Many moons ago, I purchased a pair of Paradigm Monitor 9's. This was 1998, 1999 timeframe. I paired those up with a CC350 Center Channel (Or...something, honestly its the one that had the same 6" cones that I believe the Monitor 9's have). But for my rears I chose Atoms instead of the Monitor's that were designed to be bookshelves, maybe they called them Titans. I digress....I had Atoms for the rears, the V2's.
This year I finally upgraded my receiver, and now I had 7.1 channels to play with (and more), so I went on ebay and found a pair of Atom V2's for dirt cheap, got them and they sounded amazing. This was, of course, to have atoms all the way around in the rear. Two in the back corners toed in (that I would probably move to be true rears), and two sides.
Problem is...I really don't have the space for the Atoms as my side-surrounds. My primary seating position would be behind them by about 3 feet, and that puts me 3 feet away from my two corner-positioned-and-toed-in-towards-the-seating-position 5.1 rears. I wanted to hang the other atoms...and I realize now, it's just not practical due to the ceiling height of my basement HT (just over 7ft). I can re-purpose the extra atoms no problem.......but I wonder now: Do I go with a smaller pair of rears (or two pairs since I doubt I'll find something that matches the atoms in the rear, so I'd replace 4 speakers).....or do I just stick with 5.1 Also, I've got some very broken-in Paradigms up front, not sure timbre matching matters but I also can't have something that is night-and-day different..
I have two choices. Stick with 5.1 (which, to be brutally honest, is fine for me, having heard some true 7.1 and gone "yeah ok..but...."), or I find some new rears and side-surrounds. Or I replace my rears with Dipoles?? Not sure that buys me anything.
Advice needed. Thanks in Advance.

This year I finally upgraded my receiver, and now I had 7.1 channels to play with (and more), so I went on ebay and found a pair of Atom V2's for dirt cheap, got them and they sounded amazing. This was, of course, to have atoms all the way around in the rear. Two in the back corners toed in (that I would probably move to be true rears), and two sides.
Problem is...I really don't have the space for the Atoms as my side-surrounds. My primary seating position would be behind them by about 3 feet, and that puts me 3 feet away from my two corner-positioned-and-toed-in-towards-the-seating-position 5.1 rears. I wanted to hang the other atoms...and I realize now, it's just not practical due to the ceiling height of my basement HT (just over 7ft). I can re-purpose the extra atoms no problem.......but I wonder now: Do I go with a smaller pair of rears (or two pairs since I doubt I'll find something that matches the atoms in the rear, so I'd replace 4 speakers).....or do I just stick with 5.1 Also, I've got some very broken-in Paradigms up front, not sure timbre matching matters but I also can't have something that is night-and-day different..
I have two choices. Stick with 5.1 (which, to be brutally honest, is fine for me, having heard some true 7.1 and gone "yeah ok..but...."), or I find some new rears and side-surrounds. Or I replace my rears with Dipoles?? Not sure that buys me anything.
Advice needed. Thanks in Advance.