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Converting a Hi-Fi Stereo Setup into a Hi-Fi Multichannel Setup


Chris A

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6 hours ago, garyrc said:

We watch about 2 Blu-ray movies per week (occasionally 3 or 4) and I listen to either 2 channel or 5.0 or 5.1 channel music every day (ah, retirement!), all through the same system, L & R Klipschorns (stock, AK4 upgrade).  The center is a modified Belle Klipsch (top hat rebuilt, with a K401 replacing the Belle mid-horn, with the new top hat deep enough to accommodate it, while the whole enclosure, bin and top, is the height of the Khorns (tweeters equal height).  The whole thing is buried in the wall, in a bump out protruding through the wall, into the other side.  The Belle is thus flush mounted, and an equal distance from the Main Listening Position as the two Khorns (within 0.1 feet, according to Audyssey's distance (time) measurement.  There is no grille cloth on the front of the Belle, but that whole wall is covered with an "acoustically transparent" (I know that's like "clean coal") wall fabric.  Audyssey makes the treble response as flat as that of the Khorns.  Nothing is between the Khorns, except a wall mounted African bowl above the Belle.  The Belle sits on a strong shelf inside the bump out.  The sub (Klipsch RSW 15) is tucked under that shelf, and is also behind the fabric Surrounds are Heresy IIs.  They are slightly behind the listeners (more about that later). 

 

Center channel and sub hidden behind wall fabric.  Other two thirds of wall solid, but fabric covered.  AT projection screen (Seymour), when down, makes apparently no audible difference in sound (it is one Roy tested for another forum member, and found, IIRC, 1.5 dB loss at the high end.  We flipped a coin and decided to run Audyssey with the screen down.  The room is usually under more subdued lighting than with this flash.

DSCN1827.thumb.JPG.99a99d39b78af54b8d2984c6afb1ff5d.JPG

 

Side wall

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I haven't had the energy to start de-mastering yet.  Most of my classical SACD multichannel sound fine, as do the jazz disks.  I have a few other multi, including Dark Side of the Moon, which, as Chris A. said, is outstanding.  A friend convinced me to try Dolby PL II on two channel sources.  I resisted, but it turned out to be an improvement on some 2 channel disks, but a good number of our CDs need de-mastering -- or something.

 

With the surrounds behind us, and as far as possible to the side, with some recordings (several movies, Dark Side of the Moon, the BSO/Levine recording of the Brahms Requiem, some Concord jazz SACDs, etc., the side walls come alive, with 6 or more loci.  Others suck.  

 

Nice room/setup garyrc!  Cool stealth center! Have any shots of the Heresys or the LP?  Does the Khorns output cross in front of LP?  even with?  behind?  I like your description of surround envelopment: 

"the side walls come alive, with 6 or more loci"

I don't feel I've achieved that with my setup yet although my best surround recording (Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band -XXL DVD-Audio - the opening track "High Maintenance") is pretty amazing.

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21 minutes ago, AHall said:

With my surrounds being 1ft forward of my ears and 6ft from either side should the speaker be tilted rearward toward the listening position or 90* to the room? According to the diagram it looks like they should pointed towards you. I didn’t know if off axis or dispersion pattern adds complexity to this or not. It would be good to hear their current placement could actually be a good thing. I’d have had them back further if the shape of the room didn’t dictate their position. And I’d much rather my couch was another foot or so back to be further from the jubes, but leave it where it is due to the placement of the surrounds.

In general, your loudspeakers should be aimed at the main listening position(s) (MLPs).  In your case--the angular difference between wall alignment and aimed-at-the-listener is so small, this isn't an issue with loudspeakers having vertical or coaxial alignment of their drivers. 

 

For loudspeakers not having vertical driver alignment (like with HT center-channel loudspeakers with their side-by-side arrangements), this is an issue, and you need to have very careful alignment to the MLP.  But fortunately most setups using these compromised loudspeaker designs usually have the center channel aimed directly at the centroid of the MLPs. 

 

Having the surrounds forward of your MLP actually helps in their surround performance--as shown in the figures above from Toole's book.  (By the way, if you don't own a copy of Toole's  book, now is a good time to think about acquiring one since much of what we're talking about in this thread is explained in even more detail in his book.  I recommend any of his book's editions, but the third edition seems a little better organized than the first two editions.)

 

Chris

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29 minutes ago, Chris A said:

In general, your loudspeakers should be aimed at the main listening position(s) (MLPs).  In your case--the angular difference between wall alignment and aimed-at-the-listener is so small, this isn't an issue with loudspeakers having vertical or coaxial alignment of their drivers. 

 

For loudspeakers not having vertical driver alignment (like with HT center-channel loudspeakers with their side-by-side arrangements), this is an issue, and you need to have very careful alignment to the MLP.  But fortunately most setups using these compromised loudspeaker designs usually have the center channel aimed directly at the centroid of the MLPs. 

 

Having the surrounds forward of your MLP actually helps in their surround performance--as shown in the figures above from Toole's book.  (By the way, if you don't own a copy of Toole's  book, now is a good time to think about acquiring one since much of what we're talking about in this thread is explained in even more detail in his book.  I recommend any of his book's editions, but the third edition seems a little better organized than the first two editions.)

 

Chris

 

 

Well that would be wonderful if I accidentally made a more ideal listening placement for them. As you can see moving them isn’t really an option at this point. And if I could move the couch back a touch without damaging the sound reproduction quality that would even be a plus. I guess I should move it back some and tilt the surrounds toward the listening position and see how it sounds. 

 

Also I ordered the book so I can follow along better and ask less dumb questions over time. 

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Your setup looks good, Adam.  My comments on surround placement were of a more general nature and are meant to stick in the mind of the reader when choosing their placement, or even just moving things around and listening to them for a while to find out yourself how they sound.  I'm a big proponent of experiencing it for yourself.

 

Chris

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2 hours ago, Chris A said:

By the way, the above two figures are really the punchline for the answer to the question, "why multichannel over stereo?".  They tell you what's missing when one ignores well-placed 4 or 5 channel surround configurations in favor of stereo only.

I think you're over analyzing this.  This from a guy who is over analytical to a fault.  The charts you posted specified the venues were a large lecture room and three concert halls.  That information is useless for home setup.

+++

 

Reframe:  Chris are you looking to setup a 5.1 system, or is this discussion theoretical?

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1 hour ago, wvu80 said:

The charts you posted specified the venues were a large lecture room and three concert halls.  That information is useless for home setup.

Ummm, no. The measurements are taken from inside the listener's ear canals or dummy head ears. 

 

Is it me, or are you way too quick to dismiss because you--possibly don't like the message...?

 

I find that it's dead on.  Take out your Audacity, or better yet, just listen to the examples that Griesinger posted at his site.  Those audio example clips really got my attention.

(Never cross post on two forums at the same time...)

 

The examples shown were all in Toole's book, which is exclusively focused on home sound reproduction.  The second figure was from a study conducted on participants in a HT-sized listening room, and the first figure on larger venues--with the same results (i.e., the psychoacoustic behaviors measured are not venue-size specific).

Chris

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1 hour ago, Chris A said:

Ummm, no. The measurements are taken from inside the listener's ear canals or dummy head ears. 

 

Is it me, or are you way too quick to dismiss because you--possibly don't like the message...?

 

I find that it's dead on.  Take out your Audacity, or better yet, just listen to the examples that Griesinger posted at his site.  Those audio example clips really got my attention.

(Never cross post on two forums at the same time...)

 

The examples shown were all in Toole's book, which is exclusively focused on home sound reproduction.  The second figure was from a study conducted on participants in a HT-sized listening room, and the first figure on larger venues--with the same results (i.e., the psychoacoustic behaviors measured are not venue-size specific).

Chris

I don't normally quote an entire post Chris, but I'm really confused by the strike through's in your response.  In one strike through you ask if I don't like the message?  I'm not sure what you're saying or asking.

 

Could it be you meant to underline for emphasis?   I do that sometimes when I quote passages.

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I could simply delete the strikethrough text, if you want.  I was trying to preserve the record for your sake, not mine.  The mistake was mine, not yours.

 

Chris

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I listen to primarily Multichannel Music and concerts with the 9.2 HT listed below. My side surrounds are parallel to the MLP and the rears are about 8 feet behind, angled to the MLP. We also have Height channels that seem to give a marginal improvement and play everything in Dolby PLIIz. The only thing that I didn't like was how crickets sounded on a Dire Straights song and the best source material from my collection is the Talking Heads collection. Speaking in Tongues, Naked, and Remain in Light are the best. 

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10 hours ago, Delicious2 said:

 

Nice room/setup garyrc!  Cool stealth center! Have any shots of the Heresys or the LP?  Does the Khorns output cross in front of LP?  even with?  behind?  I like your description of surround envelopment: 

"the side walls come alive, with 6 or more loci"

I don't feel I've achieved that with my setup yet although my best surround recording (Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band -XXL DVD-Audio - the opening track "High Maintenance") is pretty amazing.

 

The Khorns' output crosses in front of the LP by a few feet.  It sounds a bit better a bit closer, but that is too close for viewing some movies.

 

I'll look for pics of the surrounds and the couch.  My camera (the  autofocus -- there is no manual override) was barely working that day, and later failed, so these pics are not very good.

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Continuing the discussion of "why multichannel over stereo only?" a bit further, there is another figure from Toole's book that highlights the complexities of violin directivity vs. frequency, which is in my view the foundational instrument of the symphony orchestra.  Note the extreme changes in directionality of the emerging sound vs. frequency.  I would also expect similar changes in directionality from a cello or double bass, with the viola being pretty much a carbon copy of the violin except that the frequencies noted in the figure below would be about half an octave lower.  This kind of figure informs the multichannel enthusiast as to why something like a Dolby Atmos configuration with height channels might have much greater potential to capture the reproduction experience of at least orchestral performances (assuming music-only recordings of orchestras in Atmos were widely available--which they currently aren't):

 

1004820893_Fig3.3Violindirectivityvsfreq.thumb.GIF.d1e1059980a6b617c312e291949d882f.GIF

 

Also think of acoustic guitar performances or certain wind instruments--such at the french horn (backwards directivity), clarinet (whose directivity moves around dramatically with frequency--like a violin), and flute, oboe, and bassoon.  When these instruments are playing in live performance in a good acoustic hall performance, the complexities of directionality of sound production have great potential of being substantially recreated by using multichannel recording and playback capabilities that stereo-only cannot even begin to reproduce. 

 

What fraction of written music already out there currently benefits from multichannel reproduction?  A large amount.

 

Chris

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My JUBE ROOM ! 

Fully treated with Theater Curtains, all 4 corner Bass Traps,  and Curved-Diffusers for the side walls !

 

My Left/Center/Right Klipsch Jubilees are set in a  2.1 setup right now.

 

Using my Xilica xp-4080 (4 ch IN / 8 ch OUT) the center Jubilee is just a MONO MIX , combining both L+R input signals.

   ...since each of the Jubilees are Bi-amped it takes 6 channels for the L/C/R's here, plus add another output channel for my Danley TH-50 sub ,

 So for this 2.1 setup I am using 7 OUTPUT channels  !

 

BUT this coming 2019, ...I am moving into a 5.1 setup.

If all goes as imagined, all I will need is another Xilica and 2 more Jubilee K-402 Horns,

    ...which I will just place on top of my Klipsch KHorn from downstairs. 

 

I will be using a Marantz AV7703 Processor for all the audio duties,

   ...10 Carver Pro ZR1600 Mono Blocks ( a Phoenix Gold product, not Bob Carver) for the Bi-Amped Jubilees,

      ...and a Crown Macro-Tech MA3600vz Bridged in Mono, for the Danley TH-50 SUB.

 

So,  as you can see in the attached picture ...3 Jubilees down,  2 Jublees to go...for a 5.1 Jubilee setup !

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

While Im here, I'd like to give a huge shout-out to @Chris A for all he does for our Klipsch Community here,

    ...and especially for his incredible Bessel-Crossover tuning he did personally for these 2018 Klipsch Jubilees !

I could not have reached  AUDIO NIRVANA with out you CHRIS ! 

 

You certainly ROCKED MY WORLD !

 

~Thank You, a million-times-over !

 

~Craig LeMay

(1) 281.469.1111

Born2Rock@Comcast.net

LOW rez  0003.JPG

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22 hours ago, Delicious2 said:

Awesome room and Jubes Craig!  Do tell all!  Dimensions, strictly music or will there be  video?  more pics, more pics, more pics!

I agree Chris rocks! (you may mean Bessel crossover tuning) .  He has helped me tremendously too.

Thank You so much Delicious2 , ...for the kind words !  

 

Both of my main MUSIC systems (Theater Surround + the JUBILEE Rooms) are 18ft x 15ft rooms.

     But, the Jubilee Room has 11 foot ceilings with 6 Clouds (10ft x 18"...4" thick) ,

          ...filled with Rockwool 'SAFE 'n SOUND' Acoustical Soundproofing Insulation.

                               https://www.rockwool.com/products/safensound/

 

1456215280_Cloudsprepedforfabric.thumb.jpg.21a32ce2b87e524e338e98450bdf249f.jpg

 

The CLOUDS are pictured above, in my downstairs RF7-iii Surround System, before they were wrapped with FLEECE Fabric. 

Again, The Jube room upstairs is the exact size and directly above this pictured downstairs living room !

 

The 6 CLOUDs are hung upstairs by hooks and chain !1.thumb.jpg.f987248a636118d8abc34c7f55641d1c.jpg

 

The 11ft ceiling is angled, as seen in this OLD foto of the room, pictured below ! 

The reflective Couch and Metal table were the first thing I removed from the room !

All ' 5 milliseconds ' reflective surfaces, were addressed and label'd  as ' PRIORITY ' in getting this room acoustically treated !

 

20738935_Curtainbackwall.thumb.jpg.1d2a79e526a94193bfa0be85e707c1ac.jpg

 

The acoustic Stage Curtains were purchased from the ROSE BRAND ( www.RoseBrand.com ), a professional Theater supply company in the New York City area !

 

After I removed that long reflective couch, I acquired a LOW SHOULDER Fabric 'CLUB' seat for my listening position.

       (pictured below)

 

My Danley TH-50 SUB Woofer cabinet is barely seen in the right side of the picture above.

       ...a massive  24” Tall  x  34” Wide  x  25.5” Deep flawless speaker, true down to 21hz. 

           https://www.danleysoundlabs.com/products/subwoofers/tapped-horns/th50/

 

   Since that pic was taken, it has been moved directly behind my listening seat, within inches of the back of that new fabric Club Seat !

 

1166233930_ClubSeat.JPG.2b750853cc31e861c6a9de547d2589e9.JPG

 

Also, i must mention that moving the seating position off the Back of the Wall , was a game changer sonic'ly.

*A serious recommendation to anyone sitting directly next to a WALL :

    Move your listening position at least 4-5 feet off the Wall, if your closest wall is acoustically treated !

       Or, move at least 6 feet off the wall,  ... if it is NOT acoustically treated !

   (The golden '5 millisecond Reflection rule' is around the 6 feet mark, ...which I truly now believe)

 

Our brotha ChrisA, can verify for us, if I am not close to that estimation.

 

Trust me, THAT made a HUGE difference in the systems fidelity.

-Tightening everything !

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My room's SIDE 15ft walls, are my 'SHORT WALLS' ! 

I built 4 Curved-Diffussors, for the 1st and 2nd order side-wall reflection points !

They cost me about $10 each, to make .

(If anyone is curious how to build those, just ask)

 

Diffussors.thumb.JPG.01d5da9be61fb5d7bdd3866f782d2d5c.JPG

 

Below are some pics of the side walls !

 

908203869_LOWrez0002.thumb.JPG.08220f6a75a84aae36ca884257981a4f.JPG692241986_LOWrez0001.thumb.JPG.6d9fcbf2e5ef80b64c8f1649b5fd1366.JPG

 

So to conclude,

    ...this is my 2-Channel listening Jube  L/C/R system, for 2018 .

 

All equipment used in of all my Klipsch systems are listed below,  in my signature !

 

  • For 2019 , I want to expand to 5.1 Audio.
  • In 2020, I will add a 125" screen + Projector !

 

Thanx for lookin' ,

            Any questions ...?

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

    ~ Craig LeMay

       281.469.1111

Born2Rock@Comcast.net

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/28/2018 at 1:58 PM, Maximus89 said:


But game of thrones will be over by 2020 emoji20.pngemoji16.png


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Brotha Cesar,

 

  It's only 15 days into 2019, ...and I almost have all components for that 5.1 Dvd-Audio Jube System.

 

I just might make that 'GAME of THRONES deadline', way ahead of my predicted schedule for that 125" Projector + Screen !

 

~Rock on ...

                Craig

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Brotha Cesar,
 
  It's only 15 days into 2019, ...and I almost have all components for that 5.1 Dvd-Audio Jube System.
 
I just might make that 'GAME of THRONES deadline', way ahead of my predicted schedule for that 125" Projector + Screen !
 
~Rock on ...
                Craig

Hell yeah!! Lmk next time I can come and listen to some multi channel music! Hope you’re doing good!


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