Can mix brand surround system make sound worse

[derekchan]

Front jbl 4309
Center definitive d9
Surround genelec 8010
Sub mk v12+
Avr mrx740

How bad the sound would be

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

My feeling has always been, “any surround sound is better than no surround sound.”

I’m sure none of those speakers actually sound bad. The main issue would be front-stage pans between the center and left or right would not be seamless. Not ideal, but not the end of the world.

If this is gear you already have on hand, use it.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Mort]

I doubt the definitive d9 is very good on it's side. The 8010s will be very volume limited.

This works as the above poster says. The downside are not because you are mixing, just inherent to those speakers.

 

[Zetti]

I briefly used the 8010a as surrounds in a small room and it was decent. Use them, upgrade later if need be.

 

[Mark609]

I keep the LCR the same brand/type, in this case Ascend Acoustics ELX-RAAL towers and Horizon V2 center. My side and back surrounds and 4 heights are 3 different brands. For starts, they rarely come into play except in intense ATMOS movies and when they do they have the cajones to do what they need to do WHEN they need to do it for a very immersive audio experience.

2nd, as long as those peripheral speakers are high quality and have a good range it works well. No, you don't want to mix magnesium 4" coaxial "full range" speaker surround sides with 6.5" mid/woofer MTM backs.

It's just common sense.

 

[40 Inferno]

my system mixes several brands, since I run Audyssey full range they're all standardized to same curve so there's no tonal mismatch

 

[antcollinet]

My feeling has always been, “any surround sound is better than no surround sound.”

I’m sure none of those speakers actually sound bad. The main issue would be front-stage pans between the center and left or right would not be seamless. Not ideal, but not the end of the world.

If this is gear you already have on hand, use it.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Agreed. My setup is very mixed. Different fronts from centre. Different surrounds, and different again heights.

It sounds great. I've not heard a demo of how a matched system might be better, but I don't feel I am missing out.

 

[Chr1]

Yes. Surely the quality of the speakers is way more important than the brand/model being the same.

Having a surround sound system made exclusively of similar low quality speakers will never be better than using a mix of high quality speakers.
(All other things being equal obviously.)

 

[Chr1]

Just to add that obviously you don't want mismatched pairs ie. L/R, SL/SR, SBL/SBR etc.

But mixed types of speaker pairs are fine if they are of good quality.

Particularly as DSP is a major factor with an AVR.
My 2c.

 

[kemmler3D]

I think it will be ok and really not bad if you can EQ. Not ideal but not problematic enough that you shouldn't do it IMO.

 

[Eric Natural]

Your Anthem AVR does have room correction ARC. This will smooth any freq/time issues within your 5.1 sound field.