New here, looking to learn and get advice

[Tommo]

Hello all,

 

Hope everyone is well.

 

Gonna have to start with a very short story, put some background to this post.

 

So a few weeks back, my wife and I went to see 1917 in the local cinema. What I didn't know is that my wife has booked tickets for the IMAX screen. I had never been to an IMAX before. Usually just go for a "normal" screened film. Well, what an experience that was!

 

Seats, screen, sound, something I've never experienced before. Throughly impressed!! lol

 

So that's the story over, moving on to this week.

 

As it stands we are currently in the process of renovating our whole house. Been putting it off for 2 years (moved in to our new house 2 years ago) but I said I would do it and so I will. 

 

We've been watching a lot of films since watching 1917 in the IMAX. I already have a simple 5.1 Tannoy system with an Onkyo receiver. Nothing crazy, was passed down to me when my father upgraded his home system.  So I asked my wife...

 

"Wife, how would you feel if we were to have our own "IMAX" style thing at home", to which she said yes. Well, as you can guess my eyes grew and I was straight on the internet looking at stuff (we've all been there surely when the wife/husband agrees to something lol)

 

've been looking online, seeings what's on the market, checking with the wife if this would suit her colour scheme as this would be setup in our living room. It's not massive, but a good size, in my opinion.  I have attached a picture of the dimensions.

 

So this is where I need advice and opinions. Ideally I would like to go for a 7.2.4, but realistically, I think it might have to be a 5.2.4 purely on what I can get away with (making sure the wife is happy).

 

I was looking to go down the projector route instead of having a TV pointing at only bare wall in the room. 

 

All equipment will be remotely installed either under stairs (easy access) or in my server room under the house). Trying to keep the room clutter free (again, trying to compromise with the wife).

 

So speak wise, I have been looking at Klipsch a hell of a lot, mainly the reference premeier series which include

 

 

2x Klipsch RP-6000F (Walnut)

1x Klipsch RP-504C (Walnut)

2x Klipsch RP-502S (Walnut)

4x Klipsch RP500-SA (Walnut)

2x Klipsch SPL-120 (Black is the only option I can see)

 

So my knowledge of the Klipsch range is limited but this is what I have been looking. The above would be for a 5.2.4 setup I believe.

 

Would this be overkill?

 

Would you change anything?

 

Any help or advice would be great as the living room is my next room to renovate after the dining room. 

 

 

Kind Regards,

Tom

 

 

 

[HenrikTJ]

Hi Tommo!

 

Welcome to the forum and congrats on having a wife open to having a dedicated HT room. Most of your speaker choices seem solid. Keep in mind that the RP speakers do have an older version that is basically the same speaker apart from one little detail and should be cheaper. If you'd like to check them out, the names would be respectively as follows: 

 

RP-260F

RP-450C

RP-250S

RP-140SA

 

Furthermore, I see you've listed a klipsch sub there. Whilst that one would be fine, the market is filled with better performing subs. Some recommended brands would be svs, xtz, fluance and monolith just to name a few.

[pbphoto]

Is she letting you turn the living room into a dedicated HT room?  From your description it sounds like it will still be a living room too.  That's a lot of speakers in a 13'x12' foot living room IMHO - not to mention projector, screen, furniture...

[picky]

Hello, Tommo and welcome to the forum!

 

It's fantastic to have your wife on board with you.  When we built our own dedicated, home theater 16 years ago, I immediately involved my bride in just about every aspect of the design and selection processes. Together, we auditioned more than 13 separate sound systems at various high-end audio salons (a thing of the past) around the Detroit area. We hit pay-dirt the moment we heard Klipsch! We decided on a 7.1, Klipsch Reference system: RF-7s, RC-7, RS-7's and two in-wall rears together with an RSW-15 sub. As of this writing, our theater still sounds magnificent! The main different today is, after the failure of our projector after 10 years of service, we went with a 75" flatscreen and have not been disappointed! Our old Stewart screen was 78" and we do not miss the extra 3 inches. Our screen has since been donated to the Klipsch Museum of Audio History in Hope, Arkansas. My humble opinion is, if you do not plan to go with at least a 100" screen or larger, there are so many much more affordable options out there to go with an 85" flatscreen or smaller than to utilize a screen/projector setup. For the money, I feel there's more bang-for-your-buck with far less cost and hassle than the projector route. However, a projector is currently the only affordable method of going beyond the 85" realm. If you still plan to have a living room with media equipment, rather than a dedicated theater room, I too recommend you might find it best to option out of the Atmos ceiling speakers. However, Klipsch does offer wedge-type Atmos speakers that can sit on top of your front column speakers and project the sound to the ceiling, effectively simulating the Atmos experience. Best of luck to you both, Remember: "Happy wife, happy life!"

[billybob]

Welcome to the forum. That is a rather ambitious HT system for that size of room. By the way, what is the ceiling height and type?

You may have looked at the packages at Klipsch.com. 

Will you be doing the installation

or another?

Thanks!

[Pete H]

Welcome to the forum!  I would strongly consider doing this size space with speakers that can all be hung on the wall.  If this is really a dedicated HT room I would get the absolute best center and sub that you can and go from there.  I have a friend that had space constraints and really had to go this direction so we picked up an RC64 and 2 pair of RB61's and 2 R112's (not what I recommended, but he got a great deal on 2 used ones that work for now.  I have to admit, it's a very good performing 5.2 system.  Just another way to look at it.  

[Tommo]

17 hours ago, HenrikTJ said:

Hi Tommo!

 

Welcome to the forum and congrats on having a wife open to having a dedicated HT room. Most of your speaker choices seem solid. Keep in mind that the RP speakers do have an older version that is basically the same speaker apart from one little detail and should be cheaper. If you'd like to check them out, the names would be respectively as follows: 

 

RP-260F

RP-450C

RP-250S

RP-140SA

 

Furthermore, I see you've listed a klipsch sub there. Whilst that one would be fine, the market is filled with better performing subs. Some recommended brands would be svs, xtz, fluance and monolith just to name a few.

 

Thanks for the welcome. 

 

Sadly this won't be a pure dedicated HT room, but seeing that we only really use our living room for films, it kinda is in a way.

 

Thanks for the tip on the older versions of the Klipsch range. Will have a look at those as well. 

 

As for the sub, I usually prefer to stick with 1 brand and not mix and match too much, but I am very open to all ideas so will definitely take a look at the recommendations you have suggested. Thanks for that

 

 

16 hours ago, pbphoto said:

Is she letting you turn the living room into a dedicated HT room?  From your description it sounds like it will still be a living room too.  That's a lot of speakers in a 13'x12' foot living room IMHO - not to mention projector, screen, furniture...

 

Like I said above, it sadly won't be a dedicated HT room, but seeing that we only really use the room to watch films, it kinda will be. 

 

Our living room is quite simple. We have 2x 2 seater sofas, TV unit (at the moment) and a tall and thin cabinet for books and candles. Not much else in the room in all honesty.

 

I do completely agree it's a lot of speakers for the room, hence why I'm here lol. I don't want spend the money if it's not going to benefit the room and experience when watching films. 

 

Regarding the projector and screen, the wife did suggest a large TV instead of a projector. She has said she would prefer not to have anything in or on the ceiling which is fair enough. As much as I would want it my way I would rather have a happy wife and I have a happy life lol

 

 

 

8 hours ago, picky said:

Hello, Tommo and welcome to the forum!

 

It's fantastic to have your wife on board with you.  When we built our own dedicated, home theater 16 years ago, I immediately involved my bride in just about every aspect of the design and selection processes. Together, we auditioned more than 13 separate sound systems at various high-end audio salons (a thing of the past) around the Detroit area. We hit pay-dirt the moment we heard Klipsch! We decided on a 7.1, Klipsch Reference system: RF-7s, RC-7, RS-7's and two in-wall rears together with an RSW-15 sub. As of this writing, our theater still sounds magnificent! The main different today is, after the failure of our projector after 10 years of service, we went with a 75" flatscreen and have not been disappointed! Our old Stewart screen was 78" and we do not miss the extra 3 inches. Our screen has since been donated to the Klipsch Museum of Audio History in Hope, Arkansas. My humble opinion is, if you do not plan to go with at least a 100" screen or larger, there are so many much more affordable options out there to go with an 85" flatscreen or smaller than to utilize a screen/projector setup. For the money, I feel there's more bang-for-your-buck with far less cost and hassle than the projector route. However, a projector is currently the only affordable method of going beyond the 85" realm. If you still plan to have a living room with media equipment, rather than a dedicated theater room, I too recommend you might find it best to option out of the Atmos ceiling speakers. However, Klipsch does offer wedge-type Atmos speakers that can sit on top of your front column speakers and project the sound to the ceiling, effectively simulating the Atmos experience. Best of luck to you both, Remember: "Happy wife, happy life!"

 

 

Thanks for the reply, Picky. 

 

Echoing on from my comment above about the projector, I am swaying more towards a larger TV. I've been having a look at what's on the market and for the same price as a projector (although budget end (£1000-£1500) I can get a 70-80inch tv which can be mounted on the all instead. Anything bigger in that room would just be silly in my opinion. 

 

Great for getting a sun tan I guess? lol

 

As for the Atmos side of things, I think the wedge speakers that sit on top might be the best way for us. Would rather not cut holes in the ceiling if I can get away with it. If we ever move house and get something bigger where I can have a dedicated room, then definitely ceiling mounted, but for the space we have, maybe not this time. 

 

I agree, happy wife, happy life! lol

 

 

 

4 hours ago, billybob said:

Welcome to the forum. That is a rather ambitious HT system for that size of room. By the way, what is the ceiling height and type?

You may have looked at the packages at Klipsch.com. 

Will you be doing the installation

or another?

Thanks!

 

 

It is rather ambitious, I agree. But I would rather go all out (to a point of course) than have something I'm not happy with. 

 

Floor to ceiling 2.3 meters

 

Package wise, I'm not sure. I have read on various other forums that packaged units just don't perform unlike buying individual components to suit the buyers needs. I did read that buying decent front 3 speakers first is best and then expand on the system after. Please correct me if I am wrong though. 

 

I will be doing the work myself. Very handy with tools. I have a 500 square foot garage under the house where I usually spend most of my time working on my car or making things for other people. There will be come things I will pay people to do, but the majority of the work I'll be doing myself

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Pete H said:

Welcome to the forum!  I would strongly consider doing this size space with speakers that can all be hung on the wall.  If this is really a dedicated HT room I would get the absolute best center and sub that you can and go from there.  I have a friend that had space constraints and really had to go this direction so we picked up an RC64 and 2 pair of RB61's and 2 R112's (not what I recommended, but he got a great deal on 2 used ones that work for now.  I have to admit, it's a very good performing 5.2 system.  Just another way to look at it.  

 

What the wife did agree on was having the speakers at the front be free standing and surround speakers be hung, hence why I posts the models of the speakers in my original post. The only thing I have to contend with is a very curious cat who will take every opportunity to climb and sit on anything, whether that be wall mounted or free standing lol. 

 

I will get the best as much as the wife allows! lol. Even though I'm the one doing the overtime and spending the money, I need to be sensible at the same time. 

[Cubfan45]

There are a lot of envious readers. Hope there isn’t too much payback. 

[Chris A]

20 hours ago, Pete H said:

I would strongly consider doing this size space with speakers that can all be hung on the wall.  If this is really a dedicated HT room I would get the absolute best center and sub that you can and go from there.

Small rooms present the most challenges from an acoustics standpoint.  How to have enough "ambiance' with surround sound because the short dimensions of the room won't support long enough time delays for the ears to process the sound as coming from a big internal space.  So surrounds having 50+ ms delay (in the soundtracks of movies and surround sound music recordings) are absolutely needed.  How many surround loudspeakers?  Two, in my experience.

 

The center loudspeaker is the most important--for speech intelligibility and locking in the center image.  It carries way more than 50% of the directivity load of the array of loudspeakers in a HT.  I found that using a better center than even is in the "series" of Klipsch loudspeakers, in terms of full-range directivity and bass extension is something that will increase the sound quality of the entire array of loudspeakers.  Poorer sounding centers will conversely detract disproportionately from the overall sound.  Most center loudspeakers that I see have drivers set out horizontally, woofers on the outside--then a center midrange-tweeter.  This is a problem...in that unless you're sitting on-axis, you will experience unbalanced sound timbre due to the changing horizontal coverage of the center loudspeaker.  If I were to buy a "matched set" of surround sound loudspeakers, I'd actually ditch the center loudspeakers that are sold, and buy the same three front loudspeakers across (L,C,R) and place as close to the screen as possible--directly below it.  And I would elevate the flat screen so that the bottom of the screen is almost level with your ears while reclined, and use chairs that have adjustable reclining angle so that you can recline in the chairs and set the visual angle to look comfortably at the elevated screen. 

 

The placement of the front three loudspeakers' midrange drivers/horns in a level line across the width of the screen or entire room width is I've found to be quite important.  If you place the center above or below a centrally located screen, the center image will not coalesce with the front loudspeakers.  All three front loudspeakers (L,C,R) need to be within a couple of inches of the same height off the floor to get a coherent frontal image.  To do this, raise the screen up higher (just like the commercial movie theaters do) and provide reclining chairs to rock backwards--with headrests having soft/fuzzy material on them to absorb the acoustic reflections near the listeners' ears.  I'd stay away from leather or vinyl covered chairs (i.e., non-acoustically absorptive) because they reflect too much acoustically, which confuses the listeners' perceptions of direction of arrival from the various surround sound loudspeakers. 

 

The surround loudspeakers really do need to have approximately the same acoustic coverage angles as the front loudspeakers, otherwise you'll have a timbre mismatch with the surrounds--so I'd avoid "bipole" or "dipole" surrounds.  The farther forward the surround are placed in-room, the more effective that they will sound. 

 

I've found that two surround loudspeakers are plenty (i.e., 5.1 array).  If you just have to have height loudspeakers, I'll recommend placing those on the ceiling, not with the fronts.  The reason for this is that the loudspeakers are so close to your sitting position (L,C,R, surrounds, heights) that if you try to bounce the height channels off the ceiling, instead you're going to be listening to the height channels at your front (L,C,R) loudspeakers first, thus compromising the effect of the height channels.  Instead, I'd recommend waiting on the height channels in that small room.  You may later decide that they are not necessary and avoid the issue altogether.

 

In such a small room, subwoofers can be direct-radiating ones. I don't recommend using "self powered" subwoofers.  Rather it's better to provide a separate amplifier to drive the subwoofer(s), and avoid all the reliability problems that the self-powered ones have shown to be an issue.  Klipsch does loudspeakers well, electronics much less well. 

 

The last thing is the overall reverberation time (RT) of the small room: the RT20 and RT30 need to be in the 0.3 second range or lower--toward 0.2 s.  This implies that you're using absorption panels to bring down that RT20/RT30 down to about half of what it is presently.

 

Chris