Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Beauty or Brawn?

First of all, This is my first post and I would like to start off by saying "hello" and to introduce myself.

My name is Tom, I live in Erie, PA, and I've frequented this site for a couple of years now (sounds like the start of an A.A. meeting!). My wife and I were married last May, and by last fall I was starting to sell off my equipment to save up for (and create the need for) my dream home theater system. Unfortunately, in September we had a fire and lost nearly everything and began the rebuilding process. Well, after the craziest year, that also bore good news through the birth of our first child, we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have a new home nearing completion (4 to 6 weeks away, although we've been saying that for a month now : ).

So, we’ve left the bad behind us, and we're focusing on the good ahead of us. My wife's good is the porch and fireplace she's getting. Mine, well, starts and ends with a sweet new home theater that I had to put off for a little while!

I decided to pre-wire the living room for surround sound. Of course, there were tricky points to the setup, but I worked with J.C. via email to lay it out as best as we could. My intent is to go with the Epic 80 - 500 setup (with two sets of surrounds, of course). I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to buy right off the bat, but I’m aiming high. I’ll mostly be using it for home theater use.

I guess this is where the topic name finally becomes relevant. We designed a very open floor plan. The theater room (I mean 'living' room) has a vaulted ceiling, but is wide open to both the kitchen and dining room. Also, the dining room has a 6' cased opening to the office in the front of the house. The living room is 5,555 cubic feet in volume. When adding the four rooms together it is right at 10,000 cubic feet. So, the practical amount of space that a subwoofer needs to work in is somewhere in between there.

So, would you prefer one EP500 or two LFM-1’s? I want the accuracy of the EP500, but I’m not certain it will be enough for such a large, open space.

I made a quick, simple webpage showing the theater layout with the house progress. I'm not very good at it, and I think the way I did it requires the entire page to load before displaying on the screen, so it may take a minute or more to load. It can be seen at:

http://www.moyaks.com/

If you couldn’t tell, I drew up the theater in 3D CAD in order to get a feel for it and to use as an aid in determining the volume, spacing, etc. Actually, if I did it right, the first blue CAD picture should also be a link to a really cool interactive file of the layout.

My intent is to power the system with Outlaw Audio equipment (I'm hoping to see their new releases soon).

I’ve rambled long enough. I’m excited to finally start posting here, and am looking forward to any thoughts you may have.

-Tom

Welcome! I think my preference would be an Epic 80-600, minus the extra two surrounds. You can always add those later, and a 600 should be quite sufficient.

sweet place, how big is that? im moving into my new house the first week of sept isnt it a great feeling. my living room and kitchen are side by side with the living room being about 17'x17. i want to say the kitchen is roughly the same size. im gonna go with an epic 60 set with 2 additional qs8's and upgrade to the ep600. the plasma will go over the fireplace and to the left of that in the media niche all the components will go there.heres some pics of the model, hope these work.

Thanks kcarlile. I'm pretty much locked into the two sets of QS8's. In order to flush mount them, we're just leaving the wires hanging through holes in the ceiling and back wall. It was a difficult enough process to find a middle ground with my wife as to how many / what / where I could put them. We have some samples here now, and we're going to go with 1 set in eggshell white with a white grill for going on the vaulted ceiling. The others will probably be the boston cherry.

Don't get me wrong. I would LOVE to go EP600, but that is a lot to spend on one subwoofer AND a lot of size to get approval on

sponger_2, nice pics! Your house looks very comfortable. I think that is most important.

The living room area is roughly 19' x 33' at its largest dimension, and the kitchen and dining rooms are another 14' x 28' combined.

What made you decide on the 60's over the 80's? That is another area that I've been stuck trying to decide. The frequency response curve for the 60's is silky smooth, and yet the additional drivers of the 80's matches the multiple drivers of all the other speakers in the setup (i.e. more than one of each driver in each cabinet). Either way on this one, I feel confident that either will be an excellent choice!

Hi Tom; and Welcome!!

Looks to me that during your couple of years of reviewing these posts, that you've also done a lot of homework and planning!

Also sounds to me that you've picked all the right stuff for all the right reasons within the constraints of financing and WAF

Seems you've got the system nailed except for the sub question.

Yeah...that may be a lot of volume to fill with just one EP500, and I know I'm being pretty free with Your money; but it seems on the surface that one 500 today and maybe a second one sometime later may be the final solution

Hey....two(relatively)easy to hide 500s may well equal one(relatively)obtrusive 600 and still get you what you're looking for in the long run!!

im gonna go with the 60's to please the wife more than anything. i would love to go with the 80's but she approved the 60's and im not gonna press my luck.

Hi Tom, and welcome. Lets get to the important stuff first. That's a lovely home in a lovely setting, and an even more lovely family. Your wife has a great smile. OK, on to the lesser stuff.

Among the things one should take into consideration, when deciding on a sub, is how many cubic feet of air the sub will have to pressurize (i.e.,move). With the dimensions you provided, and using an 8 foot ceiling height, you've got over 8000 cubic feet or air in your spaces. And that's without allowing for the vaulted ceiling. That's a LOT of space.

If you have been frequenting this place for two years, by now you are probably well aware that we are fortunate to have a forum member who is a submaniac (HMMM. Making that phrase into one word provides a second meaning which just might be as accurate as the first . Or, would that more properly be spelled sub-maniac?). He posts on this forum, and many others, under the name of Craigsub.

Within the next two weeks he will be receiving M80s/VP150/QS8s and an EP600 for evaluation. I'm sure, when he has had time to put the system through it's paces, we will be the recipients of a thoughtful, insightful, scholarly dissertation on it's merits and flaws (OH BROTHER! Am I spreading it on thick, or what? )

YOU, on the other hand, are fortunate, in that this lunatic resides in Erie, PA, and if bribed with enough spirits and intoxicants, just might be cajoled into giving you, and your lovely wife, a listen. He's been known to do this now and then. On the other hand, he may wake up surly and grumpy this morning, and be a total twit. I have it on good authority (his beautiful wife Susan), that he's been known to do THIS, also. (Surly and Grumpy, by the way, are the names of his children).

Now that I have completely failed to even address your question, let alone answer it, I will go eat my usual breakfast of gruel and toadstools, and then take my morning nap.

DISCLAIMER

I am not responsible for anything I do or say before 8 AM. (that is often true for 8 PM as well)

Tom - I have your phone # archived in my e-mail stuff. I will be calling you once I get my stuff here, so we can talk audio.

F107plus5, you're right, I certainly put a lot of thought into it. Although, I did A LOT of the homework in the past few weeks. My father is managing the house construction and, believe it or not, I almost forgot to do the wiring. He said to me, "Didn't you plan to do some wiring in here?" I just got so side-tracked. So, I did a little crunch-time speaker and layout planning, ordered the wire, wall plates, connectors, etc. and just got it in before they insulated. All of the drywall will be up before the end of today.

You do bring up an excellent point. I think I'll do exactly what you say and get one EP500 now, then decide down the road if another is needed. Also, I may be dreaming thinking I'll have a lot of opportunities to crank it up with a 3 month old (and very protective wife) in the house!

Thanks again.

-Tom