Friend needs a Klipsch Makeover

[Youthman]

About 2 years ago, a friend of mine converted a 3 car garage to a beautiful HT / Game Room. During the renovation, he hired a local A/V Company to setup his dream system. Unfortunately, he dropped a LOT of money into this system and is frankly unimpressed with the sound quality.

He has a georgeous custom built entertainment center that is probably 15' - 20' wide with 3 LCD TV's mounted to it (Large in center with smaller LCD's flanking it) with 3 PS3's hooked up so he and his sons can game together. He has a 5.1 setup with in-ceiling for his rears.

He has really nice equipment and a great setup but he really believes it could be a whole lot better so I thought I would see if you guys could help me brainstorm some ways to improve his setup.

Current Equipment:
Integra DTR-40.1 Receiver that just stopped producing sound (see thread I just posted)
3 LCD TV's
3 PS3's
Originally had Paradigm Special Edition SE Monitors for mains but was underwhelmed with them so dealer upgraded them to Energy Connoisseur CF-30 Floorstanding Speakers.
Paradigm Special Edition Center
Paradigm UltraCube 10 Sub (10" downfiring with dual 9" passive, Class D 650 RMS / 1500 Peak Amp)
In ceiling Rears (I'm guessing Paradigm too)
Crestron Remote

Paradigm SE Center Speaker Specs:
17.5"W x 7"H x 9.5"D
Having four drivers and two rear ports, the SE
Center is a three-way design;
its two 5.5" polypropylene bass cones are
crossed over to a 3.5" S-PAL midrange driver at 300Hz, which in turn
hands off to the 1" G-PAL tweeter at 2.1kHz.
The SE Center’s sensitivity
is a claimed 88d

Here is a pic of his front wall

[Youthman]

Looking at his entertainment center, the Paradigm sub is inside the far bottom right of the cabinet. Above that on a shelf sits the Energy speakers toed in towards the listening area.

The center channel is on the bottom center sitting vertically.

Unfortunately, the entertainment center although drop dead georgeous was not design for true HT.

After looking at his setup tonight, the location of the front speakers is recessed instead of being flush with the rest of the wall.

The center channel at the very bottom and horizontal is not ideal.

His sub puts out a great amount of bass, partly because it is trapped inside a small cabinet and the walls of the cabinet are allowing for a lot of boundary gain.

I realize his front soundstage does not only not match timber wise, but even brand wise.

Once we get his receiver up and running again, I will go over there to setup and tweak his system to see what we can get from what he has.

I want to move the center channel to the top of the entertainment center and angle it downwards. I believe this will provide a much better sound from the center.

I know his setup is not "ideal" but it's what we have to work with. I'm just trying to figure out if we should try and match the fronts and center or give him a Klipsch makeover?

Rear surrounds will stay.
Sub will stay.
Main focus is with the front three speakers.

The front speakers will have to go inside the entertainment center so we are limited on size. Front ported would probably be best but that might limit him to the Synergy Line and I would really rather hook him up with some Reference Series.

So.........what are your thoughts?

[Youthman]

We even discussed possibly putting the front three speakers above each TV angled downwards and putting grill cloth there due to WAF. Was thinking maybe three Heresy's turned sideways?

[Scrappydue]

From ported is not limited to synergy. Could do three rc-62's, RB-61/81's for LCR. Or could go a little higher priced and get three thx ultra kl-525 or kl-650's. all of those are front ported and would sou d great!

[Youthman]

Rough Photoshop Visuals

[Scrappydue]

I would think the dispersion would be terrible having those like that. I would go with what I suggested over that any day of the week but that's my opinion.

[Youthman]

I know what you mean about the dispersion....but I bet his floorstanding are suffering from sound bouncing off of the walls of the cabinet too. Just trying to figure out a better option for him. If you look at where the main speakers are (behind the grill cloth on the sides), that area is recessed about 3" - 4" from the rest of the cabinet. What was the cabinet designer thinking? I guess he just wanted to make it look nice.

[Youthman]

I'm just wondering if RB-61 or RB-81 would sound any better than his floorstanding speakers he has now. The Center channel "looks" like it's a nice center. I won't know until we get his receiver back up and running and I can test the center and fronts out.

I might bring his front three speakers to my home and hook them up to see what they sound like with 220 w/ch driving them. We might find his speakers are very capable.

Being that it was a 3 car garage (at least I think it was 3 car) it's a pretty large room to fill although the back half of the room is a sitting area / game room setup.

[Youthman]

Wow, from what I can see, the CF-30's might be a downgrade to the Paradigm Bookshelves he had at first.

He now has the Energy CF-30. There are a pair of CF-70 and Center channel local for only $450. I'm really beginning to question the A/V Company that he hired.

[Youthman]

I would go with what I suggested over that any day of the week but that's my opinion.

And that's exactly what I'm looking for...opinions.

He is going to get some measurements for the areas above the TV and also for where the main speakers currently are. I know it's not a very wide area. I'm guessing maybe 14" wide x 20" deep (total guess though). Problem with using a larger speaker in there is that there is not much room to toe the speakers in.

[Coleman]

Two RB-81ii's for mains and a RC-64ii center just above tv pointing down. If he has front height channels in that Integra then I would throw a couple more 81iis above the other two tv's.

[derrickdj1]

I vote for the THX speakers and squeeze in another sub. A couple of Front/Middle ceiling speakers would do a lot for the sound since space is a problem.

[Youthman]

I'm not sure what his actual budget is yet, but he was ready to run down to Walmart to replace his receiver and I had to step in and give him a reality check.

If he is only wanting to drop $200 - $300 on a receiver if he needs to replace the Integra, my guess is the budget is pretty low. If we replace the speakers, I will likely have to sell them first, then use the money from the sale to help fund the new speakers.

So with that said, we would be looking at used Klipsch, definitely not the newest II Series Reference speakers.

[Youthman]

It may be one of those deals where we can work this in stages. Upgrade his center channel first.

Hopefully I can bring his front speakers to my home so we can see their potential and compare them with the B&W DM 604 S3's and the Forte II's that I have. No need to compare them to the RF-83's because he won't be spending that much on speakers.

[Tremors]

Wow, from what I can see, the CF-30's might be a downgrade to the Paradigm Bookshelves he had at first.

He now has the Energy CF-30. There are a pair of CF-70 and Center channel local for only $450. I'm really beginning to question the A/V Company that he hired.

Ha, that's exactly what I thought when I read the "upgrade" the dealer made for him. Head scratcher.

[Tremors]

Two RB-5's and an RC-7 or.... Two RB-35's and an RC-35. Older gen but very capable and can be had cheaper than today's stuff. My two cents.

[Youthman]

I like the RB-5 / RC-7 combo. His sub is more than capable of handling the lows.

[Vital]

I think you're on the right track with moving the speakers to the top shelves. I guess you need to figure out his budget, he obviously spent some coin on this build out. I think I would consider looking at the THX speakers if they would fit up top or possibly three RC-64ll's as your front three? I would suggest three Epic line CFs since you could just rotate the center horn and have a perfect three speakers on their side but finding them would be pretty hard.

I wonder how three RC-64s would sound, I think I remember someone using three RC-7s back in the day and liking it.

[Vital]

Wow, from what I can see, the CF-30's might be a downgrade to the Paradigm Bookshelves he had at first.

I don't know anything about the Energy speakers but I have the best Paradigm bookshelves they make other than the Signature line S2 and I doubt he had those. The Paradigm Studio 20 that I have are amazing for near field monitor use, I use them on my computer about 4-5 feet from me. They would be horrible for home theater esp. in a big room. They just can't put out the SPLs, they start breaking up at very low volume. Anything by Klipsch would be a huge improvement. These AV companies are more into aesthetics and functionality than they are sound from what I have seen over the years.

[Tremors]

I think you're on the right track with moving the speakers to the top shelves. I guess you need to figure out his budget, he obviously spent some coin on this build out. I think I would consider looking at the THX speakers if they would fit up top or possibly three RC-64ll's as your front three? I would suggest three Epic line CFs since you could just rotate the center horn and have a perfect three speakers on their side but finding them would be pretty hard.

I wonder how three RC-64s would sound, I think I remember someone using three RC-7s back in the day and liking it.

Three RC-64ii's is presumably way out of budget given the above statements. Although I have used four RC-7s as sides and rears in a 7.2, it was awkward. The side horns dispersion on the RS-7's are much better suited, when used appropriately as sides. The RC-7's fared pretty darn well as rears, however. But I deemed it overkill and swapped in the RB-5's in their place.