Home Theater Speaker Choice

[PanteraGSTK]

Hey guys. I hate starting an advice thread, but you guys know more than I do so I need some education.

I am in the process of finishing my theater and once I get the projector and new receiver wired up and installed I'll begin building my speakers.

I want to go with full size statements for my mains due to the fact that they will double as a 2.0 music setup. After looking at placement in my room they will work, but since they have to be at least 18" from the wall they will be close to my listening position of about 10'. They will work well at that position, but the receiver I'm getting supports the new DSX sound mode that can use wide speakers. I'm going to use monitor statements for the wide and height channels and according to the Audyssey site the height/width speakers need to be the same/similar to the mains/center. I'm going to use the 2rcc so that will be fine.

What I'd like to know from you guys is should I go all out with the big statements with a 13' wide room and 90" wide screen or should I just do monitors all around for a more even soundstage as well as placement flexibility? I really want the big ones for music without a sub, but I don't want them to make width/height speaker placement impossible.

What do you guys think? I have to use the following diagram to make sure I get the placement correct.

[capww8]

In your situation, width and elevation channels are not going to make a bit of difference. I would strongly suggest puting that $ into better amplification, or a proper (massive) subwoofer.

As far as credentials go, I design commercial cinema audio and video solutions for a living... feel free to disagree, but as small as your screen is, you don't need to attempt to resolve information in those spaces. If you were using very low quality speakers, it may be helpful to have the additional speakers and 'channels', but since you are building good quality monitors it's not going to add anything substantial to your theatre.

-AP

* professionally, I don't even consider elevation channels until I'm approaching a 60 foot wide screen.

[PanteraGSTK]

In your situation, width and elevation channels are not going to make a bit of difference. I would strongly suggest puting that $ into better amplification, or a proper (massive) subwoofer.

As far as credentials go, I design commercial cinema audio and video solutions for a living... feel free to disagree, but as small as your screen is, you don't need to attempt to resolve information in those spaces. If you were using very low quality speakers, it may be helpful to have the additional speakers and 'channels', but since you are building good quality monitors it's not going to add anything substantial to your theatre.

-AP

* professionally, I don't even consider elevation channels until I'm approaching a 60 foot wide screen.

That's my main worry. I'll have to see what happens. I'm going to build quality subs anyway so no worries there. I'll be getting some Emotiva XPA-5's to power everything (or possible some crown class d pro amps), but that will the the very last piece of the puzzle.

Thanks.

[Bear]

With as little information as gets sent to the wide and height channels, I can't imagine justifying the expense to have those be identical to the main LCR speakers. It's great for marketing if I'm a speaker manufacturer, but the real value proposition? To quote Vizzini, "Inconceivable!".

My quick calculations indicate that you've got a little bit of room to increase the screen size while keeping the left and right channels outboard of the screen. The only caution flag I would put up is to make sure that your center channel is either your best speaker or is as good as the left and the right. Jed makes some good speakers (I have his Minuet 5B design for my LCR), so you may want to look into his some of his more recent updates. I'm not sure how they'd match, though.

[PanteraGSTK]

With as little information as gets sent to the wide and height channels, I can't imagine justifying the expense to have those be identical to the main LCR speakers. It's great for marketing if I'm a speaker manufacturer, but the real value proposition? To quote Vizzini, "Inconceivable!".

My quick calculations indicate that you've got a little bit of room to increase the screen size while keeping the left and right channels outboard of the screen. The only caution flag I would put up is to make sure that your center channel is either your best speaker or is as good as the left and the right. Jed makes some good speakers (I have his Minuet 5B design for my LCR), so you may want to look into his some of his more recent updates. I'm not sure how they'd match, though.

The 2rcc is a modified statement center that is almost 3 feet wide so it would actually be the biggest speaker. I think I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to stick with the original plan. Full size statements, 2rcc (big statement center) and Lineup f4 for all other channels. Thanks guys. I may try a bigger screen, but that is still up in the air at this point.

[snmhanson]

I think you'll be fine with that setup. I have the Monitors flanking a 92" screen with the 2RCC center and it all sounds good. Like you, I plan on building some lineups for surrounds since they use the W4-1337 and seem to be the closest speakers with a small foot print that I could find. IMO, Monitors would be overkill for surround duty - though they couldn't hurt. I can't comment on the front wide and height speakers.

The only thing to keep in mind is that the 2RCC is not a ported design so it won't go as low as a comparable ported design (Statements). It doesn't even go as low as my Monitors. I suspect that the regular ported Statement center actually may go lower and play at least as loud as the 2RCC. However, the 2RCC is nice and quick and puts out great vocals and higher notes - it just doesn't put out the bass I was expecting from two RS225s. I am thinking of trying a couple of small ports in my 2RCC so see if I can bump up the bass a bit - not that it sounds bad how it is. If it doesn't work out I can just plug them up I suppose. There are a few posts that discuss pairing the 2RCC with the other Statement series speakers that I would recommend you search for and read. Have you thought about going with Sealed Statements/2RCC and a sub? I think that is what I will do if/when I replace my Monitors.

Matt

[PanteraGSTK]

I think you'll be fine with that setup. I have the Monitors flanking a 92" screen with the 2RCC center and it all sounds good. Like you, I plan on building some lineups for surrounds since they use the W4-1337 and seem to be the closest speakers with a small foot print that I could find. IMO, Monitors would be overkill for surround duty - though they couldn't hurt. I can't comment on the front wide and height speakers.

The only thing to keep in mind is that the 2RCC is not a ported design so it won't go as low as a comparable ported design (Statements). It doesn't even go as low as my Monitors. I suspect that the regular ported Statement center actually may go lower and play at least as loud as the 2RCC. However, the 2RCC is nice and quick and puts out great vocals and higher notes - it just doesn't put out the bass I was expecting from two RS225s. I am thinking of trying a couple of small ports in my 2RCC so see if I can bump up the bass a bit - not that it sounds bad how it is. If it doesn't work out I can just plug them up I suppose. There are a few posts that discuss pairing the 2RCC with the other Statement series speakers that I would recommend you search for and read. Have you thought about going with Sealed Statements/2RCC and a sub? I think that is what I will do if/when I replace my Monitors.

Matt

I think that I'm going to end up with full size L,R and a 2rcc for the center. I'd like to have more low end from the center, but I think it will work fine. Monitor statements for surrounds would be overkill, and my room isn't big enough for them to work in that config.

I'll be using 2 subs (once I build them) for HT, but I don't like a sub for music. I want to be able to use the statements alone for music.

I think with a normal 7.1 system the full sized statements as mains, 2rcc for a center (can't put it that far from the wall hence the 2rcc), and lineup f4 for surround, back, wide, and high speakers and I'll be good to go. I usually don't go for the pseudo surround modes, but I've read that quite a few with the 11.1 DSX setup love it and think it adds to the current 7.1 implementation. I think building 4 more f4's won't be much more work than I'm already going to be putting into this project, so I might as well see how they do. It won't take more than 5 extra min to wire the room so there won't be much wasted effort there.

Thanks again guys.

[capww8]

"I think that I'm going to end up with full size L,R and a 2rcc for the center. "

It wouldn't hurt you to use the full size for all three speakers if you want more bass extension in the center, you will just have to use an acoustically transparent screen. Ideally you would modify the crossover to account for the high frequency loss in the screen, but you could certainly live without it.

"It won't take more than 5 extra min to wire the room so there won't be much wasted effort there."

That's absolutely correct, and you should probably add multiple drops around the room for additional subwoofers, and for a 'god channel' in the ceiling. That is really likely to be the next discrete channel supported by hollywood.

[PanteraGSTK]

It wouldn't hurt you to use the full size for all three speakers if you want more bass extension in the center, you will just have to use an acoustically transparent screen. Ideally you would modify the crossover to account for the high frequency loss in the screen, but you could certainly live without it.




That's absolutely correct, and you should probably add multiple drops around the room for additional subwoofers, and for a 'god channel' in the ceiling. That is really likely to be the next discrete channel supported by hollywood.

I've heard quite a few people refer to the "god channel". It was my understanding that the height channel from the likes of dsx and plIIz were the crappy way of doing this. I guess not. I wonder if we are ever going to get more than 7.1 discrete channels in the home. I know based on my room that more makes it very hard for additional channels, especially if you don't have easy access to the ceiling and front and back walls like I do (thank god for multiple attics).

You just saved me BTW as I'm about to order the cable for the whole HT. I completely forgot about RCA's for the sub connections. Thanks (I feel really stupid right now...)

[capww8]

You can really just drop RG59 or RG6 through the walls for your sub connections, and terminate them if/when needed. Send Cat5 everywhere too... it can be used for nearly anything in a pinch.

The God Channel is used for overhead pans in the same way that multiple surround channels handle stage / rear pans, and rear pans. Elevation channels came into play to increase uniformity across very large screens (as I mentioned before, we're talking about a 60 ft.+ screen, which in Flat would be around 32 ft. tall). That's just too big for a single array of speakers to cover, so two elevation channels are added in an "M" configuration, and the normal stage speakers are lowered a few degrees. **This is essentially the same solution as having multiple speakers for each surround channel, although the elevation channels need a matrixed input to maintain resolution between the l/c/r channels**

The biggest difficulty in adding discrete channels is figuring out how to code them into the film soundtrack, 7.1 was received well because it didn't require any additional manhours in post production compared to 5.1. Adding discrete elevation channels (God Channel, Stereo God Channel, IIz stage elevation, etc) requires a 3D input device, rather than a 2D input device, and substantially increases the amount of time required in post.

An overhead (not stage elevation) is likely to be the next major change because it provides a substantial improvement when paired with 3D video presentation, but will likely only be implemented in rare situations for major-bucks releases (the way discrete 7.1 is released now in theatres). Most people are surprised to learn that a substantial number of commercial theatres have no capacity for discrete 5.1 (most are pro-logic), and even fewer are 7.1. Only in the last few months have we been building multi-plexes that are 100% 7.1 capable.