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Rear surrounds for lascala


carolinacat

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There are some that like the dipole or bipole surround concept (I don't, however...for reasons related to multichannel music reproduction in which every channel in the room fulfills equal duty as a music source). These folks typically like their surrounds mounted much higher on the side and back walls such that their delayed wall bounce off the front walls can add echo or depth. This is artificial depth in my book and is dependent on the size of the room for the characteristic bounce delays.

A person can either treat the surround placement with as much respect as the other 3.1 channels, or not. That's the difference between no-kidding 3D/fully immersive home theater experience and that "novelty" sound respectively. It's not about preference. It's an industry standard that when deviated from, simply doesn't perform like it should.

 

That's why I'm always griping about just how hard it is to pull off a good 5.1 system at home. Because it is, all things considered. It's often extremely difficult to abide by the geometric and acoustic constraints.

 

Surrounds need to be two-feet above the ear-level plane and aimed at the listening position, whether situated to the rear at 120 degrees or in front at 70 degrees from center. :emotion-53:

Edited by Quiet_Hollow
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I agree that THX may recommend the two foot thing, but this is not what Dolby shows in the figure on their site.  What THX shows on their website is a dipole looking sound field two feet above ear level (not what I'd want).  I'd much rather have all mid-ranges at ear level all the way around.  There are a lot of on-the-stage audio mixes where this is very beneficial for the best possible imaging too.

 

THX is giving recommendations so that the sound is spread throughout a room for multiple listeners.  Many of us with smaller rooms only want the best sound in one or two seats.  The truth is unless you have a separate room for music listening trying to cater to all seats in a home theater is going to lead to less accurate imaging and a sacrifice of system performance.

 

I've heard ChrisA's system, and this is what convinced me of this fact.  I think we can agree there are different schools of thought here.  I personally believe in controlling directivity and using acoustic panels (for all channels) to ensure an excellent ETC/impulse response plot as I've found it gives me the best imaging (for all channels).  I agree in the Dolby Pro-Logic days this is what surround speakers were truly met to be above ear height, but many of us critical listeners are into these multi-channel music recordings from 2002 on.

 

Surrounds need to be two-feet above the ear-level plane and aimed at the listening position, whether situated to the rear at 120 degrees or in front at 70 degrees from center.
Edited by etc6849
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You get those LS II's repaired ?

Nope... nothing as yet, still waiting for some kind of settlement that is meaningful. They still sound very nice in the meantime. I dont think I am gettng rid of them.

I see water stains in your future...

Not in my future... it will never happen. The plants absolutely love the music to. Edited by Schu
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Just for the record before any of this takes off like $15/hour minimum wage surveys...

 

I've tried Jubs sitting on top of the TH subs (i.e., the central axis of the K-402 were pretty high off the floor), and I could never get the sound to integrate properly.  When I took them down off the subs and placed them again on the floor with the subs standing up behind them, all the problems disappeared.

 

When the surrounding Cornwalls were on the floor, we couldn't hear them through the back of the chairs well.  When I raised them to be on the same axis of the front three and moved them to be at 90 degrees from the center front, everything got a LOT better, immediately. Same thing for the center channel--getting it on axis all the way around.  I've found that equal distance above the floor for the midrange horn axes is pretty important to an immersive sound experience that integrates seamlessly. Most on-line setup guides don't talk about this very much, it seems.

 

My test disc?  See the following: it's spectacular for doing the final shaking out of the surround system with all channels playing equal duties:

 

516SDwFTABL.jpg

 

YMMV.

 

And I will agree that getting a 5.1 set up is actually pretty difficult to get right, IME...much more difficult than just getting two Khorns integrated in to the corners of a room.  I can see why people buy canned systems in a single buy (a single "box", for instance)--and even then, it's still pretty important to do the setups and tests carefully.  I understand why Audyssey and other room correction systems exist--even though they may not work very well in all rooms, particularly ones that are a bit live in terms of RT60 (i.e., above 0.2-0.3 seconds).  My room is a nominal 0.4 second RT60 room and Audyssey doesn't do well at all in it. 

 

Getting the geometries and acoustic treatments right is important - just like getting Khorns or Jubs set up (...or any other fronts for that matter...)  Do it wrong, and you'll never hear the full potential of your loudspeaker/electronics purchases.  Not even close.

 

Chris

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