I have upgraded my front left/right speakers from SuperSat 50's to Triton 3's. In the process I am migrating from 5.1 to 7.1 where my two back speakers are currently SuperSat 3's. I have two questions about doing this:

1) Would the 50's be better for the rear surround pair or the side surround pair? I suspect this may vary movie to movie depending on track mix, but which channel typically gets more usage and would benefit from the increased range of the 50 over the 3?

2) I would like to get the speakers close to ear level meaning the 50's would hang lower on my walls. All of the walls in my older house unfortunately have horizontal stud blocking at wall mid-height 4' above the floor, which makes running wires down the wall from the attic much more difficult. If I hang them in what I would interpret to be an upside down orientation, the cable hole can be above the wall blocking making in wall wiring much easier. Does the orientation of these vertically matter? In other words can the speaker be mounted with the cable attachment location at the top?

My source content is mostly blu-rays with dolby and DTS 7.1 mixes. I also will be installing atmos ceiling speakers in the very near future if it has an effect on the response.

Dgetz,

Welcome to the forum! Sounds like a good move up to the T3s. The surround channels typically get more use than the rears and mounting at ear level is the way to go for Atmos installations. I recently went to a new theater that is equipped with Atmos. They spent big money!!! Unfortunately, they installed the surround speakers at the top of the walls where the walls meet the ceiling. This really negated the Atmos effect. It was hard to tell what was surround and what was supposed to be height.

Sounds like you've got a good plan going. I'd definitely use the 50s for surrounds. Please let us know how it works out and please post a few pics.

Cheers,

T Cobe

T Cobe is correct, the surrounds will get more benefit than the rears.

No worries hanging the 50's "upside down", just pop the grille off and flip it around after the install and nobody but you will ever know.

Thanks for the response guys. I will proceed with using the 50's for the surrounds and mount them 'upside down.' I made a little hinged bracket to allow me to angle the speakers slightly with adjustment while using the 1/4-20 holes, now I need to make sure I can flip it over. Essentially it is a wedge that fits behind the speaker to keep them as flush mounted as possible. If it works I'll post some photos.

-Dan