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Inspiring
December 6, 2019
Question

Help me with my 5.1 Surround Setup (pretty please)

  • December 6, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 2508 views

Hi!

 

We're about to mix our film in 5.1 surround. I've done a bit of 5.1 mixing in Premiere and Audition and we tested it in a local theater and it sounded great but with only a 2.1 setup currently it was a lot of guessing and testing at the local theater. They were super nice to let me do that. But now I'm setting up my office to edit in 5.1 surround. I need to purchase speakers and the interface or controller to route all those speakers into and I'd love some advice. My office is 8' x 16' and has acoustic panels and 

 

The speakers I was looking at picking up were:

5 x JBL LSR305 MKII Speakers  ($99/each)

JBL 310s Sub

 

But what's a solid interface/controller option for less than $500 to run all those speakers into?

 

Focusrite 18i20 3rd Gen?

SPL SMC 2489? (I found one for a great price)

 

I'm not sure which of the above controllers is better. Does anyone here know?

 

Eventhough 90% of the time we'll just be editing stereo mixes for video,  I'd love to be set and ready for all 5.1 mixes as well. Thoughts?

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

December 9, 2019

I like Focusrite a lot

The SPL looks pricy and it's less feature rich, even if it does have a nice knob

DMH79Author
Inspiring
December 10, 2019

When you say the focusrite is more feature rich, what do you mean? I'm talking specifically for 5.1 surround mixing. 

 

(The SPL I've found for $450. Even being that price, is it still not as good as the much newer 18i20?)

December 10, 2019

You could use the focusrite for a bunch of other things in addition to running the 5.1 monitoring. It's got 18 inputs and 20 outputs, and you only need like 6 outputs. That's a 18x12 audio interface you're left with. 

Peru Bob
Community Expert
December 6, 2019

I moved this to the Video Hardware forum, hoping that you will get a better response.