Why is home surround speaker more expensive than Home theater?

I've just purchased a 5.1 amplifier/receiver and a 7-speaker home theater system. Is there some way that the extra speaker (rear center surround) can be used on the 5.1 amplifier?

• Answer:

  Not really. There is a possibility that your reciever may have a second isolated chanel that would allow you to switch between two speakers seperate and the you surrounds but i have only seen this in very high end oncio and harmen cardin recievers. People think that you are able to just tie in more speakers into your 5 speaker lines but this is a horrible idea. Most of the speakers that you are going to buy are either going to be 4ohms or 8 ohms speakers. (ohms is an electrical term for measurment of resistance a component has in a circuit.) When you tie two speakers together either in paralell (connecting the right lines and left lines together) you cut the resistance in half causeing the same amount of voltage to run across a much smaller resistance which will shot the current through the roof, damaging your speakers or your reciver. If you connect the in series (input line to output line and back) you are then increasing the resistance which will lower your wattage to your speakers, causeing them to sound horrible. This will not damage the speakers but it is possible to have prolonged damage to your reciever if you dont have a high watt reciever or seperate ohm range plugs on your reciever. Now most speaker connection on the back of your reciever now a days are compatible with 4 ohm- 8 ohm so if you woulf run two 4 ohm speakers in series with each other you are intern only running one 8 ohm speaker so it would still work. But heres the problem with that..... If you have two speakers hooked up in a true surround sound system with a digital audio connection (either digital coaxial or optical) then the two speakers you connect will have the same sounds coming out of the but at different time because of the series hook up, so while your surround sound is throwing out great sound from different speakers to give you that there experience, you will have a echo effect from the two speakers you hooked in series. Now if you are not using true surround sound it isnt a big deal but if you want true good surround sound, stick with how many speakers your reciver system calls for.