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As I have discussed elsewhere in this forum, I have been considering upgrading from 9s in front and 4000s in the rear to 4 9s, or 5s and 9s.
Today I did an experiment where I set the 9s as rears, the 4000s as fronts, but then turned the 4000s off using the button on them and unplugged my center 7-4. The goal was to hear only what would come through the rear speakers, through the 9s.
I was surprised at how different the sound was. And what I mean by that, listening to explosions that shake my room from the 9s as fronts, were a much softer duller sound. Also, even when music was playing, such at the beginning of the movie, the volume level and the amount of bass are greatly reduced from the rears, even though they are playing the same music. Switching to speaker mode 4 improved the output, but still not to the level I hear from the 9s when assigned as fronts.
Part of my reason for wanting 4 9s was so that when the same sound, such as music, is sent to all four speakers it would sound the same all around. However, it does not seem to work that way either due to the BS3 or the manner in which the audio is mixed on the disc.
Any thoughts, similar of different experiences?
Beolab 28s Beolab 9s Beolab 12-3s Beolab 1s Beolab 6000s 2 pairs Beolab 4000s Beovision 7-55 Beovision 10-40 Beoplay V1 32 inch Beovision Avant 32 inch Beosound 1 (CD player) Beosound 3000 Beosound 5 Core Essence MKII Beoplay M5
The main reason so many people recommended 3's as rears to your 9 at the front on your other threads is exactly the reason you've just described - only a limited bandwidth is set to the rear during normal 5.1 type movie soundtracks!
As discussed on one of your several other threads - if you listen to music that is specifically encoded for surround music, such as some SACD's etc., then having 9's at the rear are definitely an advantage. If you intend listening to normal stereo encoded music through four speakers then all bets are off, yes the same will be sent to the rears as the fronts, but you've ruined the stereo image (and probably introduced all sorts of comb filtering anomalies depending on your listening position) and any sense of "in front" has been lost - OK for a party but not for proper listening, to me at least.
Ban boring signatures!
Razlaw:I was surprised at how different the sound was. And what I mean by that, listening to explosions that shake my room from the 9s as fronts, were a much softer duller sound. Also, even when music was playing, such at the beginning of the movie, the volume level and the amount of bass are greatly reduced from the rears, even though they are playing the same music
I am not in your league but I had been disappointed in my rears -- having that same impression as you of the sound being muffled.
You may recall I have BL3s at the front and BL4s at the rear.
Yesterday (by coincidence with your tests) I simply raised the volume ratio between the rears and the fronts.
The rears are now boosted over the fronts - on my BV8's sound menu, the fronts sit at the 50% mark, and now the rears have been set at ~70% and I am much happier with what I was hearing last night.
BeoNut since '75