Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rate Thread
Page 2 of 6 1 2 3 4 5 6
Re: M80s for HT and Music
Riker #149517 10/17/06 06:58 PM
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 6,833
W
Wid Offline
axiomite
Offline
axiomite
W
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 6,833
Quote:

Sorry Rick, I put in WID in my response because I did not realize your name was at the bottom until I had posted my message. Did'nt mean to sound impersonal, forum newbie mistake :-(

Thanks again Rick for the reply,

Stephane




No worries Stephane, there was nothing to take offense to.


Rick


"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." Sigmund Freud

Re: M80s for HT and Music
michael_d #149518 10/17/06 09:33 PM
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 375
R
Riker Offline OP
devotee
OP Offline
devotee
R
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 375
Thanks Mdrew, I will check it out. I agree, I need to address the room first before making any rash decisions. You can understand my level of frustration or disappointment especially given the gear that I have, I don't feel like I am listening to the potential of what I am looking at.
Cheers,
Steph


Acoustic Zen Adagio, Veritas center, Axiom EP500, QS8s, Anthem AVM20, MC20,Adcom GFA7400
Re: M80s for HT and Music
Riker #149519 10/17/06 09:40 PM
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 18,044
shareholder in the making
Offline
shareholder in the making
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 18,044
Completely understandible frustration. However, I would still consider a new subwoofer first--Axiom, SVS, and Hsu are good places to look.

Of course, that point is moot if you're not using the sub for stereo listening. If you aren't, try that first.


I am the Doctor, and THIS... is my SPOON!
Re: M80s for HT and Music
Ajax #149520 10/17/06 09:47 PM
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 375
R
Riker Offline OP
devotee
OP Offline
devotee
R
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 375
Hi Jack,

No problems, I should have mentionned this in my last post.. but it was late, went to bed and then it I though of it.. The mains are set to large in my processor. But just to make absolutely sure, I connected my wife's IPOD directly into my Anthem MCA20 Amplifier using a 1/8 to RCA cable. Works like a charm and completely eliminates any potential processer issues, it's as close from source to output as I can get.

The results were the same, so I now know that my processor is not misconfigured, which given the complexity of this puppy is likely. I also called Anthem and talked to one of their engineers, he walked me through the menu systems, which I had done, but just wanted to make absolutely sure.

This is a combination of two things, first and foremost, the room is playing nasty tricks on me, standing waves etc..It needs to be tamed and fast. But in addition to that, I am starting to think that perhaps the inherent characteristics or "personality" of the Energy's are not suited to my tastes. When I first auditionned them in the audio store, my very first impression was " no bass" quickly followed by " a bump / peak in mid range". The male vocals of my test materials were considerably more pronounced than the rest of the sound, and I actually asked the salesperson to add a sub because the bass was so anemic. He assured me that the lack of bass was only due to the fact they were new and had not had time to break in, same with the mid range bump. Well, a good 500 hours later, I'm here to say the lack of bass is still there along with the mid range peak. Nothing really changed from that very first audition.

But I really need to take care of the room before I do anything else, things can only sound better from here on end :-)

Thank you everyone for your comments and sugestions thus far, I really appreciate it


Acoustic Zen Adagio, Veritas center, Axiom EP500, QS8s, Anthem AVM20, MC20,Adcom GFA7400
Re: M80s for HT and Music
Ken.C #149521 10/17/06 09:51 PM
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 375
R
Riker Offline OP
devotee
OP Offline
devotee
R
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 375
Hi kcarlile,

I to like the sound that a sub brings to the table in the overall sound and for now my Energy ES-10 does quite well in my environment. But what I am trying to figure out is why my Veritas do not perform as they should by themselves, yes I can compensate for their apparent shortcommings but I really should not have to. In the end, once I have my room issues figured out I am most likely going to dial in a bit of sub just to round things out.

Cheers,

Stephane


Acoustic Zen Adagio, Veritas center, Axiom EP500, QS8s, Anthem AVM20, MC20,Adcom GFA7400
Re: M80s for HT and Music
Riker #149522 10/17/06 09:58 PM
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 6,833
W
Wid Offline
axiomite
Offline
axiomite
W
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 6,833
Could you give us a bit more info on how the room is configured ? There are a few guys here that are quite good at figuring out room problems, me not being one of them


Rick


"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." Sigmund Freud

Re: M80s for HT and Music
Riker #149523 10/18/06 12:12 AM
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 22
K
hobbyist
Offline
hobbyist
K
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 22
Hi Riker,

I also have a tendency to evenly mix my HT and music listening and have been messing around with various configs. The other posters seem much more knowledgeable on 'fixing' things, so I'll try to address your first question - that of other options.

I have two HT/music systems:
-Sony AVDS500ES (5.1)
-Energy C-5s front
-NHT SA-2 sub-amp with NHT 10" sub in a custom downward-firing enclosure
-NHT SuperCenter
-NHT SuperOnes (rear)

My second outfit is:
-Denon 3805 7.1 AVR
-Denon 2810 DVD
-Cambridge DVD89
-NHT SB3s (front)
-Axiom EP-500 sub
-Energy LCR (center)
-Energy RC-10s (side)
-Energy C-R3s (rear, di-pole side-firing, but I'm thinking of replacing these with Axiom QS8s)

And I have a pair of Panny 50" plasmas (one for each).

So for smooth music? Contrary to what I would expect it's the bookshelf size NHT fronts with the EP-500 monster that really bring out the 2-channel stuff on my 400+ jazz cds (I digitized all my lps using a Mitsubushi LT10 tt) ... BUT... my local dealer gave me a chance to audition NHT ST4s (replaced now by "Classic Four"s) and these have side-firing 8" subs in the tower cabinet. Much smoother than the separate sub but not quite as much 'punch' during the HT. You may want to consider something like that if music is your primary concern and HT your secondary.

A pleasant surprise... in back-to-back tests with the C-5s and passive sub and the SB3s and active (EP-500) sub there isn't a lot of difference. The C-5 towers blend better with the passive sub but you can't hear the fingers over the frets as well as you can with the SB3s and EP-500.

But for HT the system with the EP-500 wins - not by what you might expect - but it does win.

Seriously - consider a tower design with side-firing subs. I haven't heard the Classic Fours (which have 10" side-firers as opposed to the ST4s 8" ones) but they are supposed to be very good.

Sigh. Too much information or yet another option to consider?


ken
Re: M80s for HT and Music
Wid #149524 10/18/06 12:21 AM
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 375
R
Riker Offline OP
devotee
OP Offline
devotee
R
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 375
Hi Rick,

Sure I can do my best to explain the environment and would be greatly appreciative for any sugestions.

BTW can I attached a jpg file to this post ? I am a newbie when it comes to using forums.

The room is my basement. The basement really has two discting rooms, the furnace room and the one where the system is. The furnace room does not come into play, it is a completely seperate room. The "liveable" room and where the system is installed is almost square at 19' by 17'. The door is at one of the 17' end and the "depth" if you are standing in the door frame looking in is the 19'.

There a bit of a division because that is also where the "under the stairs" storage is, in fact it is in that storage "room" that my equipment rack is with all my nice equipment completely hidden from view but that location works well for me at this time.

So, if you are standing in the door frame looking at the back of the room, the wall "sticks out" or indents into the width of the room by 3' from the right side, that's because the "under the stairs" storage takes that amount of space in the width of the room. That "bump" is from the start of the entrance and extends for 7 feet.

So in essence, the "front" part of the room, for the first 7 feet is: 14' wide by 7' deep. Once you pass that 7 feet, you regain the 3 feet and the "back" part of the room is 17' wide by 12' deep. It is in the back portion, the 17' by 12' that the HT is installed. The television and the Veritas 2.3s are on the right hand side. The lazyboy loveseat is about 13' from the tv, and therefore, 4' from the back wall. The veritas where originally about 1.5' from the back wall by I have since moved them up by another 1.5' and that did improve bass response in terms of output but I'm getting a bit of over enphasis on the mid bass. They now sit 3' from the back wall and 2' from the side walls. Now if any of this makes sense to anyone, it would mean that one of the speakers, the right one if I am sitting down on my couch, would actually not have a "wall" because the width of the "front" part of the room is 3' less than the back section. This ment that the first point of reflection did not have a surface to reflect to until it got all the way back to the entrance of the room. To temporarily fix this problem I put on a 4'X8' sheet of plywood and just layed it on the wall to create a " wall" for the reflection point.

Everyone with me so far ?

Now that you have a better idea of room dimension and speaker placement I will explain the surfaces. This is a basement, so everything is concrete. The floor has a thin commercial carpet glued to the concrete. The back wall has sheetrock directly attached to the concrete, not studs. The other 2 walls are studs, insulation and sheetrock. And of course the entrance to the room wall is an "inside" standard studed sheetrock wall.

So, 100% of the floor is concrete, 80% of the walls are concrete, 60% of those walls have studs / insulation and 20% have just sheetrock onto concrete.

That's pretty much the best I can do to explain the room I hope some of it makes sense to someone !!

Before I go and hire a professional audio consultant which will most likely cost me a fortune, since they will probably want to redo my entire basement, I would really like to try and fix thing myself with the help of my friends


Would it be better to close this particular thread and post this information in another section ? or is this the appropriate place for the evolution of this discussion ? just want to make sure I do thing according to forum etiquette and all.

Stephane


Acoustic Zen Adagio, Veritas center, Axiom EP500, QS8s, Anthem AVM20, MC20,Adcom GFA7400
Re: M80s for HT and Music
Riker #149525 10/18/06 12:25 AM
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 18,044
shareholder in the making
Offline
shareholder in the making
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 18,044
You're doing just fine as far as forum etiquette. We don't stand on much around here. You can have a look at the FAQ for various questions, but as for the image posting stuff, here's some steps:

1. Upload your image to a website or image hosting service. I don't recall at the moment which one people recommend around here, so I'm really useful.
2. Link that image by doing this: [ image ]http://path.to.image/image.jpg[ /image ]
(remove the spaces)


I am the Doctor, and THIS... is my SPOON!
Re: M80s for HT and Music
Ken.C #149526 10/18/06 12:30 AM
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 6,833
W
Wid Offline
axiomite
Offline
axiomite
W
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 6,833

Agreed.

When the two Johns ( JohnK and Bridgeman ) read this I'm sure they will have some helping advice. They are both really good at dealing with room stuff where as I stink at it


Rick


"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." Sigmund Freud

Page 2 of 6 1 2 3 4 5 6

Moderated by  alan, Amie, Andrew, axiomadmin, Brent, Debbie, Ian, Jc 

Link Copied to Clipboard

Need Help Graphic

Forum Statistics
Forums16
Topics24,940
Posts442,457
Members15,616
Most Online2,082
Jan 22nd, 2020
Top Posters
Ken.C 18,044
pmbuko 16,441
SirQuack 13,840
CV 12,077
MarkSJohnson 11,458
Who's Online Now
0 members (), 563 guests, and 1 robot.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newsletter Signup
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.4