Home theater advice needed

Factual Questions
1

Currently in our family room we have our entertainment center (TV, DVD, VCR, etc) on the west side of the room, with 5.1 surround sound speakers at the front and rear. The front speakers sit on top of the entertainment center, and the rear speakers sit on the fireplace on the opposite side of the room.

For Christmas, we are getting a new LCD projector and are thinking about hanging a pull-down screen in front of the fireplace on the east side of the room, but my wife would kind of like to keep the entertainment center intact. To do this we would need to set up some kind of “reversible” speaker system, with 3 speakers on each end of the room. When we watch TV on the west end, the Left Right and Center speakers on the west would carry the front signal, and the left and right speakers on the east would carry the rear signal. When watching on the projector, the signals would be reversed.

Two questions. 1) Does anyone know of a reasonably priced speaker switch that would let us do this? 2) Are we really stupid to even try this in the first place?

Thanks,
FBG

2

  1. Either you have a 6.1 setup, or you have an imaginary speaker in your new home theater proposal somewhere. The 5 in 5.1 would be the single center channel and front/right and left and rear/right and left channels. The 1 refers to the subwoofer. The subwoofer carries an entirely different signal from the satellite speakers. So, to have three speakers at either end of the room you’d need a 6.1 setup.
    Assuming you have a 6.1 system I suspect it would be easier just to attach the speaker-out wires that run from the reciever to themselves in two bunches and physically switch each bunch when you want to use the projector.
    If you have a 5.1 system your center channel will play behind you if you do this, which might sound a bit odd.

  2. Nah- but count your speakers :wink:

3

The current setup is a 5.1 with 3 front speakers, 2 rear speakers and a subwoofer. To do what I’m proposing, I would need to get a new center speaker for the opposite side of the room (and possibly replace some of the others as well with ceiling mounted speakers). I’m thinking I can get some parts from Radio Shack and build a switch box with terminals for the inputs on one side and the outputs on the other side, with a 6 conductor switch to match up the correct wires inside the box.

4

Does your amp by chance have an a/b speaker selector? If so, you could split the speaker wires to A and B for each configuration.