Paducah Home Theater

I actually still have the THX's. Some things the Reference setup does better, some things the THX does better. On dialog, THX rules, hands down. On rock music, the Reference is much better. There is midbass detail that is very weak almost to the point of being non-existent on the THX's plus cymbal crashes sometimes sounds pretty tinny like the tone isn't right. I do feel that even the RC-64 is significantly stronger for rock in terms of getting a good growl. The sound of the beater hitting the skin on kick drums, wah-wah pedals attached to bass guitars, the depth of a growly male singer's voice, etc., all come alive with the RC-64 comparatively, it can anchor kick drums to the screen in a way that I have never experienced with the THX. Being able to run the RF-7ii's full range sounds more realistic to me as well. But yeah on a typical movie, the dialogue and a seamless front stage was nicer on the THX. Good mixes were real nice, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was way cool on them.

I forgot that multiple threads were talking about these... I mentioned elsewhere that I did do this, and yes it helped quite a bit with definition. I'm an old-school bass head so I had them up to a pretty obnoxious level simply because I like bass. When I backed off and ran them at least somewhat flat at normal levels but probably still boosted, it was significantly tighter. Honestly they sound real nice like this plus there is more overhead when the 20 something hz effects come on. I don't know what causes the sloppiness at the upper spectrum of sub sounds, whether it's the amp, cabinet, or woofer, but short of trying to making kick drums beat your chest in through these things, it seems to be a non-issue. We watched the Toy Story Halloween special this weekend, even with seemingly lame source material such as this, these subs were scaring the hell out of the kids, such as when Buzz and Woody would run into a door... WHOP! The kids would get startled. Fun times. Now that I'm familiar with them more, what I will probably do is keep these for sole sub duty during normal movie watching for the low effects and set everything up to be flat and proper. When I want to rock out, I'll fire up my Ultimax/iNuke setup. Curious as to if I can get all four subs working in harmony at the same time but I doubt it.

I did that due to coming straight off of kl-650's. Everything was even and I had this seamless wall of sound. Directly swapped the rc-64 and rf-7ii's and felt like the center was much stronger than I was used to so I manually killed it a little.

They have a crap ton of models. Can you recommend one specifically? Otherwise, 4K, transparent, not sure what else.

So I've been hellbent on sticking with TV's but I'm trying to have an open mind. My concern is that every projector I have ever seen, including a nearly $5,000 4K'9ish JVC and a $2,000 screen has been really washed out and pale. Apparently that is better on a totally blacked out room though, which I have. So, I'm open for suggestions. I have never had one before so I don't want to spend a ton, I won't be able to tell the difference in very minor upgrades. I hope to get something that I can move to the back porch once I can appreciate the difference, then upgrade my theater room. I'm assuming I need to look at the nicer Epson offerings for the projector, and the lower end Elite screens. I don't know though. Thoughts? This is in a 15x20 room, currently the seats are stretched long ways, the projector would shine on the long wall, although that could change.

Apparently I amuse myself easily, but as a guy with a sales background, I LOL'ed.

I know multiple guys are running iNuke's for subwoofers here. So, help me get this bad boy set up in terms of the DSP. I'm running an iNuke 6000 DSP into two Ultimax 18's wired in series for 4 ohms, in a 5 cubic foot sealed cabinet, if that helps. I have not run Audessey yet due to hooking stuff up and moving stuff left and right for the past 1-2 weeks non-stop but if it helps, I have a Marantz SR-7009 with Audessey XT32 / SubEQ.

I have my RC-64 set to -3 db, otherwise it totally overpowers my RF-7ii's. YMMV.

I am a HUGE bass guitar fan. The RC-64 is totally badass for bass guitar. I don't know why exactly but all the subtle nuances as you say REALLY shines with this center. This alone is totally worth it to me. All the twangs you hear when the strings hit the frets, all the stuff going on inside of tube amps whatever it is, all of it comes out. Most people think that if a bass guitar occasionally gets pumped through their subs then it's all good but I say that's BS. RC-64 really makes a good bass guitar recording in 5.1 surround sound shine. If you don't care about that and am only watching normal movies, then maybe it wouldn't be important to you, but between the real wood veneer finish plus what I've heard it do with not only bass guitar but with kick drums, anchoring the initial strike of the beater to the bass drum skin to the screen, I would say go for it.

I've literally been playing with these things all weekend, and I have come to the conclusion that a big part of my problem is that I am a huge bass-head, coming from the 90's hip hop scene. Some of the things I was initially complaining about is toned down significantly if I run it at least remotely flat. I had a HUGE boost in the bass simply due to enjoying it, and while the ultimax/inuke setup could handle it, these couldn't. Tonight I toned it down to normal levels, and while still being at a relatively obnoxious level that my wife still complains about, she has shown three different groups of friends and family exactly how much the house shakes at the end of "Enter Sandman" by Metallica, within two days. It makes me smile, mainly because she HATES Metallica.

Install of the night... AW-650's, aka. surround sound for an outdoor projector. They are significantly bigger in person than they look like on the web content and whatnot. I took the pic at night, like 20 minutes ago. so the colors are weird but my house is a sea green, Key West theme. The white speakers contrast against it nicely. These are in a pretty big 14x32 covered back porch, the plan is to put a projector in the middle and fire it into the back yard up against a projector screen. When I built my house I had everything pre-wired into my theater room so all my electronics can remain there. Unfortunately right about now in my area the lady bugs and other insects are desperately seeking a warm home for the winter so its hard to keep things clean.

15 maybe 1-2" x 20'4" with 9' ceilings for me, real close to 2750 cubic feet. Not sure if that makes a big difference. Also I have yet to experience any single digit subsonic frequencies on either. I'm sure a well set-up sealed would be great for that and no I'm not there yet. All I know is that 20 something hz that you can actually hear sounds killer with the Klipsch.

15x20'4". The original idea was that I'd build tall Ultimax boxes and park KL-650's on top but it didn't really work, I had a similar effect as if they were behind me, I got the concussion of the driver but no real sub-bass. Moved the ultimax's to behind me and like I mentioned earlier, serious rear staging, which just isn't right. Tried the corners but apparently corners work best for down-firing subs. Didn't have the effect I was after. Seemed to work best if I put them on the sides, flat up against the wall, actually a little towards the front of the room. I got good and pretty low bass here but I still had hot spots in the room. The middle of the room was dead. Sitting on the edge of my seats whose back is 4' from the wall is dead. Sitting back in my seats, reclining, or standing behind them, lots of bass though, really weird. Tried the same location with the Klipsch 15's. The front location did the same thing. Side location, which was awesome with the Ultimax, was really mushy. Tried the front corners. Tried backing off a little and turning them backwards. Tried the rear corners. Nothing special. Put them behind the seats and WOW. I don't know what it is but I like it, maybe not in every situation, but generally speaking, it's nice.

While I truly enjoy friendly debates, especially with interesting guys who seem to be of the same mindset such as yourself, let's just say that it irks me when someone assumes they are talking to an idiot just because that someone's ideas question their existing beliefs. Yes, I have an electrical engineering degree and have helped NASA / Raytheon / Stellex / MA-COM / Filtronic / Tyco / Texas Instuments, and others choose semiconductor chips to use in petty little projects such as the space shuttle, military satellites, and Patriot missles. I actually started college with the goal of being an audio engineer who wires up and sets up concerts, but then got sidetracked with the whole .com boom plus meeting a girl who didn't want to travel far from home. I have built my own amps as well as things like capacitance meters, not just sub boxes and stupid little 5-6 component crossovers. Yes I am pretty sure that I know the basics of how an EQ works. Thanks for asking though. I'm just going to step out at this point, this is clogging up several threads. I would love some help setting up my iNuke and I'll just leave it at that. However, I'm not entirely sure why somebody would hang out at a Klipsch forum so much while talking about subs so much, if they're not willing to accept that maybe Klipsch can in fact make some badass subs though, kind of odd.

(from another thread:) You're actually going to pay good money to see if one 15 can hang with two 18's, while wondering about fair fights? Get closer to a 1:1 comparison, aka. "apples to apples", and maybe we can talk about a fair fight.

duplicate post, something messed up.

Depends on the definition of super-low I suppose. I'm pretty sure that it is VERY well known that at around the tuning frequency of a ported box, it will kill a sealed sub of the same type and same power. Cut that frequency in half though, and yeah sealed will win out. When I posted before I have used phrases like the lowest audible frequencies. I'm not talking about 8-12 hz here. Aren't you running 18's now? If you want to talk about a mismatched comparison... how is comparing two 13's to four 18's not mismatched? Goodness. At least I'm sticking with a comparison of the same number of drivers in a more similar size. Saying my statements are null and void because four 18's kills two 13's that "maybe" have half the power is silliness.

In all seriousness, what is playing with the DSP going to gain me when they're already going about as hard as they can go? Typically people play with the DSP to boost the output as sealed subs start to roll off in order to match what a ported sub would do, which is completely understandable. However, I'm already bottoming the things out, which yes a DSP would help due to the limiters, but when I back the gain off and they're not bottoming out but still going as hard as they can go without blowing up, what exactly is a DSP going to do to get more sound at that point? I truly don't understand this. I completely understand boosting at the roll-off and setting up limiters, but unfortunately the laws of physics still apply when you're running a sub about as hard as you can, so I don't see how you're going to squeeze tons more sound out of it by playing with the DSP at that point but I could be wrong. They sounded like crap because there was rear staging. I could tell the subs were sitting right behind me. They were too close to hear the super low bass and I honestly don't think that a sealed sub would ever do otherwise. Yeah the output was a little lower comparatively with the frequencies I'm talking about, but my #1 complaint was that when I did this there was rear staging, which simply isn't correct and will never be correct no matter how loud it technically is on an spl meter. With the Klipsch, the sound engulfed me and shook the hell out of my seats. I can only assume it was because of the port. Something in regards to the quarter wavelength rule makes sub-bass do this. That's why back in the day in SPL competitions in cars we used to put the microphone under the dash way up where your toes would be on the floorboard. It's loudest there, especially at lower frequencies, due to being furthest away from the subs. Where it was the LEAST loudest, is right in front of the subs, especially in a sealed box, all you can hear is the concussion of the driver, not deep sub-bass, which is what was happening with the ultimax. I honestly think what I was experiencing is the same exact phenomenon. If so, I don't care what you do with a DSP, you're not going to fix it by changing the settings. As for the boominess, "sloppy" is probably a better word. Boomy would mean it is loud up high and not so much down low, but a location change got my super low stuff super loud so I don't know if I can continue to use that word. I think the peaks in the upper areas were at least in part due to the location and the two channel mix instead of 5.1. My biggest complaint in this regard wasn't as much as the peaks here, but the sloppiness, producing weird sounds on material that I am very familiar with. I'm not going to lie about this. They seemed uncontrolled in the upper areas compared to my ultimax's, which, hell, they're super stiff and in a sealed box stuffed with poly, shouldn't be a huge surprise. One of my favorite sounds with subwoofers is a super tight chest beating kick drum with a really powerful attack and nothing that lingers, which is what it has to sound like for a double bass drum to sound good, otherwise it is a sloppy mess. I simply could not get these to produce this sound the way I like even after finding a good combination of location, material, and crossover settings. That has nothing to do with being boomy or loud, it was just kind of sloppy. Again, possibly simply the difference between sealed and ported. Whatever it is, my ultimax's are much tighter in this regard, and intricacies / nuances from bass guitars are much more defined as well. I still enjoyed listening to them with this material but if a kick drum and bass guitar was all that would ever play through them, I'd choose my sealed ultimax's. Sorry, but the super low frequency effects still sounded better on the Klipsch's though, I imagine due to the port.If the Klipsch's were sealed or the UltiMax's were ported, I really do not expect that I would have the same results.

once again a setup issue i would imagine. metro where did you say you were at again? maybe we can get someone over there to help you setup that inuke properly? I'm in western Kentucky. Feel free to come over. As I said before, I can understand the whole limiter thing, but I can't imagine what you're going to do to it to get more sound out of a sub that is already flexing like crazy.

If you're interested in Atmos, technically the ideal recommendation is to use the same speakers as your mains, at the same height, not higher up. At CEDIA this year the Dolby folks were saying to run them full range and they were going to be pushing a bunch of air through them. Of course nothing is idea so compromise however you feel necessary just like everybody else does.

From what I've seen, the only time to go sealed is if you have tons of drivers or are more interested in tight music than super low effects. Some of the guys running 16 18's can get away with sealed even on super low stuff due to the sheer muscle, but with only 1 or 2 drivers, I say put that port to work if you want low effects. I wouldn't have said this 3 days ago but the difference is too striking.

Sorry, I was viewing my comments as more like comparing these new Klipsch offerings to some of the best DIY choices, and being surprised that the Klipsch is coming out on top.

A squirrel wandered by a page ago or so.

I'm assuming his 18's are sealed. If that's the case it's not a stretch to think that a ported 15 would at least keep up, especially around the Fb of the box. Yes they are sealed. The end result of the two different setups are much different than I expected. I love the 18's at least at high power, but down at the lowest audible frequencies, quite honestly these 15's are beating them. No they're not set up in terms of setting limiters as I'm sure you're thinking but in terms of sound output down low when I'm flexing the hell out of them, yeah the Klipsch is more than keeping up, especially down low. It makes me want to put the 18's in a ported box, except after port, bracing, and driver displacement, I'm literally looking at about 28 cubic feet worth of boxes to tune it to 15 hz. That's literally what it would take to outperform these Klipsch 15's. Which, is pretty ridiculous. I could probably get away with the 8 cubic foot per driver version but that's pretty much the minimum, Dayton recommends 12 cubic feet internal per driver, then you've got multiple 44" long ports you have to accommodate. I will say that the 18's have a smoother upper roll-off, or something. The Klipsch's don't sound as clean at the upper sub frequencies. 20 something hz though these 15's are outputting more than the 18's, surprising as it may be. Actually this really shouldn't be all that surprising. Consider the article below by SVS: http://www.svsound.com/t/sealed-vs-ported "The result is 2-4X more peak dynamic output in the 18-36 Hz octave as compared to a sealed subwoofer in the same family/price range." FOUR times the output! !!!!??!! Look at that graph, at 18 hz you're looking at like 94 db vs. around 102, at 16 hz it's even worse, about 9 db difference. Considering 6 db is the equivalent of doubling both your drivers and power, then double your power again to get another 3 db... that's a huge friggin difference. I realize we're comparing apples to oranges to some extent, but when I see a sealed 18 flexing hard, then I see a ported 15 flexing not as hard but putting out more sound, and I've experimented with every position possible in the room with both, I'm going to call a spade a spade and say that really has nothing to do with how I set up my DSP on the iNuke.

Only bad things I've got to say about mine is that the finish is a bit lacking to say the least, at least initially it seemed a little boomy in the upper subwoofer frequencies possibly due to a resonance issue but am not sure yet, and I don't like the green LED light on the front, I think it should be blacked out. Otherwise, they're badass. The two of them is making me seriously consider ditching my ultimax 18 and iNuke 6000 setup.