This is something I’d felt for years and never thought to ask true audiophiles and dedicated 2-channel listeners. Would hearing that a pair of speakers performs well in an AV or home theater system, cause you to reconsider that speaker or brand for strictly 2-channel listening? To me, it sounds similar to a performance car also being advertised as a grocery go-getter, or that it doubles well for a soccer mom with an adventurous foot. These claims are by users and not the actual manufacturers or marketers, but there just seems to be too many parallels to ignore. Just curious.
To my ear speakers intended for the home theater market are voiced differently and tend to project more, especially in the presence region. Bass tends to be louder but less articulate. These are generalizations, movies especially when released for home video tend to have different mixing and presentation priorities as well. As the saying goes, YMMV. I gave up on home theater sound long ago and let the TV do all the talking.
I mostly use my Aerial 7b’s for home theater along with matching Aerial CC3b center channel. To me the 7b sounds great for 2 channel music also.
Fine speakers there, I prefer them for two channel. I currently run a pair of Aerial 5T for casual digital streaming. Happy camper.
Interesting question. I have been a fan of both 2 ch and HT for decades. A dedicated HT can sound incredible but for music suck. Many high end HT speakers are designed for just that, HT use. Behind a screen, high dynamics, hard hits, big bass. That does not always translate to the accurate sound reproduction we want in 2 ch. In fact I have two subs for HT only. G25HP from Rythmik. They are beasts. They are built to use a xover from an AVR. Did they work great with a JL CR-1, yes. Hit a button for two channel and hit it again and its from AVR. I added two 12" FS12SE from Rythmik and dumped and put the big subs on HT duty only. Guess what, better sound. Using the full range of my towers along side the two subs was better than just throwing power and size at music.
When I designed my new room (now 2 years old almost) I set out with Vicoustics to make it set up for a 2 channel listening room and built the HT around that. Even with the diffusers up front behind the screen. I went with an acoustically transparent screen even though no speakers are behind it. Let the panels do what they were there for and not have the screen effect the sound (or at least minimize it). My Pre (now my integrated) has bypass so the fronts run with the AVR for HT. Each system has room correction. Diract ART for HT and ORC (thank you edgar) for 2 ch.
So to answer the question, No hearing a good HT does not make me want to consider the speakers for 2 ch. Now if the person played some music and I liked it, then sure… but they are completely different setups. I have often pondered separating out my 2 ch 100%. Buy 2 more speakers and put them along with the center behind the screen, but then I go, why…these work great for HT and I dont need to spend another 4k to get some JTRs to put behind the screen. guess I would swap out my center to match them so make that more like $7k. Would rather by some new Power cables for the 2 channel setup
This was my thinking, but I’ve seen photos of home theaters and read reviews of people using Focal, Sonus Faber and a few other brands (typically models that cost less than 40k per pair) for audio/audio-video. It could be that they’ve just decided to incorporate speakers that lean into focused listening for their setups, but the brands seem too consistently mentioned to not question it. While the goal is to buy what sounds best to you, I’m also trying not to be biased when looking.
Doesn’t bother me one bit to use my main stereo system & speakers for movies too. I even have Front Row Reserve interconnect for the analog audio output from my 4k blu ray disc player to preamp.
I suppose it depends on how sophisticated your setup is. Space constraints leave me with a bastard HT setup of center and surround speakers that are a different make and model than the fronts. They blend and work well enough for HT dialog.
The fronts would be fantastic in a 2 ch system but, even with a matching center, the whole setup is irreparably compromised for 2 ch because of placement constraints on the fronts.
Exactly why I approached the room design from the beginning and made the compromises with the HT speaker placement. In the end HT is a bit more flexible for that sort of thing, with Dirac and ARC from the major manufacturers its a bit more forgiving than 2 ch speaker placement.