Four Scenarios for Surround Sound
Use Your Existing Speakers for the Front Left and Right
Add a center speaker, a pair of small speakers for the surrounds, possibly a subwoofer, and you're ready to rumble. This option is especially appealing if you have relatively large, recent-vintage loudspeakers that you like so much you'd hate to give them up."Recent vintage" means you have a decent shot at finding a matching center speaker, since almost all manufacturers have been making dedicated center speakers for years now.
If your speakers are relatively old, you can still go with just the pair up front until you're ready to spring for a new, matched front threesome. (Upgrading in stages is always an option.) Or, if you're really in love with your current speakers and you expect most of your listening to be to stereo music rather than surround-sound tracks, you may decide that you'd rather live without a center speaker than sacrifice your old favorites.
Use Your Existing Speakers as Surrounds
This will work as long as the speakers will fit where they need to go--which doesn't necessarily mean they have to be small. Even big floor-standing loudspeakers can work as surrounds. In fact, one possibility if you have such speakers is to put small matched speakers across the front and let the bass management in your receiver or processor send all the low frequencies to the big surround speakers, giving you time to save up for a subwoofer and maybe a new set of surrounds. Check out the setup features on your receiver and make sure that it will let you set the front speakers to Small and the surround speakers to Large.
Use Your Existing Speakers and Receiver as a Powered Subwoofer
This is not an option if your current speakers are really small, but if they have at least 8-inch (or even 6.5-inch) woofers, it's worth considering. The beauty of this approach is that it lets you buy small but well-matched, high-performance speakers for the front and surround channels while the old clunkers handle all the grunt work at the bottom end. Essentially any receiver will serve the purpose here, though the higher its power output capability, the better.
Here's how to set things up: Put one or, preferably, both speakers together in a corner of the room, if possible. Two speakers will allow greater maximum output than one, and since they will be receiving the same signal in this situation, there is normally no benefit to separating them. (Corners are usually best, especially when well away from open doors, because that also increases output and typically yields the smoothest, most accurate output as well, but other locations can also work. No matter what, though, try to keep the speaker or speakers close to a wall.) Connect the speaker or speakers to the receiver just as you normally would. Hook the subwoofer output on your surround receiver or processor to your old receiver or amplifier, using a Y-connector if you're using both speakers. (You'll need a Y-connector with one male RCA plug and two female RCA sockets, which attach to a stereo RCA cable leading to the old receiver or amplifier.)
You can use any of the stereo receiver's line-level inputs (that is, any input not designed to connect to a phono cartridge); just make sure the receiver's source selector is set to that input. You will also need to adjust the volume control to a range where you can achieve an appropriate sound level from your makeshift subs, which you can achieve by trial and error in conjunction with your surround receiver's speaker setup function.
One caveat, however: Unless your speakers are fairly large, floor-standing models, they are unlikely to provide the deep-bass extension of a good purpose-built subwoofer. (Not that everything called a subwoofer does, either, but that's another story.) This can still be a good stopgap strategy, though, for taking some of the low-frequency load off your main speakers while ensuring that you don't completely lose the bass from channels served by small speakers.
Use Your Old Stereo Receiver (or Amp) to Drive Back Surround Speakers
Another potential application for your existing stereo receiver (or amp) would allow you to use it as an amplifier to drive back surround speakers. This would work in a system where the surround receiver (or processor) has Dolby Digital EX decoding capability but only a five-channel amplifier section. Such receivers have outputs to drive an external stereo amplifier for the back surround speakers. You hook things up as described in the section above, except that you usually don't need a Y-connector and the speakers, obviously, are not set up and positioned as subwoofers. The amount of energy reproduced by the surround speakers--back surrounds especially--is quite low relative to the front speakers, so even a very low-power receiver will be adequate for this application.
Writer Michael Riggs has been reviewing A/V gear for more years than he likes to admit.
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