference recordings. I have several people interested in my RT800i right now, so once they're sold, I'll be moving the LSi9 to the rear for passive surround duty.

Maurice

madmax

If you sit the surround speakers between you and the mains, but much further apart you have a poor mans SDA.
madmax