Quiet_Hollow

I realize it's not Christmas but I was spending some serious play time on the Walk Off the Earth channel and stumbled across this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1bN6Yg7FjQ

^^^

The physics of acoustic waves. Placing two speakers side by side is a compromise. It is the practice of robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's not simply a matter of placing two cabinets together. It requires some consideration. I use two La Scala side-by-side as a center channel for two reasons: 1. Controlled Dispersion. When watching movies, and negating the subwoofer channel for the sake of this conversation, the remaining majority of sound power comes out of the center....ie, almost all of it. I don't like spraying all that energy across the room at reference levels, especially the mids. I don't have the luxury of peppering my room with absorbers/diffusers. Side-by-side tightens up the mid range horizontal dispersion pattern considerably. It parks all the energy on the center listening area which really clears up dialogue...particularly male voices. It also has the side effect of keeping the neighbor's happy, even at stupid loud levels. The couch can be ground zero at war volume, yet in the kitchen you can still comfortably hold a conversation. Beyond this desire, and the fact that I don't have a projection screen to hide a pile of speakers behind, there is no reason not to stack vertically. 2. Boundary effects / mutual coupling. A single La Scala placed along a wall will suffer some comparative loss in bass performance. As a pair however, the horns couple and dramatically improve their response. Horns behave differently than direct radiators in this regard. The results don't directly translate between designs. This is where knowing the performance envelope of the speakers helps considerably. Paying attention to the design's Directivity Index, Toe-in to minimize interference, but no so much that the tweeters are bouncing directly off the opposite baffles at crossover. However, toe-in creates a cavity between the rear of the cabinets and the wall, and a nice split along the lower baffle that acts like a port, which all has to be effectively sealed off to prevent interference. So you have to run a thick foam gasket between the two baffles and place a cover across the top with a rigid board that extends over the entire cavity and all the way up to the rear wall, then mass load it with something substantial (like a TV). Otherwise, it sounds like sh*t. Finally, you have to be aware of the 1/4 wavelength distance that the pair is from the L&R main channels and set your global high pass filter cutoff point high enough that front three channels aren't stepping all over one another. Can you still hear the interference in the treble range? Sure, but it's subtle compared to the dramatic improvement in the mids and bass. Once again, a compromise...and it all depends on what your priorities are. If I sit directly on-axis while listening to some treble material, and translate my head evenly from left to right and back, I can hear the comb filtering. It's not offensive in any way, and it's not like the performance drops into the abyss either. Off-axis, I can't even detect it. The fact that most center channel program material is largely mono, plays into to this as well. Others have pointed out that the tonal shift isn't as bad as it is on paper, and I agree, but I'm also smart enough not to bother trying this with my left and right channels either. In summary, #2 is why I use a pair for my center channel, #1 is why they are situated side-by-side. So...yes, I use two center channel speakers without much issue, but the setup is not a benign process. ...and no, not like the Sonos....not even close.

Dayton SA-1000 Marchand MB42 Klipsch KA-1000-THX Behringer A500 (no onboard filters)

in progress.

"No" in the sense that the system doesn't magically sprout power somewhere along the chain, but "yes" in terms of overall performance.

1. RTA at the listening position in order to pick the ideal low pass filter cut off point 2. Single channel PEQ to tame the primary room peak, if any, present afterwards.

I hear this all the time, and I firmly believe it to be an unrealistic goal. Not unobtainable, just not practical in the majority of cases. No, I'm not a bass Luddite. I appreciate healthy performance below 60Hz as much as the next person. This isn't a special case, and you're talking about capability way out on the tail end of the bell curve. Having spent considerable time around real world stuff that makes SPL in that freq range (the infra-bass region) I'll tell you that: A. It's typically not musical B. Not subtle in any way C. The required acoustic power to approach anything resembling realistic playback levels is beyond the capability of traditional dynamic driver design. D. The noise floor down there is ridiculous.

Not at all. The sensitivity doesn't diminish with positive changes in EQ, rather it's headroom (ie, desired playback level subtracted from in-room freq response minus any boosted EQ plus total power handling all expressed in dB). The loss is proportional. For example a +3 dB boost in EQ yields a 3 dB reduction in headroom. Where the K402 is concerned in the home environment, this is typically not an issue in terms of capability. The K402 requires EQ for the typical Jubilee application because it behaves naturally as a low pass filter when driven above ~6 kHz.

...slippery slope.

IOW, don't melt them. Like say, cranking the piss out of the volume knob looking for bass instead of using an EQ or a proper sub. New gaskets from Bob; to seal the fronts. Double check the seal on the backs. The diaphragms will last practically forever. Lastly, the horn math says don't expect big miracles from changing just the drivers. That being said, A-55G is one helluva nice unit.

Want your stereo to sound extra juicy for little to no effort?? ...and not involving alcohol...cough cough Learned this one from watching the tube folks, yet found out it has not so much to do with the electronics, but rather more so the improvement in driver compliance proportional to duty cycle. Simply leave the system fired up playing the radio (or streaming) at very low-level all day long. BAM... extra smooth and wide by the end of the day when you go to turn it up. Particularly noticeable with horns.

FWIW, all this talk about the purportedly "superior" dual phase-plug K55V.....it's also worth mentioning the K55M is a direct descendant of the design. The only reason Klipsch stopped installing them is because the supply was exhausted after EV quit manufacturing them.

There's more to bi-amping in this case (Pioneer w/ MCACC). With the LF and HF split, the DSP is free to adjust delay to compensate for splitting of the filter network (ie. removing the jumpers). You paid for it, so I'd say use it. You'll hear the difference after you re-run MCACC.

Yup. Possibly even higher depending on how the room is interacting at the listening position, but you can check that with your SPL Meter when you get that. When you start adding subs (whatever flavor you end up going with), sensitivity will eventually increase to the point of having to really dial down their filters in order to keep them from walking all over (ie. interfering with) the KG. Don't be surprised if you end up running the subs low-passed between 30-60 Hz and the KG high passed between 90-150 Hz. Something worth experimenting with even now. Might unlock some untapped potential there before spending anything. No worries there. You're welcome.

As this is the single biggest factor in how any future audio expense is going to perform, you may want to make this decision VERY carefully. 15 foot ceiling height if at all possible. These two are mutually exclusive. It's not because of the speakers per say, but rather the electronics and other equipment involved to pull it off. As distortion goes down, the ear's tolerance for SPL goes up. We can handle a fair a bit of clean sound (80dB SPL in the mid range and 110 dB SPL in the bass is not unreasonable), and it takes the right gear and room to keep things able to play that "physical". Sure those KG's will go loud, but they need to be high passed to do that. Which places a tall order on that sub. The limiting factor in all this. High pass the KG to increase their power handling, at the same double or quadruple your sub count to pull as much program power out of the Onkyo, putting into the plate amps instead.

It was an invitation. The thread view count doesn't lie. People are genuinely curious, regardless of the outcome.

A request from the other half: "image stabilization, please." Seriously. She was interested in watching, but couldn't finish the videos because it was too hard on her eyes over the big screen. I'd recommend bumping up the FPS rate on your cameras or in your renderer, even if that requires trading-off some resolution.

My 'ol Canon GL-1

The above A/B suggests how each approach works out in-practice. It's not like either system is simply cobbled together, nor recorded too poorly.

Courtesy of another YouTube audio enthusiast, we can finally present these two videos (about the first minute of each) that afford some degree of comparison between an all-horn Klipsch Heritage based system and a Bose Acoustimass 10, both in a 5.1 arrangement. Not a perfect scenario, but still close enough to draw some general conclusions. The blu-ray source and particular scene are the same. The amps are very similar (both Pioneer D3). Yet, my sub is not adjusted ideally and my MCACC time window, at the time of recording, was a little on the hot side. On their video the amp is set to THX Cinema, which it shouldn't be, the recorded audio is compressed somewhat (from a cell phone or the like) and the room acoustics....well, you can get a great idea what a hardwood floor will do to the sound in that regard. There's lots to discuss here so take a listen to both and fire away.

Great football none the less. Professional aside from that one move. Some slop by both teams, but each owned it where it counted. Minimal flags. Dak has some serious potential there. Hat's off to both kickers...wow!! Anyone else notice the great sound quality in the broadcast? Dallas stadium is outfitted with all Electrovoice, and it came through in spades over my system.....big bass and all.

1. Go on ebay, buy up a pile of old Bose "cubies" or Anthony Gallo-types and pepper the ceiling with them. 2. Spend a fortune on trying to wire them all up...cosmetically if possible. On a serious note... There is no such thing as "Best" where Dolbly Atmos is concerned. The real magic lies in its high bandwidth, object-orientated signal encoding and processing. Not littering a room with as many speakers as possible.

Big +1 there. I totally agree. Prior to 2005, the traditional arguments in this regard tended towards holding water. Since then however, things have gotten murky....and recently even more so. Blanket statements can no longer apply to a product where combinations of on-board DSP, sophisticated noise shaping, and novel amplifier topologies are involved.

Regardless of your phone volume setting...this is going to be a given, as almost everything on the market is less efficient than the La Scala or the like. They'll spoil ya' like that. For your zone 2 issues, I second the DAC suggestion that was already mentioned. No ideas on the wiring though. As far as placement, it'll be all about putting the sound on target (ie. keeping it out of the neighbor's chili). Tucked up in the corners to maximize bass output, angled in and down 45 to cover the entire patio (above the flower pot and above the traditional door if there's room up there). Another option is to place the pair above and directly flanking the hot tub as that's the greatest source of noise (unless it has its own stereo). Although it's tempting to believe you might need to cover the entire back yard with audio. In reality you'll really be better off keeping an area "with sound" and an area with "little to no sound".