Can non surround sound speakers work with a 5.1 receiver?

Question

Can non surround sound speakers work with a 5.1 receiver?

Answer 1

Yes, They can.

Answer 2

Speakers themselves are not surround sound. Surround sound is an audio signal sent to your speakers from the receiver. The 5 channels in 5.1 are as follows. The main speakers are in front of you. Left and right. They handle mainly music, sound effects, and to a small degree, dialogue. The "surround" speakers are just regular speakers that are behind or beside you. The receiver sends signals to them with a timed delay kind of like a reverb. This gives you the sense of spacial(not special) orientation. For example they can make a bullet sound like it went from the front(main) speakers to the rear speakers.(Surround) That's 4 channels so far. Front L&R and surround L&R. The center channel speaker is the one that sits on top of or under your TV. It is actually the hardest working speaker. It mostly handles dialogue. That is why it's positioned the way it is. It anchors the dialogue to the TV. It also handles other parts of the audio but to a much lesser extent. The .1 in the 5.1 channel configuration is the powered subwoofer. It has it's own power source(amplifier) built in. The receiver sends just enough power to carry the audio signal(signal voltage) and the built in amplifier juices it up. The center channel speaker and powered subwoofer are the only two specialized, or dedicated, speakers. I hope I explaind that in a way  you can understand. It's really hard to do without being able to use diagrams. I am a home theater fanatic. Spent $3000 just on my speakers but feel the need to upgrade. If I can help further feel free to contact me anytime. I love this stuff and will gladly pass on whatever I can to get people addicted like I am. LOL. Good luck and good listening. Don't know why someone gave my answer a thumbs down but rest assured the info I gave you is 100% accurate. I have over $6,000 invested in my system and worked as a custom installation tech for 3 years. I don't care about the thumb down, I just don't want you to get bad info.