Did anyone here dump HT?

[Q-Man]

SSH,

I never enjoyed movies untill I got into home theater. I guess I had to be blasted out of my seat for them to get my attention. Ever since then I'll even watch a lousy movie if they have good sound.

[Strabo]

This has been an interesting thread.

I might watch one movie a month vs fifteen hours or more a week of music listening. I've had some sort of HT since I purchased klipsch 15 years ago. Pro-logic, DD, DTS, blah blah blah, does it ever end? Now Pro-logic II and IIx.

I'm coming to the conclusion that without an unlimited budget, the perfect room, and enthusiasm for the "sport", HT is just a gimick. If done right I'm sure it can be awesome, but so can stereo at half the cost. I recently recommended friends to stay away from HT unless they plan to spend five figures on it (excluding the TV). Instead, for half the investment they could have a stereo set-up that will run circles around most HT.

If you can afford it, go for it. If you plan to get HTIB but with better speaker? Skip it.

Don't even get me started on the goofy stuff they are doing with surround music. One listen to Queen's Dragon Attack on DVD-A will send most people running for the door. The neat factor is there. DSOTM is neat in surround, but I haven't listened to it since the week it came out. It's been stereo only, and vinyl to boot.

I have been kicking around the idea of dumping my HT for the last six months. It is great to know that I'm not alone. I will ween myself off starting by removing the center channel, then the surrounds to see what I think.

Anyone interested in two 5 channel amps?

[Cut-Throat]

I dumped HT in 1974 when they called it 'Quadraphonic' and never looked back!

[ssh]

Q-Man,

I get the feeling that Mark was hoping HT would spark an interest in movies for him, but it didn't. Some of my appreciation for jazz has been stimulated by better equipment with which to listen, so I understand your statement.

SSH

[cwm]

"Anyway in 19and59 my Dad and I went downtown to see Ben-Hur. I'll never forget the opening blasts of the picture's overture music, never. It was amazing. And I was off on my interest in sound."

Even though I was quite young when those "blockbusters" were out, I still remember listening to the soundtrack music from Ben Hur. You cant beat Miklos Rosza's stirring film scores----"King of Kings" etc.

[v3spitfire]

My HT rig lacks matching center and sub. I'm 80% music, 18% kids movies, 2% movies I actually like. My quandry: Can't justify a good center and surrounds for 2% of listening. I'm going for a better sub for music.

[HornEd]

Ah, yes, and when you blend "eargasm" with "eyegasm" you have vaulted over the everyday consumer electronics into the world of multi-channel magic.

I was fully tuned to "HiFi" when that meant monaural... and then some cheap boxes with two mains came into vogue... and I wondered why anyone would trade one great channel for two marginal ones... but that was back in the 1950's and it was time to move on... then decades later there was "quadriphoney"... then came the wimpy sound of ProLogic's narrow range surround clues... and, finally, multi-channel sound has the potential to mean something. Oddly enough, while the money paid for killer multi-channel HT is not cheap... the main issue is understanding how to get the most out of a DVD.

The purpose of a movie is to transport you to another time or place... and nothing makes that journey quite like a full-range system that can handle every sound form 121.5 dB @ 20 Hz... up to 20,000 Hz! Every week, dozens of hardcore two-channel types get blown away by multi-channel excellence in my free-standing 30' circular theater with low bass porous walls that prevent standing waves. It is a mind-tonic experience! -HornEd

PS: But if I had to get stuck in some high fidelity nook... being stuck in two-channel may be the place to be. However, we pioneers will still be looking for the eye, ear, nose, & throat "gasms" the future will bring.

[stan krajewski]

I dumped the urge to get into HT after reading this thread.

[Cleve]

I've got my system set up as both 2 channel and HT. I probably watch 2-3 movies a week - the rest of the time my center channel, surrounds and subwoofer sit idle. I listen to radio, cable radio, and CD's only through my McIntosh receiver coupled to the CF-4's.

However, they would pry my Home Theatre out of my cold dead hands! The enjoyment of those 2 or 3 movies a week is multiplied IMMEASURABLY by the impact of my RW-12 subwoofer, the center and the surrounds. Even sans cheesy sound effects, the rear channels add an ambient 'openness' that watching the movie in stereo a lot less enjoyable. I was watching Kill Bill Vol 1 for the first time last night - the opening sequence, in DTS sound, has a quiet dialogue suddenly, shockingly cut short by a violent, extremely loud gun shot! Betcha my RW-12 was putting out the full 600 watt peak on that one! Made me jump half-way out of my chair! Even my dog look scared, and he usually ignores the HT.

HT - a great way to enjoy movies and increase your chance of a fatal heart attack, all roled into one neat package!

[formica]

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

On 4/15/2004 6:20:30 AM HornEd wrote:

I was fully tuned to "HiFi" when that meant monaural... and then some cheap boxes with two mains came into vogue... and I wondered why anyone would trade one great channel for two marginal ones... but that was back in the 1950's and it was time to move on...

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

I think HornEd brings up some interesting points about how many people had a similar resistance to the introduction of stereo... feeling that it couldn't get better than mono-hifi. Well it did, and very few would go back to mono now.

But two-channel stereo in itself is a compromise based on the vinyl record's limitations. As many of you already know, Bell Laboratory's white paper (late 1930's or early 1940s?) that introduced stereo actually referred to 3 channels as a minimum to reproduce a correct soundstage for a reasonable seating area. The centre channel was dropped in order to cut it into a single groove, therefore creating the very narrow "sweet spot" we've become accustomed to. PWK, amongst others, used a derived centre for years to widen their listening area. Why should we STILL limit ourselves to the vinyl's limitations??

The surrounds (whether you have 2, 3, 4, 5 of them) are there to recreate the ambiance for both movies and multichannel music. Same concept of soundstage as we already know in the left to right sense... but turned on it's side... front to back. The ideais great in principal... it's like comparing mono to stereo. The execution is variable... same problem as simple stereo recordings... but I don't see many of you dumping your stereo gear for mono? Movies, in general, have very decent use of the multiple channels... and SACD/DVDA guys are catching up too.

HT also brings with it some additional benefits including turning a solo activity into one that can be enjoyed with friends or as a family. My gf will rarely sit down and listen to music with me... but she still benefits from my system when we sit down and watch a movie together. Like Qman said, watching a movie with a great soundtrack can be quite a thrill ride... and having fun is what it's all about! If your player is DVDA/SACD compatible, you get the benefit from the hi-res upgrade... which is quite noticeable when comparing the same recording on CD vs DVDA.

I won't be downgrading my multichannel system just because it's scoffed at by stereophile educated "audiophiles"... I'm just having too much fun.

Rob

[HornEd]

Thanks Rob... your eloquent amplification of my pre-stereo Klipschorn encounter contrasted with my first anemic stereo record rig (I was in the Army overseas) was filled with intrigue and shameless excess in the way early stereo recordings shamelessly flaunted stereo effects.

Further, your take on the Bell Labs multi-channel innovation that excited PWK is spot on! Both stereo and quadraphonic sound had their weaknesses and strengths rooted in the technical challenges of needle and groove dynamics. But, for me, there is a greater concern than just replicating the music I want to have the acoustic experience of a given concert brought into my listening area lock, stock & barrel organ!

As one moves up from transistor radio, to boom box, to become totally tubular or sail the musical sea on the $$ Multi-Grand Receiver the quality of the music improves dramatically but much of the being there aspects dont quite make it. Some receivers, Yamaha comes to mind, have dozens of simulated effects based on actual acoustic measurements of famed listening environments in an attempt (mostly grating I would say) to deliver more of the theater, bistro, or stadium character.

While, most of us have two ears many think that there is somehow a relationship between having two ears and recording with two mikes. Of course, recording is done with many more than two microphones even our live concerts at my place use multiple mics that are processed through a multi-channel board and $10k worth of processing gear before being sent to 3,400 watt power amps that feed the left and right speaker arrays. Inside concerts, dance bands and DJs sound a whole lot different than outdoor concerts on the lawn. And while all the sound gear is pro gear it is nothing like the upscale sound system that is slated for the new amphitheater.

The point is that sound is sliced, diced and otherwise manipulated, sometimes shamelessly, BEFORE it makes it to your input source even if that input source is your ears at a live concert. We dote on electronic representational music whether we are audiophiles locked into an esoteric groove standard or savage beasts up for a sooth job.

So whether for movies or music, two distinct, yet somewhat inseparable factors emerge unless, of course, your listening room is an anechoic chamber. There is the INITIAL sound of music (or Private Ryan ricochet) and the SECONDARY and successive aural clues that allow humans to determine direction, timbre, and spatial characteristics of sound.

In a two-channel environment, as lovely as they can be, the effect is still a bit gimmicky to my mind since two sound sources (i.e., loudspeaker positions) are too few to adequately connote the full sound experience as noted decades ago be Bell Labs and sustained by listening to a modern 6.1 DVD mix in a full-range (121.5 dB @ 20 Hz 20 kHz). The big difference is that a circle of identical full-range speakers for each discrete channel allows a closer approximation of the ambience of the original recorded environment or more likely an idealized synthesis that is even better than could have been heard in the original recording environment.

Multi-channel (whether for music or movies) is still in its unsettled phase like the early stereo equipment and records the essential standards are still emerging and blatant gimmickry has not been fully identified as being as crass as it really is. Sadly, truly good multi-channel sound is not available in the local movie house and, generally, not available in the local sound system supermarket.

Its people like my hero, Q-man, who separate the bull from the horns and build a better cabinet around them. The closer one comes to having six identical speakers fed by through six discrete channels with adequate sound amplification and source material and bolstered by an adequate subwoofer the closer one comes to digging out all the material available on a DVD. The Eagles Hell Freezes Over is an outstanding example of a DVD that is exquisite on two-channel and beyond exquisite in a properly set up six-channel theater.

The neat thing is that one can build a properly set up six-channel theater that will blow away custom audiophile rigs costing tens of thousands of dollars more! I know first hand because I live in a very affluent part of the country and have the opportunity to listen to many great sound installations of friends and acquaintances and they indeed have great systems especially those who are two-channel and totally tubular in there audio passion. But, they all pause in awe with the naturalness of being automatically transported into a differing acoustic space with each new DVD or CD they experience on the experimental Legend Theater in which the whole free standing theater and all the custom equipment cost less than the typical high end system compared in this paragraph!

The future of home theater (if we can have enough living space to afford one) is to replicate an acoustic experience previously recorded and minimally altered by the electronics or the room in which it is reproduced. For my ears, two-channel just doesnt have enough locations to get the job done bi-pole, di-pole, and tri-pole are, at best, gimmicks that fool the ear whether the ear needs fooling or not and six nearly identical speakers with positional modifications (as I have devised) are simply not available from any manufacturer. And, frankly Forum friends, nothing else cuts the mustard gas of sales hype and brings out the full value of the current crop of multi-channel technology. -HornEd

[Strabo]

I think it comes down to, if you have the resources to do HT right then do it and enjoy.

My issue is that most people, myself included, for a multiple of reason cannot do it right. A $2k integrated driving five similar but not perfect $3k floor standing speakers thrown into corners, generally isn't going to cut it. IMO, those same people would be better off spending $3k on a pre/amp, and $2k on a great pair of speakers.

[Frank Speaker]

I love this forum! Where else can you get speakers like HornEd and speakers like Max. And there are people speaking on all sides.

Surround Thought at its best!

[HornEd]

Well said Strabo and Frank Speaker. This is a great Forum that tolerates a broad spectrum of opinion.

Admittedly, I have earned the resource set in my 65 years of economic struggle to have whatever speakers, equipment and building to put it in that I desire. Call it lucky, elitist or surreal, the fact remains that I have earned the opportunity to probe acoustic frontiers and share it with those on this Forum that find it useful. I was fortunate to be exposed to PWKs Klipschorn as a monaural loudspeaker over a half-century ago and my horn-loaded and PWK oriented no BS philosophy has endured.

I appreciate Strabos comment and, yet, I know that quality six-channel excellence can be had for less money if manufacturers would build a system that makes the most of five or six channel fare. They dont unless one has the capability of spending megabucks and that is wrong! I mean that I dont have a problem with those who spend mega bucks I just dont buy into the audiophile excess that goes beyond natural sound.

Over the three years that I have contributed to this Forum, I have tried to make acoustic sense at every level. I realize that not everybody has the opportunity to build a perfect Home Theater room let alone a perfect stand alone Home Theater or two! Thats not important what is important that Forum members can learn from the experience of other Forum members and that their aural lives will be enhanced in the process.

It just isnt that big a deal to find an economically viable alternative that brings your aural experience beyond the limitations of vinyl two-channel constraints. HornEd

PS: No one gave me my advantages in life I went out and got my nose bloody in the process of learning how to succeed. Ive had my fifteen minutes of fame and then some now I just want to pass on to my fellow Klipsch enthusiasts a piece of the cost-effective aural pie that I have been privileged to enjoy. -HornEd

[SteelerFan]

I'm giving some thought to dumping my HT system now. Tried to upgrade and fell flat on my face and am now hoping to get my money back.

If I do get my money back I'm thinking I'll either go 2 ch with a sub for movies or maybe get something like the MAP-1 from McCormack that's analog and lets my DVD decode the 5.1.