Interested in Statement Based HT

[jagman]

Hi... first post here .

I ran across these speakers on the web last night and am very intrigued :T. I have an HT and am constantly thinking about upgrading my speakers.

For reference, my HT is 20' wide, 16' deep and 9' tall and has a carpeted floor. It is fully isolated from the rest of the house. I have a 110" diagonal screen centered on one of the long walls and a dual Ascendant Audio 18" Avalanche infinite baffle subwoofer centered directly above it. Directly across from the screen is a couch pulled about 3' off the wall. The room is heavily treated with passive acoustic bass traps traps (all wall/wall corners and all wall/ceiling corners) and first reflection points (behind the front speakers, along the side walls, behind the seated position and a ceiling cloud). I'm basically using MT monitors for L, C and R duty and matching dipoles for side surrounds. Clearly they are not up to the task.

Going forward, I'm considering Statements for L and R, the Statement Center in the middle and either a pair of Mini Statements for surrounds or two pair of Monitor Statements. Since the Monitor Statements are smaller and allow near boundry placement, I can fit in two pairs, but if using the Mini Statements there is only room for one pair. Another options would be to build two pair of Mini-Statments and the Statement Center initially (for 5.1) and and then later build the big guys and relocate the second pair of Mini Statements to the living room. A third option would be to build a pair of Mini Statements for L and R, a Statement Center and two pair of Monitor Statements.

What do you guys think I should do? I suppose the real question is how much overkill do I really want? Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

[jagman]

Something else... I plan on getting the Sherwood Newcastle R-972 receiver (if it is ever released). This is rated to output about 110 watts to each speaker (if my memory is correct), but they have been known to overstate their output. As such, I'm wondering if the receiver has enough juice to push the Statements. The Statements look awesome, but I'm concerned they need a pretty robust 2-channel amp to really shine. It might be better to get a pair of Mini-Statements, the Statement Center, and two pair of Monitor Statements since the receiver should be able to handle them more easily.

Again, your recommendations, please.

[NateTTU]

I have the setup you are interested in. Statments for the front, minis for the rear, and the center (for the center of course!). I'm powering them with a LPA-1 amp from Emotiva and its more than enough. I had them in a couple of rooms already. One was about 18x25x10 and now its in a much smaller room 13x12x8. I honestly can't think of a better setup and I don't think its was too much or not enough for either room.
One thing I do recommend is to at least build the statements for the front channels. I probably could have lived with the monitors for the rears but for the front I highly recommend the larger speakers. To me they just have a much larger sound to them and for movies and two channel audio I think they are must. The minis would be fine, but since I have both I recommend the originals.
Sorry I don't have time to explain much but I'm at lunch and now have to go back to work. Good luck.

[impala454]

Welcome Jag! Glad to see you chose the Statements! I've got four monitors and a center powered by an Emotiva XPA-5 and it sounds amazing. I'll build a full sized pair to round out my 7.1 some time next year.

As far as choosing between the minis & full sized, I cannot tell you much as I haven't built them yet, but the cost difference isn't all that much, especially for a set of speakers that will probably last you a lifetime. I would think the only reason to build the minis over the full sized would be space considerations, which it sounds like aren't an issue for you. Be sure to check out all the build threads.

p.s. I also highly recommend going with a separate amp. I used to be a reciever guy but these guys changed my mind and wow that separate amp really added an extra notch of quality I didn't know existed.

[jagman]

As nice as a separate amp for L and R would sound, I won't likely get one, if at all, for a long time. It sounds like I really should go for the big guys up front knowing full well they may be underpowered... since my first reflection absorbers are all 60" tall it seems like it's meant to be 8). Agreed?

Regarding the surrounds, do you guys think it's better to have four Monitor-Statements (7.1) or two Mini-Statements (5.1) for surrounds given either set up can have the surrounds placed at theoretically ideal locations? The Mini-Statements would be about a foot and a half out from the corner bass trap behind and to the side of the seated position whereas the Monitor-Statements would have the crossover that allows near wall placement... so no treatments behind them, but they would be just offset behind as well as to the side of the seated position.

[impala454]

Just really depends on whether you like 7.1 or 5.1 better... the sound from both setups will be awesome

and not sure if you thought something different on the amp, I didn't mean I have a separate amp for each speaker, just one amp that powers all 5 (this one). just thought I'd clarify.

[jagman]

I've only had a 5.1 with dipoles at 90 degrees high up on the wall. I've never heard a 5.1 or 7.1 setup with direct radiating surrounds of reasonable quality so I'm not sure which is better. I'm leaning towards the Monitor-Statements as I could put in the adjustable crossover for further flexibility should I move in a few years. The extra bass energy from the extra woofer in the Mini-Statements probably isn't a important as a more broad surround field when only considering surrounds. If anything having the bass coming mostly from the front of the room will make the rears less distracting. Probably the best thing to do is go to a few local shops and demo different setups to see what I like the most.

[jagman]

As for the amps vs receiver... the receiver I want has is awesome and could easily act as a pre-amp down the road when I have more money for better quality amp. Thanks for the suggestion .

[Dennis H]

The Sherwood Newcastles are known for putting out lots of power compared to most receivers. I think Brian Bunge is powering his big towers with one and likes it. Timely delivery of announced models and getting the firmware right the first time -- well that's another story.

[Brian Bunge]

Yep, I'm using an older R-863T to power my big ass towers (with nominal 3 ohm loads) and it does a very good job. I've been so impressed that even after testing a similarly powered outboard amp on the speakers I really saw no real reason to upgrade.

SN is pretty much known for being late on delivery but they make up for it with the product that they put out, IMHO.

[jagman]

Well I suppose that's good news and bad news. It's exciting to hear you're using a S/N receiver and it can easily drive large towers. The waiting part isn't so exciting. The R-972 was announced in 01/07 with the expectation of being released in 08/07. Now it's one year later and we're still waiting . The only reason I didn't move on is I really want the Trinnov Optimizer :T.