markmaple Posted March 6, 2004 Share Posted March 6, 2004 I'm thinking of replacing my RS-3II surround speakers with a pair of RB-35 speakers? Where should these be placed? I like the recommended position of the RS-3IIs being 5-6 feet from the floor. If I put RB-35s there, would I want to point them downward to the listening position? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelie Posted March 6, 2004 Share Posted March 6, 2004 Hi markmaple, We've got similiar gear and I am using the RB35s for surround sound but I'm not so sure that's the best way to go. I wish I could tell you whether the RB 75s would be a better choice or not. I was planning on getting the RS 7 but now I'm having second thoughts about that deal too. Dolby Digital's Web site says to put monopoles to the rear of the listening position but not behind you. It also says the speakers should be facing each other, about 2 to 3 feet above you. You should not point them downward, according to the site. That's pretty much what I've done but I don't think the RB35s are keeping up with the 7s, at least in my house. My side walls are 19 feet apart so for now, I've got the RB 35s on stands, closer to the listening area. If I hung my speaks, the bottom would have to be about 8 feet off the ground, a little higher than Dolby Digital reccomends. for my listening environment. That's what I'd like to try to do next. I just need to get enough speaker wire to try that configuration out and then I can tell you how it's working. I'm worried that by putting them 19 feet apart, though, the sound would get overpowered even more by the RF7s. I'm gonna have to try something new though, because as of now, the RB 35s aren't doing as good a job as I would like. What's wrong with your RS 35s? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelie Posted March 6, 2004 Share Posted March 6, 2004 Also ... forgot to ask in my last post ... If I do end up hanging the RB 35s, I'd like to cut them into the wall so that the grills are flush with the drywall. Since I don't have a rear port to worry about, I'm thinking this should be fine but does anyone have any experience with that sort of setup? Would it impact the sound in any way? Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markmaple Posted March 6, 2004 Author Share Posted March 6, 2004 Steelie, I was thinking of the RB35s (over my current RS-3IIs) for improved performance on DVD-Audio and SACDs. Also, HornEd's support of monopole surrounds has me thinking this is a good approach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelman Posted March 6, 2004 Share Posted March 6, 2004 Very good if your room allows it. Do you have room for them to breath before any reflections? This helps other wise i don't see a benefit. Never point your surrounds at you they say. Put them on the sides and you will have better ambient noise crickets, bird chirpings and rain ext. Put them to the rear of you then on dvd 5.1 mixing you can have a stereo image between any speaker so if the soundtrack is mixed that way it is awesome because then you get a sound that is in the middle of the two speakers that are imaging or getting a stereo effect. Kind of like when you listen to stereo and you think your center is on and it isn't. It's like that you can hear sounds out side. But if you are surround crazy and like to hear something most of the time put them up high and to the sides point straight at each other and not at you. About two foot from the ceiling i bet would be great. I have had mine to close to the ceiling and it lost its sence of space height wise. Hope this helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelie Posted March 6, 2004 Share Posted March 6, 2004 When I upgraded my old system, I went with RB 35s for surrounds exactly because of SACD and DVD-Audio. Movies are great and all but music was what I was after. Turns out, I really liked the multi-channel sound for a while but now I prefer to listen to my RF7s instead. I kinda knew that to start with, which is why I put everything I could into buying the best mains in the first place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T2K Posted March 6, 2004 Share Posted March 6, 2004 All of the comments above explain the very existance of Klipsch WDST surround speakers. You have found what engineers at Klipsch already know. Keith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelman Posted March 6, 2004 Share Posted March 6, 2004 T2k have you seen pictures of the hard rock cafe audio asylum? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelie Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 Hi markmaple, I finally got a long enough run of wire to hook my bookshelves on the side walls up in the air. They're now 8 feet up the walls, which are 19 feet apart. Whatever problems I was having with my surrounds before simply disappeared. I certainly wan't expecting any wonderful improvements but that's exactly what I got. It seems that the problems I was having related to having the bookshelves on stands maybe they were too low to the ground? and not having put enough distance between them. Either way, my problem is solved. In my house with this configuration, the RB35s work great as surrounds. They no longer sound like they're being overpowered, although they are turned up quite a bit more than the fronts in order to equalize them. After this experiment, I'd say go for the RB35s., if you have the room to set them up far apart. The downside to this is that I can no longer move my surround speakers to the correct position for listening to multi-channel music but as I said before, for me that's not that big of a deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HornEd Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 You might also thing about an RC-35 because the center channel configuration flanks the horn with a pair of cones whose angles will cover more of the sweet spot with less distance from the speaker. Horizontally mounted "bookshelf" speakers provide better monopole surround coverage. More later... -HornEd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ygmn Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 Why is it dolby and THX recommend the speaker 5-6 feet fropm floor which would be 2-3 feet above ones head when seated? Wouldn't the sweet spot now be above our heads? and we would not get the full effect? Or is it to best simulate speakers in a theater? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HornEd Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 Surround speakers have two roles... providing an ambience that contributes to the listeners enjoyment of movies (that's why there was background music played live in the silent movie days) and to provide increased realism of action appearing off screen. Placing the surround speakers provides more clear space to have sounds bounce off of hard surfaces in the room to provide a "curtain of background sound." The old THX approved surrounds were dipoles... and dipoles did not send any waves directly to the audience... but projected the sound away from the audience to have it bounce around and inundate the listener with the sound from all directions. When that happens, the ear cannot distinguish between a first sound and secondary (reflected) sounds... and so misinforms the brain that the sound is everywhere without direction or timbre. Most THX movie houses have been back on the monopole surround track for some years now. Multiple monopole rear arrays correctly set up create a seamless background of movie or music sound as styled by the audio engineer. Having 5.1 or 6.1 discrete channels provides a way for the audio engineer to mix in the degree of ambience or realism that is appropriate to the storyline. -HornEd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelie Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 I couldn't guess to what testing gave Dolby Digital or THX insight into the best placement of speakers but in my situation, putting the speakers way over my head - the only spot available on my walls - created a huge improvement in the quality of the surround system. Before I changed the setup, I had one sweet spot and it was very narrow. Any shift to the left or right and the balance of the rear spearkers was all out of whack. Directional sounds - loud noises that are meant to attract your attention - came through okay but ambient sounds were so quiet that they never really made you feel like a part of the action. Now I can enjoy the surround system from a much wider area on the couch and ambient sounds, even in movies without much emphasis on surrounds, sounds great. (I only just changed the setup so I watched two quick movies but my girlfriend and I were floored by the improvement. We couldn't stop talking about all the differences throughout the movies) I'm guessing that in my case it has to do as much with putting the speakers farther apart as it does with putting them on the walls over our heads. Regardless, I finally feel I've found the right spot to create a good effect and I'm happy with the surround quality for the first time in a long while. Trial and error is the key, I guess, as well as having long enough speaker wire to try everything out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ygmn Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 ---------------- On 3/11/2004 12:41:06 PM HornEd wrote: Surround speakers have two roles... providing an ambience that contributes to the listeners enjoyment of movies (that's why there was background music played live in the silent movie days) and to provide increased realism of action appearing off screen. Placing the surround speakers provides more clear space to have sounds bounce off of hard surfaces in the room to provide a "curtain of background sound." The old THX approved surrounds were dipoles... and dipoles did not send any waves directly to the audience... but projected the sound away from the audience to have it bounce around and inundate the listener with the sound from all directions. When that happens, the ear cannot distinguish between a first sound and secondary (reflected) sounds... and so misinforms the brain that the sound is everywhere without direction or timbre. ---------------- yes THX had the dipoles where they faced front and rear and mounted on sidewalls.....Agree not a good solution ..but WDST are not dipoles. They project there sound at about 180 degrees as you know...horns on each side angled 45 degrees so that all areas of a Home theater will hear them at about the same time and the woofer is pointed directly out into center of the room....this way all seats in a HT will hear the sorrounds at about the same time in lieu of the only one sitting in the sweet spot where monopoles would be aimed.... So: WDST provide a wall of sound Monopoles provide a point of sound...or an example would be the sound to appear as it is coming through a window.... Both will reflect of the hard surfaces in the room and room geometry and materials make a huge impact here...and bounce back to listeners and they will hear it...the question is if they notice it? Hence why in large theaters they have several monopole side speakers so that all seating rows would hear the same effects as coming from the side and not from a single point... Also is it not the purpose of HT to simulate the feeling of going to the a movie theater? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HornEd Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 Not exactly true, WDST speakers are effectively tripoles that have a woofer that sends frequencies under about 2,000 Hz toward the sweet spot and two tractrix horns to spray everything over 2,000 Hz toward reflective surfaces rather than the audience. Thus the audience can get a sense of direction from sounds under 2,000 Hz and sounds above arrive at about the same time and confuse the ear and that passes for ambience enhancement. Therefore, WDST speakers do NOT spread the same sound over 180 degrees. I believe WDST to be better than other tripoles since there ends are tapered. Personally, I recommend speakers configured like the RC-7 for surrounds because the wider arc of the full-range woofers at each end of the cabinet provide a better dispersion cone to the sweet spot. The custom horizontalized KLF-30s (with the 12 woofers as close to each end as possible) in my Legend Theater provides an even better coverage angle and three such custom speakers provide a seamless rear array in a 30 circular theater. That creates a wall of timbre-matched sound that matches the three KLF-30s in the front array. There is no extra fuzzing over by tricked-up ear games. What you hear is what the audio engineer wants you to hear without the artificial ambience. As for your comment of wanting theater sound no one that has seen a 6.1 DVD in my Legend Theater would agree with you. The sound is far more realistic (No Rat Shack puns please) the speakers sound more alike because they are more alike and the ambience is as crisp as the audio engineers want it to be. -HornEd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelman Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 Horn ed what if you have your ss-1 pointing into the room and one horn is amiming at you but above you and the woofer is pointing to the front of the room and your in a null from it. and the other horn is spraying away from you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HornEd Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 Wheelman, it sounds like you're setting it up like Avman did with his KSP-S6's. As long as you get direct waves from the horn and the woofer at the same time, most of the negative factors of WDST go away... and the rear firing over 2,000 Hz at the back wall creates the ambience... you are in better shape than using them as originally intended, IMHO. -HornEd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TauRus Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 ---------------- On 3/11/2004 3:50:42 PM HornEd wrote: Not exactly true, WDST speakers are effectively tripoles that have a woofer that sends frequencies under about 2,000 Hz toward the sweet spot… and two tractrix horns to spray everything over 2,000 Hz toward reflective surfaces rather than the audience. Thus the audience can get a sense of direction from sounds under 2,000 Hz and sounds above arrive at about the same time and confuse the ear… and that passes for ambience enhancement. Therefore, WDST speakers do NOT spread the same sound over 180 degrees. I believe WDST to be better than other tripoles since there ends are tapered. -HornEd ---------------- Ed, for the sake of theoretical discussion ... You stated that WDST speakers do not in fact spread the sound over 180 degrees. Are you familiar with other models/brands of speakers that achieve this? In my home setup I also use monopoles (RB5-IIs)as surrounds. But last year I played a little with different speakers for my surround channels. I have auditioned a few surround speakers in the stores like Tweater, including the older RS-3s. Never had a chance to listen to their other brethren from the Reference line. But out of those few models all failed to really create a good ambient soundstage. All, with one exception - Mirage Omni60. I will not describe their construction - everyone can go to their website and take a look at the specs and photos. I am just curious whether you had a chance to listen to those speakers and how do you assess their surround technology. P.S. As for Mirage Omni60 speakers, they did sound nice in my setup, created absolutely phenominal ambient scene in movies (both mounted on the stands or hung upside down on the walls), worked surprisingly good even for music. The reason i did not keep them were: 1) did not match sonically with the Reference speakers in the front, 2) build quality was not on par with Klipsches, and that is to say the least, 3) looked a little too funny with those UFO like saucers on top of the speakers. But i had fun playing with them. After all , this is an interesting technology. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wheelman Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 ---------------- On 3/11/2004 4:27:16 PM HornEd wrote: Wheelman, it sounds like you're setting it up like Avman did with his KSP-S6's. As long as you get direct waves from the horn and the woofer at the same time, most of the negative factors of WDST go away... and the rear firing over 2,000 Hz at the back wall creates the ambience... you are in better shape than using them as originally intended, IMHO. -HornEd ---------------- 'this is how i plan i setting them up. This sounds good A? I actually got descent result with my dipoles this way, but they were not nearly as clear as these. So i think i will be good. Well actually i will have the horn coming my way and the woofer will be pointing straight infront of me not really directly at me but sort of like if you were to sit in the middle of you mains and look back at your sofa. Except with the surrounds i have a horn will be coming at me but above me and not tilted down. I hope you get what i mean. It's hard for me to explain it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HornEd Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 Wheelman, I have to attend to some business so this will have to be brief. A monopole is named so because its speaker(s) are aimed in one direction. Bipoles & dipoles are aimed in opposite directions. Tripoles have been made to have two speakers firing in opposite directions and a third firing toward the audience. WDST is a better version of the tripole (IMHO) because it aims the end speakers (horns) on a wedge angle into the room. Set up according to Klipsch instructions, the 2kHz and under cone is aimed at the audience and the 2kHz and over tractrix horns are sprayed immediately in front of and immediately behind the audience to achieve a wide reflective area before the sounds reach one's ear. In effect, it is not one wall of sound across 180 degrees but rather three distinct sound "zones"... only one of which is aimed directly at the audience. Modern theaters put multiple monopole speakers along the theater walls on each side. Putting a center speaker (like an RC-7) gives you the effect of two widely spaced cone woofers with a 90x60 tractrix horn to make the midrange and highs up close and personal. Granted it takes a little more time, knowledge, a set-up disc, and an SPL meter to set up a proper home theater with monopoles... but the results is worth it. Setting up a home theater with WDST is easier right out of the box for folks who want instant gratification. It's a matter of choice... and I don't have a problem with the choice anyone makes for themselves. I just found what I believe to be a better way and am trying to share it. No brag... just fact. -HornEd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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