Home Theater/Audiophiles

[BillyCarpenter]

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:

[skynet]

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]

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?

[skynet]

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]

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.

[skynet]

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]

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?

[skynet]

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]

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]

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.