Selecting Rear Surrounds for 5.1 system

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.

Atmos sends full bandwidth to all speaker channels. So there is justification in using good speakers on all channels. If you highpass to a sub you only need to get down to the crossover point (normally 80hz). 
 

it is just a matter of how much you care. Rear speaker quality does matter, I find I just don’t care if surround is accurate. I just want it not to break up and be pretty flat   

Honestly I would looked for a used pair that more or less matches your fronts. Keep it cheap and replace that Polk sub. A good sub matters a lot more. 

@sls883 

I have not bought the B&W for rear.  I just went to Best Buy and spoke with the Magnolia room person and got a demo.