Page 1 of Surround sound question

I have just been given a surround sound system, av receiver and 3 speakers and sub. Do I need to buy 2 more speakers or can I use the tv speakers for the front sound. Is it unusual to not have 5 speakers, the person who gave it to me never used it and can`t remember how many speakers came with it, but we can only find the 3 and sub.

Thanks

You won`t get true surround sound using the TV speakers as you suggest.
The sound produced from the TV speakers will be all 5 channels of sound produced by the DVD player mixed down to stereo (2 channels) - there will always be elements of the rear and centre sounds in with the front channels.
You will need to add a couple more speakers to your setup to get true 5.1 reproduction from the Surround Sound Amp.
Shouldn`t be too expensive though.
Have a look at what`s available at Richer Sounds

Try putting this in the hardware forum too, you may get better response.... :)

Technically, you could use your TV speakers but heres some reasons why it would be better to buy two fronts now: TV speakers are crap even in expensive TV`s, for true stereo the fronts should be about 6ft apart ( not many TV`s this wide :) ) As you have a standalone amp/reciever + the sub and rear surrounds you might as well go the whole hog and buy a couple of fronts to go with it, you would be cheating yourself if you didn`t._PK

My amp/receiver says 100W on the front, do I need to make sure the total W does not exceed 100W when I get 2 more speakers?

Quote:
Technically, you could use your TV speakers

I don`t think so - only if there is a way of isolating the existing stereo downmix produced by the TV to its speakers and connecting them up to the dedicated front right and front left channels of the surround sound amp.
Possible I guess with those new big screen sets with detachable speakers but otherwise would mean opening up the TV cabinet and setting up some kind of bypass arangement.