Home Theater/Audiophiles

[Tricky]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

I'll be sure to check it out.
The downside to this hobby is that it gets in your blood and no matter how good my system may sound, I always think I need to upgrade to something better. I can never find satisfaction. It's a sickness.

I used to be like that comparing Vinyl to a CD, swapping speaker cable every six months, but that was then.
I recently upgraded my TDL RTL2 to a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 230 and the sound is much better, however the source is an Nvidia Shield running YouTube music, for me it's convenience over audiophile quality.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

I used to be like that comparing Vinyl to a CD, swapping speaker cable every six months, but that was then.
I recently upgraded my TDL RTL2 to a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 230 and the sound is much better, however the source is an Nvidia Shield running YouTube music, for me it's convenience over audiophile quality.

The Nvidia Shield is f'n great. That's what I use. I added KODI to it. I would suggest switching over to Amazon Music.

[Tricky]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

The Nvidia Shield is f'n great. That's what I use. I added KODI to it. I would suggest switching over to Amazon Music.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

When I first installed by Surround Sound System, I haven't made any major changes. For the last couple of weeks, I've done a lot of research on the correct way to set it up. There's calibration software built into the Marantz receiver called Audyssey. This is the same software used by IMAX theaters. Kinda. Turns out that it's a downgraded version. To get the professional Audyssey software, you have to pay. About $200.00. More on this in a moment.


The placement of all 11 speakers and 2 subwoofers is key. Audyssey can't compensate for poor speaker placement. When I set up my room, I started by placing my theater chairs 14ft from the 120 inch screen. That was the recommendation. However, that caused the 2 rear speakers & the 2 rear Atmos speakers to be too close together and there wasn't enough separation. To correct this, I had to move the seating forward about 3 feet and move the side surround and rear atmos speakers forward.

Now that I have the perfect placement of all speakers, I went ahead and purchased the professional version of Audyssey. I have it on my laptop and I just made sure it's working. I haven't done all of the calibrations. You can do so much more with the professional version.

Hopefully it's worth the cost. Wel'll see.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

This turned out to be a much bigger job than I realized. Seems like I always say that after completing one of these projects.


I wasn't sure that the juice would be worth the squeeze as one never knows if it's a sales pitch to get you to buy something with promises of grandeur or if it will make a real difference. I've always felt that something wasn't right. The Atmos speakers in the ceiling were not really coming through. And it just didn't sound like a real movie theater experience.


Here's the bottom line. After moving speakers, theater chairs, and running the the professional version of Audyssey, the results are over the top impressive.


I should note that I had to watch about 3-hours of training videos to understand what Audyssey was trying to do and learn the software's capability. The main goal is to get the sound from all 11-speakers to hit your ears at the same time. Another goal is to build a flat sound curve for all speakers as not to sound boomy. From there you can take the flat curve and customize it for the speakers that you own. It gets complicated but not too much if you understand sound frequency and cross over points.

I can't express how impressed I am after making the changes. But I hope to never have to touch it again.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

I continue to learn more about building sound curves via Audessey. Some of it is science and some is personal preference. One thing I've learned is that if you can tell which speaker the sound is coming from, you have it wrong. It needs to be perfectly balanced. Normally, you'd hire a professional to do this.

I have it perfectly dialed in now. It's an experience like none other when you're watching a movie.


For those who have or are thinking of buying a surround sound system, you should check out this video:

[Tricky]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

My system doesnt have bass / treble or a graphic equaliser just volume and balance and the latter is redundant.
I have always liked the old British Naim amplifiers, they have an almost homemade look but are still quite expensive.
Here is a pre-power amp combination, volume control and source selection and that's all you get.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

My system doesnt have bass / treble or a graphic equaliser just volume and balance and the latter is redundant.
I have always liked the old British Naim amplifiers, they have an almost homemade look but are still quite expensive.
Here is a pre-power amp combination, volume control and source selection and that's all you get.

I've never seen those before. What kind of power do they have?


My system doesn't have an EQ. Neither of my two amps have anything but a power button. Volume is controlled @ AV receiver. It's complicated to explain but all bass, mids and highs are controlled by Audyessy. You'd have to watch the video I posted to understand. It took me about 3 times of watching to understand and playing around with it a lot.

PS - Very cool amp + preamp.


Trivia: What is the purpose of a preamp? Anyone?

[Tricky]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

I've never seen those before. What kind of power do they have?


My system doesn't have an EQ. Neither of my two amps have anything but a power button. Volume is controlled @ AV receiver. It's complicated to explain but all bass, mids and highs are controlled by Audyessy. You'd have to watch the video I posted to understand. It took me about 3 times of watching to understand and playing around with it a lot.

PS - Very cool amp + preamp.


Trivia: What is the purpose of a preamp? Anyone?

It's difficult to tell since most of their products looked so similar, maybe 45watts per channel. Back in the '80s they released the Naim Nait integrated amplifier which sold well, was 13 watts per channel and expensive. Depending on the size of wallet you could buy a preamp and crossover which split the audio into bass midrange and treble and feed each of these signals into a separate power amplifier. Something like this,

Full Naim Audio System, Curated with the BEST Components! - YouTube

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

It's difficult to tell since most of their products looked so similar, maybe 45watts per channel. Back in the '80s they released the Naim Nait integrated amplifier which sold well, was 13 watts per channel and expensive. Depending on the size of wallet you could buy a preamp and crossover which split the audio into bass midrange and treble and feed each of these signals into a separate power amplifier. Something like this,

Full Naim Audio System, Curated with the BEST Components! - YouTube

I think many misunderstand crossovers. If a system only has 2 full range speakers, a crossover is pointless as the full audible spectrum needs to be sent to those speakers. Most fullrange speakers have built-in cross overs for the woofers, midrange and tweeters. But there-in lies the problem. The speaker cabinet may be huge in size but not truly FULL range. In fact, most aren't. And that could result in damage to the speakers due to not being able to handle frequencies below around 50hz. That's why I recommend a subwoofer with the crossover set at about 80hz. And I'm talking about the crossover @ the AV receiver.

[Tricky]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

I think many misunderstand crossovers. If a system only has 2 full range speakers, a crossover is pointless as the full audible spectrum needs to be sent to those speakers. Most fullrange speakers have built-in cross overs for the woofers, midrange and tweeters. But there-in lies the problem. The speaker cabinet may be huge in size but not truly FULL range. In fact, most aren't. And that could result in damage to the speakers due to not being able to handle frequencies below around 50hz. That's why I recommend a subwoofer with the crossover set at about 80hz. And I'm talking about the crossover @ the AV receiver.

The system in the video and its predecessor as in the picture above originated way before the home subwoofer was really a thing.
My Wharfedale Diamond 230's are bi-wireable and have two sets of speaker terminals bridged with metal contacts.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

The system in the video and its predecessor as in the picture above originated way before the home subwoofer was really a thing.
My Wharfedale Diamond 230's are bi-wireable and have two sets of speaker terminals bridged with metal contacts.

My Klipsch speakers also have two sets of speaker terminals that are bridged. I've read up on bi-wiring but I'm unsure if it's simply a theory or if there's a practical benefit to doing so. Supposedly it's meant to cut down on unwanted noise that's generated in the speaker wire. Never tried it. How does it work for you?

[Tricky]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

My Klipsch speakers also have two sets of speaker terminals that are bridged. I've read up on bi-wiring but I'm unsure if it's simply a theory or if there's a practical benefit to doing so. Supposedly it's meant to cut down on unwanted noise that's generated in the speaker wire. Never tried it. How does it work for you?

Mine are not bi wired and some speaker manufactures don't sell speakers with this ability

At Cambridge Audio all of our modern speakers do not have the capacity to be bi-wired

That Naim system in the video uses tri wiring with an active crossover and there is one on eBay. Naim uses din plugs as you can see from the picture of the back and requires its own Naim power supply.
Naim Audio SNAXO 3-6 Isobarik DBL Active Crossover | eBay

I cannot see the point, but if you like the style of the product and have the money, why not.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

If you have a surround sound system and you're into streaming movies, this is something that you need to know.


Netflix, AppleTv and rest advertise TrueHD and Dolby Atmos but it's garbage due to the files being compressed. They do this to save space on their servers. As a result, you won't experience Atmos or TruHD sound the way you should. It's sounds terrible.

The best way to experience Atmos is to buy a Blue Ray player that supports ATMOS. Be sure to check that it's supported. Also, make sure you enable "Sound "Pass Throuth" on your blueray player.

Personally, I'm not into buying discs. There are a couple of other options. One is called Kaleidescape but it requires buying hardware that costs in the neighborhood of $10,000. That's too rich for my blood.

The other option is to use KODI. You need to have a high speed internet connection for the uncompressed files. There are settings that need to be changed depending on your sound system. It can be found on YouTube.

Currently I'm in the process of setting up a Plex Server on my Nvidia Shield Pro. It allows me to download HD Atomos motives to a local hard drive and play them on any device.

PS - You also need to get familar with all the movie formats. There's a big format war between Dolby Atmos, DTS and others. The best is Dolby Atmos.

[wjurls]

Re: Home Theater/Audiophiles

Why are getting rid of the PB16 Ultra? I have a pair of SVS PB3000's and the LFE they produce is insane! Serious creep out factor with the subsonic effects. I can only imagine how the PB16 hits.