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Overview

• Add greater surround effects to your current home theater system
• Expand your audio system into a kitchen, office or bedroom

For over a decade, our Quintet home theater system has been an all-time best-selling product for us. Traditionally, it has only been available as a five-speaker bundle—but this pair-pack solution changes all of that.

These speakers easily add two surround sound channels to your current Quintet III system, allowing you to feel the direction of the objects on the screen even when they have passed behind you. This is very similar to what you would experience in a movie theater as many cinemas use a version of this setup—which in technical terms is a 7.1 design—only with a few more speakers along the sides to cover a larger area.   

You can also extend the reach of your system by adding a second audio zone to your kitchen, bedroom or office as these two speakers are ideally suited for two-channel stereo sound. So, while you are watching a movie in surround sound in your main room, someone else can be listening to music in another room, without having a separate audio receiver. 

However, when it comes to adding surround sound or a second zone to your audio system, you must have a 7.1-channel receiver. The 5.1-channel home theater receiver has been the standard for over a decade, so be sure to check and see what you have.

5.1 Versus 7.1  

If you own a Quintet III system and the recommended Sub-10 subwoofer, you have a 5.1 system. The “5” corresponds to the five main channels of sound—left front, center front, right front, left rear surround and right rear surround—while the “.1” refers to the subwoofer that delivers the deep-driving bass effects you hear and feel. This setup provides a perfectly good listening experience in smaller to average-sized rooms.

However, if you have a larger room or want even more enveloping surround sound effects, then you might opt for a 7.1 system. A 7.1 system incorporates all of the elements of a 5.1 system, but instead of combining both surround and rear channel effects into two channels, it splits the surround and rear channel information into four channels. Therefore, side surround effects and ambience are directed to the right and left surround channels, and the rear surround effects are directed to the two rear, or back, channels. In this particular setup, the surround speakers sit to the sides of the listening position, while the rear channels are placed behind the listener. 

You can read about this in greater detail in an article written by Robert Silva on About.com.