7.1 speaker to match Chorus I and Heresy II

[theplummer]

Anyone got any thoughts on a good match for wide dispersion 7.1 speakers to match timbre and SPL of a Chorus I mains, Academy center, and Heresy II rears.

I'm thinking of mounting them overhead (ceiling mount), but previous attempts at combining a speaker that is rated in the 80's Db range, doesn't fair well with the Choruses at 101Db. They kinda get lost. The Academy can barely get the job done.

I've been looking at the reference series (maybe rs-10 or rs 42, nothing bigger in size), but not sure the timbre will match the heritage series. Also Klipsch does not list them as a match, in fact none of the heritage list possible speaker choices for a 7.1.

[bookman]

Maybe move your Heresies to the rear and buy another pair of Chorus.Small reference won't

put out enough to keep up.

[theplummer]

Nope not going to do that at this time, as I'm on the prowl for Khorns and Belle's for the new HT in the new home I'm starting soon. Gotta fill a 30' by 57' room with pppppplenty of booooom.

[j-malotky]

Don't look at Reference.

With Heritage, you are way better off with Monopoles instead of Dipoles.

What I have found is to mount Heresy2's over your head angled down to your sweet spot. I mount them in the corner of the wall ceiling, using the ceiling corner to re-enforse the bass.

When the speakers are over your head, you get a much better surround sound effect, and you get the full range slam of Heritage monopoles. Run them all large.

JM

[theplummer]

J-malotky,

Thanks for the input, I know your right, WAF refuses to let me hang such a "Huge" speaker overhead. Something about looks, who cares, right?

Again, once the new HT is built, going to be prowling for the big dawgs. I'd like to use Khorns for mains, and possibly three belles (center and rears) This would allow me to use the Heresy's overhead in the 7.1 position. Also a thought, would it be beneficial to use the Academy with the Belle in the center to help with the voice tracks or will it just get lost..... Now, what to do with the old Choruses. Hummmmm.

[j-malotky]

These pics of my HT are a few years old, but you can see what hanging Heresys in the ceiling / wall looks like. Hanging Heresys aren't too imposing.

http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/385391/ShowPost.aspx

You never want to run two center speakers. You will get odd harmonics.

I see in your original post that you are going to fill a huge room. One thing I noticed when I was playing arround with Heritage centers is that in larger rooms, the K400 squawker horn does a better job than its smaller heritage cousins. The K500 in the Belle may sound smaller than your Khorns. A LAS center may work better than a Belle especially in your large room.

JM

[theplummer]

Your HT is pretty cool, Do you have any problems with imaging on those rear Heresy's, due to them being so close to your listening position.

I ask this because I have that problem now with my Heresy's on the rear . They are all the way in the back of the room, as is the couch and they are angled inward somewhat, they are about 5' away from my head. I notice if I raise my head up the treble gets stronger, if I lower my head the mid comes through. I'm guessing this is a dispersion problem. I'd think the center would have a similar effect if too close, or am I imagining this.

To the effect of using LS instead of a Belle for center, WAF hates the way LS looks, too bad this is the one room in the house I get to decorate.

[j-malotky]

At 5 feet away you should not have dispersion problems. That is insteresting.

I designed a few HT to hide LAS. The most appealing way is to build your screen wall 3 feet in from your real wall. This will give you a nice sized pocket under your screen to put your center and subs. Then just cover the entire opening with grill cloth hiding the contents.

I also have mounted horns directly to the wall. If you like the belles looks you could keep the belle under your screen disconnect the K500 and mount a larger K400 in the front wall.

Design your room before you build it. It is easier to make changes on paper before the walls go up.

JM

[theplummer]

Do you mean build a false wall in front of the Ht and make a pocket for the LS, and mount the Screen on the false wall, then place the Khorns in the new corners made. My experience when placing a speaker inside a "pocket" or Say a cabinet, the reflecting harmonics reek havok on the timbre, makes the speakers sound muddy, like every Bose I've ever heard.

If not, this would be a perfect way to have a seamless wall in front for the Khorn reflections, no center speaker to create odd harmonics especially since the LS is so much deeper diminsionally than any other Speaker.

This brings me to another question. When I build this new HT, I want to use it for a dual purpose. The entire basement is 57'wide and 30' deep, with 9' high ceiling. This is all freespanning, No posts in the center of the room. It is also a Wooden subfloor, since there is another basement this size under it. My initial thought is to have the HT screen on the 30' wall with a Belle in the center (for asthetics), and Khorns flanking for mains.

Now, for the questions, How deep should the room be ideally for the HT, because I want to use a heavy acoustic curtain that I can pull across the room to close it off when I want to get serious about watching a movie. With the curtain in place, I wanted to use my current Chorus I's for rear surrounds and mount the Heresy II's over head in a 7.1 configuration. Don't know where to locate the Sub for optimum sonics in this configuration. Eventually upgrading the Chorus's to Belle's also.

When I'm serious about having a wide open party, I want to open the curtain and use the HT as more of a sports bar setting. With the curtain open, I could rotate the Belles' to point directly into the center of the room, and have some type of speaker switch to turn on speakers mounted in the remainder of the room. This way at a party, Music videos could be playing, while the pool table could be used, wet bar, and video games, along with the general bar type scene. Kind of keep the party in one place of the house type of thought.

Trouble is I'm not sure of the technology to accomplish this, and not sure of what would work best for this type of arrangement.

Any thoughts

P.S. any thought on a reasonably priced projector. would a Dell $1300 unit perform as well as the overpriced ones I see at the HiFi stores. Also I saw a Dwin 4 on audiogon. Do you know anything about them.

[Chris Elm]

Looks like you have some good ideas going here.

As far as the "switch" to turn on other speakers in the other part of the room, this can be accomplished by any outboard amp that has A, B, etc. settings and a reciever with a Multiroom setting (or something similar).

I have kind of the same thing going in my house. I walk over to my reciever (Elite 45tx), and turn on "Multuroom source" and you can toggle between the different sources. I have a few 6-channel Sonance amps that can be strung together by using the outs and ins on them. If I want the music on in the bathroom, I turn on Zone B on amp one. If I want it on in the kitchen and bathroom, I turn on Zone B and Zone C, etc.

If I just want the movie on in the theater, I don't turn on multiroom.

Hope this helps.

[theplummer]

Any thoughts on keeping the surround processing working in such a large area. I think with such a long room, the center channel would be lost with other surrounds, or am I going to have to change the processing to 4 or 5 channel stereo mode. My sunfire won't do this if it is receiving a Dolby Digital or DTS signal. Any more thoughts.

[theplummer]

Here I am answering my own post. Helloooo, anyone out there...there...there?

Oh, well, I've been thinking about my last delimma with the sound processing in such a large area, the problem is when the HT divider curtain is opened up to reveal the back half of the 30' x 57' room, I'm surmising that the one center speaker, that will be positioned all the way at one end of the room, will be lost due to the surrounds.

I've thought of a possible remedy. How about a single Belle sitting in the middle of the floor, in the same plane as the rear surrounds, turned around backwards, pointing away from the screen into the remainder of the room. When the curtain is opened, turn the rear surrounds backwards facing the remainder of the entertainment room and use a speaker selector switch to cut off the HT mains and center, activate the second center, and switch the HT rear surrounds to make them the front mains, also activating a pair of speakers all the way at the opposite end of the room, effectively making two separate HT's using the same video monitor. One HT has theater seating and the other , pool table, wet bar, video games, etc. This configuration would keep the timing correct with the screen and keep the center channel in the forefront of the remainder of the room.

There's probably some wiring issues, There would have to be two sets of wires running to the rear surrounds, and possible backfeeding power through the system, any thoughts on preventing this, maybe a diode of some type in a homade switching network.

[DrWho]

This is where diagrams work wonders. I think you might be overthinking

the distance issue. How far into the design/build stage are you with

your new dedicated room?

I would be more inclined to run 3 lascalas across the front than a

khorn+belle/lascala. The reason being that you will have far better

timbre matching. And since you will already need a potent subwoofer to

keep up, you can use the money you save to get an even better sub (one

that will even outperform the passband of the khorn so you don't

compromise any sound quality). And on top of all that you will have

much better flexibility with speaker position. Movies were mixed with a

60 degree LR spread in mind...the forced 90 degree LR spread of the

khorns isn't an ideal situation (you will have slight gaps in left to

right panning).

[theplummer]

The preliminary house plans are drawn, they are now at the engineers for approval. Funny a 9' wall has to be engineered in my county. there are also issues with spanning floor joists 30 feet without any supporting steel or columns.

I have not drawn the layout exactly yet, still in the fact gathering stages. I do have Punch pro platinum, though I've never been able to yield usable results. More of a pen and papery kind of guy. I tried to scan the portion of the house plans that pertained to the area of the Entertainment room, but the image is too large to scan. I will try to get Punch to work for this application.

[DrWho]

You got a PM