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Paducah Home Theater

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Everything posted by Paducah Home Theater

  1. Just another thing to think about here since you're talking about the 42's and whatnot... The thing with receivers is that they are constantly changing. A local installer tells everybody that if you're on a budget, get the nicest speakers you can afford and scrimp on the receiver, because ten years from now you may very well have the same speakers, but the receiver, not so much. He's kind of right too, I have Wharfedale speakers I bought in 1998 and still rock out to them all the time, I can't make myself sell them. That was 16 years ago. So, if you agree with this maybe you should splurge on the speakers and forget Atmos for now, just get a good 5.1 setup going with a solid but basic receiver and prewire like crazy for everything else. In the future you can upgrade receivers and just add more speakers to compliment the nice ones you've already got. Basically its either get an incredible L/C/R setup that you can build on later, or have a half-assed full Atmos setup that you will probably want to upgrade every single component later.
  2. I don't see how a sane person who isn't interested in hearing loss could take any speaker and any receiver and run the receiver at max volume, I don't think I've ever come close on any setup I've ever had. Subs are a different story.
  3. Like I said, I'm an audio newbie. I probably know more Chinese than I do audio. If I use pre out, I then need an amp too? Just looking at the Onkyo AVRs would I'd have to go up to the TX-NR838 to get pre out...and then get an amp? I think he meant get one that also has pre-outs so you can expand later instead of starting all over. At that point yeah you need an amp. The one you're looking at is done once you fill up all the speaker connections.
  4. I can't even do 7.2.4 with my Marantz SR-7009 and it's got all kinds of connections, I have to use an external amp to get those last two ceiling speakers. I had to look for myself.
  5. I'm about to get some very thick commercial theater style curtains to go on my side walls, I'm just wondering what should I expect to happen with bass response once they're installed. This is a fairly large area and I don't see too many people doing this, it's basically a double window but I'm wanting to make the other side symmetrical.
  6. I hit 136 db with a single punch 40 and two series 1 12's. My best friend at the time used that same 40 watt amp to win nationals in the 0-100 watt class with two 18's in free-air configuration, it was nuts. I hear these guys wondering if 150 watts per channel is enough for small speakers and I just shake my head. You wouldn't exactly have a hard time beating your current setup, most anything is going to be a higher quality. Biggest thing that some of us perceived to have went downhill in terms of speakers since the old school Rockford days is that EVERYTHING is made in China now. I live near the now defunct factory that used to make Kicker, Lanzar, Bostwick, some JL audio, and more. I have multiple friends that worked there and they made high quality products with tight tolerances. Kicker was one of the first and biggest to bail, shortly after the square Solobaric's came out they sent all production to China. They tried to hang on and even produced their own version of the solobarics but the Credence brand never caught on. They laid people off but eventually had to close the doors. In my opinion the switch instantly made everything seem cheap, manufacturers instantly started incorporating lots of plastic and plasticy looking cheap materials. They tried to keep everything quiet and act like nothing happened but those who knew what was going on was kind of shocked. I think the manufacturing process over there has improved greatly but I still remember when the big switch came and it wasn't pretty. But then again, the xmax / xmech these new Chinese subs are getting is nowhere near what was possible back in the day. Hardcore subs back then are pretty standard nowadays. Hardcore subs nowadays would have been considered some kind of secret government space age project. Top SPL drag cars are squeezing out like 30 db more than what the top guys were getting back then. That's insane. Much of it is due to science, understanding the physics of what the sound waves are doing inside the car, but much of it is due to big leaps in subwoofer technology.
  7. Dark Vader vs. Hitler is the best. Beware of slight language though.
  8. I agree, every time I turn on my system I ask myself things like "is that really how that Transformer sounds in real life when he jumps off of a building?" Just last night I was thinking while watching the Metallica movie, "is that really what it sounds like when Trip drops that sledgehammer and Ryder and his horse busts into a million pieces and all the windows within a flew blocks shatter?" It's all about accuracy.
  9. I agree, all I'm saying is that my setup is way more lopsided than yours in terms of specified power so I wouldn't worry about it based on that number alone.
  10. Here's a pic of the back of it. I'm guessing that at first they weren't using zone 2 as outputs but even if they did you need two more outputs to get 7.2.4, there's only 9 outputs. 7+4 is 11. If you dropped the rear surrounds and they are using zone 2 outputs you should be able to use 5.1.4.
  11. All I can tell you is that my RF-7ii's being "underpowered" is the absolute last thing on anybody's mind when they listen to my setup, and it is very clean even at higher levels and it handles dynamics very well, and these speakers can handle a hell of a lot more than your Icons. Saying I need more power to run your Icon 28's properly is silliness, you'd have to go with a separate amp to get much better, and if you're going to do that, you need better speakers. Because higher numbers sells units. Extra power never hurts in my opinion, but that number isn't the end authority either. There's too many games that can be played on receivers, it's rarely real world power and every manufacturer has a different yard stick, figuratively speaking. Plus, you can't just look at the wattage when comparing two different brands either.
  12. My best friend is a multimillionaire who blows money left and right. He won't spend money on decent audio though, drives me nuts. He has this huge basement he is using as a media/theater room and just put up an 80" $1,200 TV and he's all proud of it. He got this little 10" Polk sub off of eBay and put it in there. I asked him if he had seen "Edge of Tomorrow". Both him and his wife's eyes lit up, they said they have the blu ray, they watch it all the time, it's so awesome. Well, then I asked him what he thought about the introductory scene, if his sub survived. Huh? No clue as to what I was talking about.
  13. As for the 28's, I've heard them in person, both the icon and reference. They look pretty nice especially for what you paid and the woofers can keep up fine. The biggest significant noticeable downgrade from reference ii without comparing side to side is the crossover and tweeter. The II series has a better crossover plus a titanium tweeter instead of aluminum. The end result is that the icons and reference (not "reference II") sounds harsher at loud volumes but on movies it isn't AS big of a deal, speech and glass breaking still sounded pretty nice. Music is a different story, the woofers and tweeters don't blend together that well and makes all the higher frequency material constantly sound brighter than usual. The Reference II line fixes this. But, if you are maxing out your budget at $338 a pair plus financing that, then just enjoy the snot out of them. Like my dad always said, it only costs twice as much to fly first class.
  14. Let's just assume that the specs on both the receiver and speakers are correct... 98 decibels is no joke, and supposedly it only takes 1 watt with one of these 28's to get to that point. If that is true, at 64 watts they're cranking out 116 db, each. Except when you double your speakers and power you get 6 more db, you're talking 122 db at 1 meter out of two of them, which is 17 db higher than the highest reference level peak. Everything I just said is pretty ridiculous BTW. In other words, don't make decisions based on exaggerated numbers. For normal listening you're typically sending a fraction of a watt to your speakers. The idea that a receiver will have to run extra hard to push high efficiency speakers because it can "only" crank out 100 watts per channel is kind of silly.
  15. I guess I just need to throw away my Marantz 125W per channel receiver that's powering my RF7-ii's then.
  16. Typically receiver power is pretty exaggerated. You send 50 watts to one of these and you wouldn't be able to stand being in the same room. There are other reasons to go with larger surrounds but power matching with an amp in general probably isn't a huge concern if you cross them over high enough. Yeah if you run the snot out of them they're going to distort though. So will the bookshelves.
  17. Not with everything you have drawn. With Atmos, that's a 5.1.2 receiver at best. I see that you got rid of the 7.1 rear surrounds on the wall, but if you want four ceiling speakers you need at least 5.1.4.
  18. My offer still stands, I have two Klipsch 15's and two Dayton 18's right next to a 9,000 cubic foot room, come see for yourself what it would take to fill up a large room to your liking, I'm 3 hours away from you. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper to do that than to dive into a big project not knowing exactly what you're going to end up with.
  19. Running the snot out of a home theater sub would vibrate it way more than any pothole in the road would.
  20. It's mostly all in the marketing. Take the Dayton Ultimax for example, home theater buffs as well as bass-head car owners are all raving about the things. HT guys love them and it's seemingly designed for that, except a Dayton guy told me the cones were designed to take abuse from loose stuff in a car trunk. Take Rockford Fosgate, nobody would ever think of using it in a home theater except maybe me. TC Sounds is considered to be about the best home theater sub yet people stick them in their cars with great results. Guess what's the latest hot topic in the car audio world? Yeah, putting pro audio drivers in there, they work great. Take this very JL Audio product and what does it say on their site? "Variants of the W7 are used in our ultra-premium Fathom® and Gotham® powered home subwoofers, which have received top ratings and recommendations from the world’s leading reviewers and are in daily use at some of the world’s top recording and mastering studios." Those "Gotham's" are running $6,700 for two 13.5's in a home theater setup. Obviously they're quite proud of them. Same driver family. It just doesn't matter. Some subs work better in cars due to being able to put it in a smaller box but that has nothing to do with whether it is a car or home theater sub.
  21. Thought you were talking about my old $300 Sony there for a second.
  22. At this point my phone seems to hurt me more than anything. I've been trying to use speakerphone, use my other ear, and put the ear piece purposely low on my ear so it's not firing directly inside of it, talk clients into texting or emailing, etc. Otherwise if I talk for a decent amount of time on it, even with the volume turned down, the tinnitus as well as frequency response and weird sounds like voices sounding like they're in a big room or something all gets worse.
  23. Personally I don't know why you're still messing around with that little 10, just sell it or stick it in a bedroom, it's just taking up space. Trying to incorporate it is more trouble than its worth, you're not really gaining anything by trying to squeeze one 10" sub in the mix. Are you using it now? I haven't heard you say this. If not, hook the thing up and see if it will even remotely do what you want it to. If you want midbass, you already have several 10's and 12's and 8's all around you.
  24. Thanks, yeah it wouldn't look the same without the white. We got the green idea from the Marquesa Hotel in Key West plus a vacation rental that we like in the Bahamas as shown below. There are other sea green houses out there but they usually look like they were designed in the 70's. Put that white up against it and it pops. We were originally going to go with dark gray but we figured you only live once. I wanted a standing seam white roof but standing seam would have put me way over budget, the roof would have cost way too much. One guy quoted me as much as $550 a yard which is insane. Where the "white on green" idea came from: http://www.shorecrestii.com/
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