build a shelf above the TV or make a stand in front. All you’re trying to do is keep the sound centered on the image.
The more omni-directional the speakers are the less problems you have with the listening area. As a general rule you would put the speakers fairly close to the corner but that is not required. Even the worst speaker will spread sound out to some respect. You can tweak the sweat spot by angling the speakers in a little. I would look for systems multiple tweeters aimed in different directions. That’s the cheapest solution to imaging requirements. And subwoofers don’t need to be really expensive units. They only reproduce the really low frequencies so that is the only criteria for purchasing them. Avoid subwoofers with 6" speakers. The bigger the subwoofer the easier it is to reproduce the lower notes. For normal listening you shouldn’t hear them at all. If you do, the gain setting is too high.
Most of my suggestions have been centered on getting the most bang for the buck. Since you don’t have a stereo now, I’m not sure if you plan on listening to music with this system. If you do, then burn a music CD with a variety of sounds. It should have a song with good vocals (both male and female), something with a piano, an acoustic guitar, a flute, and a brass instrument. If these are reproduced well then you’ve got a good pair of front stereo speakers. The center channel should deliver human voices well. No rocket science there. The remaining speakers only serve to add depth and are generally not called upon to deliver the quality of the center channel or stereo speakers.
Take your ears shopping and enjoy the experience. You’re goal is to find something you like within you’re budget. Go to the library read audio magazines that rate different systems. They should rate them by price range so you’ll know where to start looking.
Certainly, you can do something for $500. But you have to remember, surround sound involves 6 speakers. That’s simply a lot of hardware, so it’s hard to really lowball the price and get something reasonable.
But hey, some people get by just listening to the speakers in the TV. What’s important is to match your budget to your expectations. If you expect to get room-filling surround sound and deep bass for $500, you will be disappointed.
I would still stay away from the Home Theater In A Box setups. They’ll make it hard for you to upgrade, and if one component dies the whole system is useless. Panasonic makes cheaper digital receivers (the XR-55, and SAXR25) which can be had for under $200. Get one of those, and a $75 DVD player.
There is an inexpensive speaker system that might fit your bill, by a company named Athena. Their Micra 6 system is highly regarded as an introductory home theater speaker system. Right now at Audio Advisor (the link above), the whole system is on sale for $298, which seems like an amazing price. Here’s a review of them, which gives them a big thumbs up at $600. So $298 seems like a pretty good deal. Add that to a small Panasonic receiver and a cheapo DVD player, and you could come in at just around $500.
If you can move up in price just a bit, you could get four of the Athena B1.2 bookshelf speakers, their C1.2 center channel, and their ASP-400 sub. This would be a vastly superior system, and the speakers will cost you $529 from Audio Advisor. Add in the Panasonic receiver and a DVD player, and you should be able to set up an $800 system that will be very good - it’ll definitely sound better than one of those $3000 Bose lifestyle systems, and may in fact completely satisfy you and be all you’ll ever want.
Those Athena speakers sound appealing - might have to check those out. Guess I’ll be spending some quality time 1) saving paychecks, and 2) listening to things. I really appreciate all you guys’ help - you’ve really done a fantastic job of dumbing it down for me!
You are going to have trouble finding anything to touch the Athena line up for sound quality at their price. I recently gave my old HT setup(which was a 7.1 Athena package, consisting of F1s, B1s, C1, and a P400) to my gf.
The package Sam quoted is what I would recommend to if youre trying to spend $750 or so. In fact, I don’t see any package that will rival it unless you spend around 1500, and then I would look at SVS, Axiom, or Paradigm.
For instance, put the Panasonic digital receiver(or alternatively, the Harmon Kardon 635, which was a $1300 receiver but is now down to 600 or so, with the SVS Sbs01 surround package(which includes a PB10 sub) at $999.
SVS and HSU are internet only brands that make subwoofers that kill anything you can buy at CC or BB for 1/2 to 1/3 the price. If you can, I would try to get into at least an entry level SVS or HSU sub, instead of the Athena p4000. I had its earlier version, the P400, and although it sounds much better than many offerings, the SVS PB10 at $429 is going to be a significant step up.
Also, I would shy away from the 6.1 setups, I’ve heard of some rooms that actually cause some frequencies from the 6th speaker to image in FRONT of the sweet spot. In a 7.1 setup, each surround speaker is slightly off center to the sweet spot, so this is not an issue
[hijack] Sam Stone, if I recall correctly, I detest your politics, but my heavens! you’re an audio GOD! Thank you! The Athena system looks perfect for someone like me, whose ear is simply not sophisticated enough to be able to care about the difference between ‘good’ and ‘very good,’ and *forget * about the difference between ‘very good’ and ‘excellent’!
Now, how about computer speakers (I’ve been doing some gaming lately)? What does Your Audiology-ness recommend?
When you go shopping, know the dimensions of your living room. The worst thing you can do is get an underpowered system. Getting a matched set of speakers is the way to go. An audio HTIB (receiver + speakers) would be a good way to start out. Keep the DVD separate. The receiver/speakers HTIB is really easy to set up (may be color-coded) and the sound is balanced nicely right out of the box.
I would not get a HTIB…the reciever is almost always going to be underpowered.
how muchdo you want to spend on the computer speakers? It’s generally accepted that the Klipsch line is the best, although they can get pretty expensive
I’m not much up on computer speakers, I’m afraid. I’ve heard great things about the Logitech Z-5500’s, though. They seem to get uniformly excellent reviews from all the computer mags.
I’d strongly recommend against an HTIB system. There are a couple of reasons. First, if one component dies, you’re out of luck. Second, it’s difficult or impossible to upgrade the system piece by piece. This is especially important today, because numerous standards are changing.
For example, there’s an emerging standard in high-definition DVD. The two major competitors, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, are just entering the market, and it’s not clear which one will win. But eventually, you may want to upgrade to High Definition DVD. This will require changing the DVD player and possibly the receiver if you don’t buy one that has an HDMI input. It sure would be nice to be able to upgrade one component in the chain without replacing your speakers and everything else.
Another issue that we’re about to run into is copy protection. HDMI connections support HDCP, which is a form of copy protection. Without HDCP, it’s likely that hgh-definition sources like cable boxes and HD-DVD players will not output the full resolution signal, but rather a downsampled DVD quality image. So if you buy a system today that doesn’t support HDMI/HDCP, then you might be completely out of luck when the world switches to hi-def. If you have separate components, you just need to buy a new receiver. If you have an HTIB, time to scrap the entire system and start over.
In just the past few years we’ve seen a plethora of new standards: DVI, HDMI, SACD, DVD-A, DTS-ES, etc. This process will continue in the future. So stay flexible.
I also don’t agree that an HTIB will be ‘balanced nicely out of the box’. These systems are often calibrated to sound good on a dealer’s shelf - which usually means too much bass and treble. And anyway, you don’t have a balanced sound until you tune the system for the room it is in. A system that sounds great in a ‘dead’ room will sound awful in a ‘live’ room.
Speaking of that… One of the simplest bang-for-the-buck things you can do for your sound is to add some room treatments. The best stereo in the world will sound like crap in an echo chamber.
First thing - go into the room that has your audio gear. Stand in front of your listening position and clap loudly. Do you hear an echo? Or a ‘boing’ sound? If so, your room is probably too live. Put some soft furnishings in the room, some pillows, a throw rug… Anything like that helps.
Second, you want to treat the ‘first reflection points’ on your walls. When sound leaves your speaker, it comes straight at your ears. But it also reflects off the nearest wall and then heads for your ears as well, only the distance is slightly longer so the sound is out of phase. This destroys imaging and causes an effect called ‘comb filtering’ which can muddy your sound and destroy dialog.
Sound acts like a ray, just as light does. So it’s easy to find your first reflection points. Sit in your chair, and have someone put a mirror on the wall and slide it along until you can see your speaker in the mirror. That’s where the light rays reflect from the speaker to the wall to your eye, so it’s also where sound waves do the same thing. At this point, if you can place some aborptive surface, you’ll improve the sound coming from your speakers. In some rooms, this may be as simple as moving a stuffed chair to that position. Or, you can hang something soft on the wall. There are custom absorbers you can buy for $50-$70 which are decorative and can be hung on the wall at your first reflection points.
Another simple thing you might try is moving your seating slightly. If you get a ‘boomy’ sound from your bass, you might be sitting in the middle of a standing wave. In any enclosed room, audio waves bounce off the walls and interfere with each other. In some locations, the interference is additive, and you get a peak at a certain frequency. In another, they might cancel and you get a null. If your seating is in a peak or a null, moving it a foot or two might totally change what you hear from your sound system.
You can download pink noise test files that you can burn to CD and play on your stereo. Playing one of those, walk around the room and listen. You’ll probably hear the volume go up and down. Those are peaks and nulls. Treating your room acoustically can minimize them and improve the overall sound dramatically.
There are other techniques of varying sophistication I can go into if anyone is interested. But those first two things can make a stereo sound MUCH better, for less than $100. I’m always amazed when I go to some 'audiophile’s house and see a $10,000 stereo in a room that rings like a bell and has no wall treatments. He would have been better off with a $1000 stereo and a properly treated room.
In my home theater, I have the entire front wall behind the screen covered in 1" fiberglass panels (hidden by an acoustically transparent false wall - which you can see during construction here, and finished here). Then there are panels on the side walls to kill early reflections, and a ‘bass trap’ to kill standing waves at low frequencies. It’s all homemade and cost next to nothing, but the room sounds like a real theater.
Here are some good online sources for more information:
Subwoofer is SVS 16-46PC+
Receiver is currently Pioneer 1014(probably about to become the new Adcom GFR once I see it’s not buggy)
my LR is 17feet front to back, and 13 feet wide. The LR only has 3 walls, as the left wall is completely open to the DR/Kit. The back right corner is a doorway to a BR.
To place the dipoles on the back wall, I would have to put the right one inside the doorway. Obviously this isn’t wide enough, if I also place the left one in 3 feet from the right side.
However, there is no wall on the left side to mount the other dipole. The left wall is an additional 15 feet away, and is full of kitchen cabinets. I would have to mount it up at least 7 feet high. I do however, have unobstructed ceiling space, if I could mount brackets to the ceiling I could hold the KSPs there.
The other option would be to get a pair of floorstanding speakers and just set them down on the floor in each back corner, and partially obstruct the doorway. (I’m living in a condo that I was considering purchasing, but have since abandoned that idea, so solutions that are"good enough" to get by now, that can be fixed by building a dedicated theater room later, are acceptable.
If I ceiling mount the dipoles, what’s the optimal location?
I’m also considering a KLF -10 as a center instead of the C7. I also am planning on another 16-46PC+, so I’m quickly running out of real estate up front though(currently have 52" Mitsu DLP, but looking into 2.35:1 projection set up)
I should make more clear the location of the BR door, it is actually on the BACK wall, inthe right corner. The back corner, of the right wall, is completely available for speaker mounting
The design idea behind a dipole is that what you want in surround speakers is not to hear sound coming from a speaker behind you, but to be immersed in an ‘ambient field’, so it just sounds like you are in the environment being recreated. If you hear sound coming directly out of the speaker, it’s located in the wrong spot. For a dipole to achieve this, it has a front and back firing driver, and the speaker is placed directly across from the listener so that the listener is in the null point between the speakers. The sound from the dipole is supposed to reflect off the side walls, back wall, front wall, etc, and immerse the room in ambient sound.
If the room isn’t enclosed, I’m not sure this is going to work, although I’ve never tried it. I also don’t know what the effect would be if you put your dipoles on the back wall with an open side wall. My guess is that it won’t work that well. As it is, a lot of people dislike dipoles because they’re used to hearing sound coming from the direction of their speakers, so they think the surrounds aren’t loud enough. Take away the reflections, and that will probably make it worse.
My guess is that you’d have better luck with direct firing speakers aimed at the listening position. This is the preferred setup for multi-channel music, btw, and some movie lovers prefer the sound of direct firing speakers anyway. You might be able to get a nice ambient field with a 7.1 setup of direct firing speakers, with two on your back wall instead of dipoles, and two out to the sides and slightly behind the seating position on stands. What you’re doing is setting up a ‘near field’ surround system. ‘Near Field’ means that the sound is going directly to your ears from the speakers, rather than reflecting off of walls and such. When you listen to your computer speakers, you’re generally listening to near-field sound. It can be really crisp and clean. Studios that mix 5.1 soundtracks generally use near-field monitors arrayed around the mixer. If you could put speakers on stands to the sides and behind the seating position, you’d probably have a nice setup. If you have a 5.1 computer speaker system, you probably already know what that sounds like.
If you do mount dipoles, 7’ off the ground is not necessarily too high. Dolby and THX recommend that dipoles be 1-3’ above the listening position, and say that height isn’t really all that important. I mounted mine just at 6’, so that people wouldn’t crack their heads on them. However, 15’ away on one side is a big problem. I don’t think it works.
Ceiling mounted surround speakers can be done. I’ve seen some in-ceiling speakers specially designed for that application. They have swiveling tweeters, so that you can mount the speakers behind the seating position and swivel the tweeters towards it. That might also work for you.
My guess is that the best performing setup for you though would be a 7.1 configuration of direct firing speakers. If you’re buying your stuff through a good audio dealer, he should be willing to let you take home both kinds for an in-home trial. That’s what I’d do. Get your hands on some dipoles, temporarily mount them, and see how you like it. Then try the direct firing speakers.
The ceiling mount idea would be to fashion brackets of some sort and mount the dipoles up there, with their “backs” flush up to the ceiling. I have a bit of an issue getting demo equipment, since all these Klipsch speakers are discontinued, and are relatively hard to find. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have trouble selling them back onto the used market if they didn’t work quite how I wanted.
