Selecting Rear Surrounds for 5.1 system

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.

I've got JM Labs, now Focal, Electra's. They do a great job. 

I went over the Best Buy meantime and asked the Magnolia room person the same. He said it’s 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.

Of course he’s gonna say that because he wants to sell you more speakers and that’s the easy layup answer. I worked at Magnolia briefly and have been to several others, and they are mostly just hacks who have very little personal or real experience in high-end audio. When I cobbled together my HT system I used my wife’s Polk monitors from the 90s that were not in any way matched to my fronts and they worked perfectly fine for creating a very immersive movie experience. If you wanna blow a big wad on the rears have at it, but my opinion and experience is that it is not necessary. Save the money there and put the rest toward getting a better (or second) sub or center speaker where it’ll make a much bigger difference.