Selecting Rear Surrounds for 5.1 system

Thank you Soix ans sis883 for your suggestions.  I went over the Best Buy meantime and asked the Magnolia room person the same. He said its best to balance the room with B&W 704 or 705.  He was against using KEFs or Polks or Martin Logans in the back when 702s were in front. He said that they perform quite differently. They sell KEFs and MLs also.

Just for kicks, I asked if I could put B&W 803s in front and move the 702s to the back - he said that would be way overkill.

I'm a 2-channel guy.  My system is set up such that none of the HT gear is in the chain when listening to music. 

I don't have room for floor standers in the rear.  I do, but the location would be less than Ideal. 

Did you buy the B&W rears?  You could try an inexpensive option and see if you like it.   B&W floor standers seem expensive for rears.  IDK.  I'm not a home theatre expert.  Tonally matching the center channel and mains makes sense.  I'm not so sure about the rears.  There isn't much dialog going on in the rears.

I have two REL subs in front and a larger SVS in the rear.  The SVS only runs when doing HT. 

the rear content is for Video, primarily for directional cues, helicoptors flying in, gunshots, audience noise ...., characters approaching from the rear/side ..... the most important thing is to match the efficiency with your fronts and center, and I expect you can refine the volume with test tones in your AVR. Perfect frequency blend is not an issue IME

I am currently replacing a center because the Klipsch center I bought is much too efficient, I have the fronts boosted and it cut, I just bought a Jamo from Denmark, and made an offer on a Polk center, both in real Cherry Wood cases, both with similar efficiency to my DBX FL & FR.

Here’s the Klipsch, fits within the riser I built, looks cool with the magnetic cover off, but poor volume blend

I’ll mess with all 3, keep whatever sounds best, sell or give the others away.

here's the Polk I made an offer on

and the Jamo I bought

I just looked at your Polk 700, IMO that is way too much speaker for rear surround use.

I’m talking about 5.1, small, not a real home theater, yours will be bigger than mine but you mentioned one chair.

I am going across the 14’ width, my small rears are laying on their back, shooting up, using the space between the back of the high back sofa and the wall 8" behind sort of like a channel or horn, volume adjusted with the AVR. This is where my feet are

Many, perhaps most people boost their rear too high, it is best when you are generally unaware of the rear, until you turn them off, then the image collapses forward.

A sense of space, but not generally aware of them unless specific content put there by the director for a REASON.

I have many Movies and Music DVDs, and I often watch streamed Music Video, the Voice (it’s all over the world, hop about on YouTube, search Voice, Voice Battles, Knockouts ... American Idol, America’s Got Talent, Donna watches Dancing with the Stars.

Sometimes whatever it comes on with is good, but often I change to Direct, or try 2 Channel Stereo and it sounds better. I don’t know what the original was, what a station or cable company or AVR or TV might have decided to do, so get in the habit of occasionally going for ’Direct’, you might find it turns some pseudo surround off.