Paducah Home Theater

Watched "3 days to kill" last night with them set up like this. A few things did stand out as being exaggerated. Mostly gunshots. There was this very low tone that gunshots put off that shouldn't be there. It could have been the mix though, as much of it was also coming through my subs.

So basically if you get a blu-ray concert movie for example and listen to the two channel version, sub content is there, but it is weak. If you watch the same concert on Netflix, which is supposed to be 5.1, sub content is there but it is weak. Get the same concert blu-ray but listen to the 5.1 surround version and BLAM! All kinds of sub content. Why is this? Why is the NetFlix version weaker, and why doesn't stuff below 80 hz get picked up and sent to the sub in a strong manner on the two channel version?

Unfortunately this is true, however goofy it would look. The RC-64ii does not offer the same seamless sound as my three KL-650's. I gained a ton of growly midbass but that seamless wall of sound just isn't there anymore. It kind of is but it's different. Now the sound is like, I have a left, center, and right channel, and I feel I can hear them independently even if all are firing. When all three were identical, the sound could move around seamlessly, if that makes any sense. Guitar solos that were sent to the center plus right channels appeared to come out of the wall halfway between the two, and I don't have that effect anymore. I think the tone on the center is different as well, I think it is brighter. Cymbals and hi-hats are higher in pitch than the RF-7ii's. I'm not sure if that is done on purpose or if that's the best that could be gotten given the layout or if my mind is playing tricks on me, or what. That being said, having three towers is still so goofy looking that most people with a TV wouldn't want to do it. If I get an AT screen I may try to run three RF-7ii's because of this, but then you've got issues with it sticking out from the wall so much. At least with theater style speakers you can usually have them fairly flat up against the wall.

I have found that I enjoy a ton of midbass and not much super high frequencies with rock, which keeps the cymbals at bay but highlights the kick drums and bass guitars and the powerful voices of growly singers. I had some Wharfedale's that did this pretty good. However this did not make for a good setup for dialog/speech whatsoever. So when I hear some Metallica that sounds perfect, I am skeptical that speech will be as nice. I just got them hooked up so I need to spend some time setting things up.

Smaller drivers typically just can't hang. Even if the output was similar, the bottom end on larger drivers is typically way beyond what something like 10's can do. I'd even like to see some consumer friendly 18's but that might be pushing it. 15's are probably a good compromise for all-in-one systems.

Where are you located? I have this exact same system in black, powered by a Marantz SR-7009 plus two of the 115's sitting in my theater room. I rocked out HARD last night. I don't say that lightly either. If you're wondering if that's the way to go, you're welcome to come take it for a test drive and see how big it is in-room. I'm in western Kentucky.

Go as big as you can afford. Going off of specs alone, that SW-310 (edit) costs almost as much as the 115, yet max output is 6 db lower, it doesn't reach down as low, and it weighs less than half as much. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I played with mine a little more last night, toe'ed them in a little more. The way it's sitting right now is amazing on kick drums, the subs follow the sound of the beater and it literally sounds like all the room shaking kick drums are coming from the screen. I've never experienced this before, kick drums were very mushy before the RF-7ii's. I have them closer to the wall now too. I really like the sound for rock. It remains to be seen if it works well for movies.

I think the 8's would sound fine, but as for one specific, you go from plastic and vinyl to a real wood veneer. Not sure if that is important but the difference is pretty striking, the RF-7ii's are very sexy, you won't get that same look with the 8's. They'll still look nice but you'll get plastic and whatnot for the enclosure.

I've got RF-7ii's in a 15x20 room, it works fine. The only issue with sizing at all is that it sticks out from the wall a little more than some would be comfortable with. Spread them out and it's fine but if you get close to the screen it looks a little goofy if viewing from the side due to the size, and looks a little goofy from the middle due to glare from the screen. The massive and very deep matching center channel seems more overkill than the towers do. Personally I wouldn't touch a 10" sub if you've got large towers like this, even if there was three of them in there. The 15 would be way better, but I'd recommend two of them if the budget allows. As mentioned in the above post, I have two, will comment further soon.

Yeah, it's dark... black everything except the occasional copper. Looks better in person. Still building, bear with me.

I haven't mentioned it before but I actually have two of the new 15's. In the process of installing them right now. First impressions? The good: They will obviously be more musical and active at low volumes than my 18's just by thumping on the cones. My 18's sound like you're just tapping on a desktop due to being so stiff. These things, tap on them and you hear a nice THUMP. Huge difference. Also the cones look killer, it's like RF-7ii's on steroids. They really look nice. The port has got to be pretty commanding. They are really friggin heavy for what they are. I've seen several all-in-one solution subs and the sheer heft of this thing easily surpasses the ones I've seen. Sheer weight on the spec sheet aside, I know what an 18" UltiMax in a heavily braced 13-ply Baltic birch cabinet feels like, because I built two of the things then had to move them into my theater room. These are every bit as awkward. The not so good: They look pretty bad next to RF-7ii's. Even if they sound good up front I'm moving them somewhere else. Really wish the top of the line sub model could have been covered in real wood veneer to match the gorgeous RF-7ii's. Otherwise they seem to be really promising for what they are. I don't expect them to "move the foundation" or anything but to complement a bigger Reference II setup, especially for music, especially at lower (normal) volumes, they are probably great. ok, breaks over, install time.

I'm not going to claim it's great photography but this was home for the past few days.

My beer version would be totally devoid of anything resembling Budweiser. It's more like... go fishing and tubing down a freezing cold smoky mountain creek all day, end up at the Nantahala Brewing Company's tap room, drool over the hot 20 year old yoga instructor bartender while hanging out with the brewmaster for a bit, who gives you free front row tickets to see The Spin Doctors and The Gin Blossoms, so you take two growlers of the Noon Day IPA back to your campsite, where you grill huge rainbow trout fillets from the fish you caught earlier over an open fire and doused with lemon, actually sharing the growlers with your lovely wife, then make it to the concert with a good beer buzz, rocking out to your favorite 90's tunes with the artists close enough to touch. THAT would be a good day. ... oh wait, that happened a few months ago.

My solution is pretty simple... have a dedicated theater room and keep the door shut. Problem solved, even with seven cats.

What exactly changed?

On 5-string basses, the low B is 30 hz. However, it is interesting to note that most harmonics are higher than that. If the lowest stuff was what was important on a bass guitar, bass cabinets would be made with subwoofers. They aren't. You'd do better with a full range PA speaker. For example, the most popular bass cabinet out there is an Ampeg 8x10. The frequency response at -3 db is only 58 hz. It is -10 db down at 40 hz. Having subwoofers so that you can hear a bass guitar is not the way to go about it in my opinion. This setup would be the most horrible subwoofer ever so I have a hard time telling people they need a subwoofer to reproduce what comes out of it. If the slamming low frequencies of a bass guitar is what people are after, I think the mains ought to be beefy enough to reproduce the bass guitars or else it will sound mushy with that material trying to be fed through the sub. I happen to play bass, and have ran my rig into six Yamaha 18" subs powered by 4,000 watts. My guitar at the time was a custom that had an extra pickup added specifically for picking up super low frequencies. The end result was that I could hit that low B in our practice room and I literally split some drywall in half, dust and bugs started falling out of the ceiling. It sounded horrible too. It was fun but short of trying to play a rap song, it was pretty useless with all the emphasis down low like that. Normal bass guitar just isn't like that, I had to go way out of my way to get a strong subwoofer friendly sound and even then it didn't work with rock. I'm sure there is material that comes through the subs but it seems that lots of people think that the sub is the main driver for bass guitar, and I don't agree that it should be like that. This is probably true, but that's not what is boosted to get that rock sound. Most if it is 80-100 hz. If you want that low gut-wrenching feel it in your chest kick drum, you boost 60 hz, not 30. The actual attack from the beater on the skin is way higher than that, way up into tweeter territory, 2,000-4,000 stuff. If you built a sub that only worked well at 30 hz it would sound like doo-doo with kick drums. The important stuff is higher. Regardless of the details, I do agree that you need a strong sub though. Nitpicking the details for fun doesn't change that.

I'm not familiar with that song but generally speaking this is exactly right. People don't know what they're hearing. About the lowest tone in music I've heard was Madonna, and that required the help of an Epicenter. She had a song that had a 76 hz tone that slammed pretty good, but when you run it through an Epicenter you drop that frequency in half which is 38. A guy I knew built a box that was tuned to that, it was nuts, you could flip a cup of coffee off the roof. Normal music, even hip hop that seems super low, just doesn't have this material in it. Modern movies have material that is much lower than any rap song.

I think this is at the heart of it. Certain distances will exaggerate while some will flatten it out. Kind of depends on what you want. If you were running a true audiophile'ish full range setup and want things to be fairly flat I would think that you'd bring them out more. I'm guessing that closer to the wall would exaggerate. Too close to the wall will probably do weird stuff with the port. All I know is that running 8-10" from the wall squared up against it was pretty killer on kick drums. If I wanted flat down to 30 hz though and wasn't running a sub that probably wouldn't be the best solution.

I have mine running full range like 8-10" from the back wall and I got all kinds of bass. Maybe I'd get more pulling them out further but it's not like I'm going to.

As for x-ing over at 80 for blu ray concerts... not in my opinion. Lets just say that ive watched the metallica movie about 50 times on a wharfedale modus 8 setup as well as klipsch thx at 80. An hour ago I hooked up my new rf-7 ii's at full range. The bass guitar comes alive. Double bass and floor toms are much more powerful. Grungy electric guitar riffs are a wall of sound like at a concert. I play these instruments, I know what they are supposed to sound like live. This setup is much closer to that. I will never go back to cross in over at 80 Hz. This crap is as loud as I can stand it and these rf7ii's are barely breaking a sweat, easily keeping up with my 18's. However, I will say that dialogue sounds more realistic at above 80. So, pick your poison I guess. Dialogue seems better crossed over high. The metallica concert movie? Oh hell no, run it full range.

I'm not sure what MC means either, but having a matching center is often kind of awkward you have a traditional TV. Is it very popular to have a tower as a center? I've seen a couple but they were always behind an acoustically transparent screen. But, what's the point of badass looking towers if you're going to get an AT screen? Paying good money for the cosmetics of a tower just to cover them up is about as weird as having three towers plus a TV.

Western Kentucky. I got the 88 as a test, if I liked it I was going to put three across the front, not sure if I'll still do that or not. I plan to use it at a drive-in. I have an old stereo with one channel blown and with an FM tuner that I use by taking the AC inverter on my jeep and running an extension cord but the one speaker that works sucks for that environment. Going to set the 88 up on a chair and run this stereo into it. The sound is so bad at this drive-in that I fully expect some major jealousy and copycats.

I was a bit disappointed in the sub-sonic realm to be honest, I guess I'll have to get multiple drivers to feel the earthquakes, but in the meantime the subsonic stuff doesn't do much of anything except make me get up and sprint for the gain knob. I'm happy with the low stuff otherwise, the musical highs aren't as attack-y as I'd like but stuff like on Transformers 4 where what's his name, Lockdown? jumps off a building? Holy crap. Scared the hell out of my daughter, she jumped up like the boogeyman was after her.

I've had the iNuke for like 4 maybe 5 days. In that time I've mostly finished an 88 Special build, took out and shipped back an UltiMax, packaged up and shipped back the QSC amp that wasn't working out, as well as the CleanBox, ordered about 10 grand worth of other speakers, and somehow kept my job as well as ran a business plus started another one plus planned a vacation, somehow getting a printer fixed in the meantime. I'll let you know when I crap a big pile of time so I can play with the DSP. Or, just come over and do it for me.