Question on the 340's

[Harro]

I have the 340's LCR and 170's as surround. I am in the process of setting up a 11.1 system and noticed the sierra-1's in the b-stock for sale. I was wondering if those would match up ok with the 340 center I have or is that a no-no? I would then move my 340 mains to the wide and add another 2 sets of 170's for back and highs.
What is the opinion of the experts here? Or maybe other ideas.

Thanks.
Harro

[FirstReflect]

Nice! I've enjoyed having an 11.1 setup, myself (at least until my stupid ceiling water damage forced me to move all of my gear out of my theatre until the leaky pipe up there is fixed :mad: )

Ascend's Sierra-1 have a better timbral match to the SE series than you'll often find when changing to a different series of speaker. But, personally, I cannot settle for anything less than a perfect sonic match across the front 3 speakers ;)

Have you considered getting a perfectly matched Sierra L/C/R set of 3, and then simply getting one additional CMT-340SE Center to create a pair? You could then have:

Front L/R = Sierra-1
Center = Sierra-1 Center
Surrounds = pair of CMT-340SE Centers
Surround Back = CBM-170SE
Front Wide = CMT-340SE Mains
Front Height = CBM-170SE

The other advantage is that you'd have the option to upgrade all three of your front speakers this way. You could easily make them all into Sierra-1 NrT, or upgrade any or all of them to the Sierra-2 when that speaker is available later this year :)

Just a thought, anyway :)

[Harro]

Thanks for your response.
That is a great idea for adding the 340's as the surrounds but I do not have the space for them as surrounds, seeing as I already have a set of 170's mounted to the wall.

Dave has gotten back with me on this also and suggests I use all 170's which I will go ahead on.

I hope in the future I will order new LCR Serra-1 or 2's if they are out when I do decide to improve the quality. At that time I will move the 340's to the wides and keep the rest of the 170's as rears and high's.