Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Fun Week Planned

Thought I'd mention that I'm back at my parent's place in Nebraska this week. We're home to show off the new baby, and while my wife is doing that, I'm going to play with my dad's high-end HT setup.

The theater includes:

* Aerial Model 6 speakers (Left, Right and Center)
* Aerial SR-3 Side Surround Speakers (2)
* Aerial SW-12 Powered Subwoofers (2)
* Stewart StudioTek 130 Electriscreen
* Theta Dreadnaught amp: 3x293 watts into 6 ohms [L/C/R channels]
* Marantz MA500 Monoblocks (4)
* 2 in-wall rear speakers - brand unknown (recycled from an earlier setup.)
* 1 additional rear subwoofer (10" I'm guessing) - also brand unknown and recycled from another setup.

Recent Additions:
* Runco RS-900 1080P LCD
* Denon 3808 receiver
* PS3 for Blu-Ray
[guess who recommended the last two...]

(Oh, and don't forget... ~$5k worth of cables, which I know will add fantastically to my overall experience!)

I'll send pictures later in the week as well, he has one seriously cool theater room. (think African safari)

Jason

Promising loads of fun!

Sounds like a real nice setup, I would love to see some pictures as well as a review on how it all sounds.

Holy Moley!

How are we going to keep Jason around here at Axiom after he's experienced $20,000 worth of speakers?

20K! That's only, like, 8 EP-800s at regular price! 10 if you hurry to order.

man, I hope they have a URC remote for that setup!!

Yeah, Tom; not to mention the $5,000 worth of cables.

I'd rather get a couple of EP800's.

wow! you should def. take a lot of pics!

Looking forward to the pics.

You know, I WISH he had a good URC. He has this old Crestron touch screen remote control, which at the time it was originally purchased was a really cool unit. (8" screen, rechargeable battery, but weighs about 2 lbs).

Also, it is (of course) only programmable by the installer, so anytime my dad wants to change anything, it costs him a few hundred dollars. I told him he should have them reprogram everything into a Harmony and be done with it, but since they didn't support Harmony directly (too simple I imagine), they were resistant to do it.

I decided not to press the issue because the system does work very simply, which is a bonus. The setup is extremely complicated and my dad just wants to be able to sit down and use it, and as of now, the system fits that bill. What is really annoying to me is that even after the installers pitched a fit about adding the Denon to this mix, they barely added any of the Denon functionality into the Crestron controller.

The Crestron is set up to trigger the Denon video switching to the PS3 video input, since it's the only video they ran through the Denon, but the rest go straight to the Runco (despite my request not to do this). Other than that, the Denon functionality available in the Crestron is very limited. I suppose their goal might have been simplicity of operation, in which case I can understand their logic. It also might have been their annoyance at being forced to install a receiver that they feel is far below their standards.

Anyway, with that out of the way, pictures and some listening tests will hopefully come later today.

Jason

Woohoo!

I would like to see if $5000 cables look any different than my cheapo cables

Most are literally as thick as your thumb. I'm sure there's a regular-sized copper wire inside a 1/2" of super special plastic, but from the outside, they do look impressive!

Is the "super special plastic" the "ultra noise reducing and snake oil variety", or the "regular old plastic but called super special anyway variety"

Without further delay... the pictures!

From the theater entrance looking in.
The screen comes down from the ceiling through the slot in the ceiling you can see in front of the track lighting. Front speakers are all horizontal on stands, and there are subwoofers in the front left and right corners. The front left sub is visible in the lower-left corner of the picture.



A similar view, zoomed out slightly


From the theater entrance looking toward the back of the room.
From this angle you can see the Runco projector, one of the side surrounds, as well as 2 of the built-in rear surround speakers. (there are actually three, one of which is disabled. The room used to be turned the other way with those 3 used as fronts and a big-screen CRT in the cabinet to the left of this picture, which is now the equipment closet)



Back of the theater
From here you can see all 3 rear speakers as well as the equipment cabinet.



Zoomed out view facing the rear of the theater



Back left of the theater: Overlooking the bar
From here you can see the other Aerial surround and the bar, under which a third small subwoofer is hidden away.

Definitely the room in which one should see Bambi...

I like what he's using for acoustical treatments.

Jason,

That is quite a nice system. The Theta is an unbelievable amp. I really like all the Stewart screens as well (although here I am very biased as I am friends with the owner's of the company).

All weekends should get to enjoy such great HT experiences. I for one am jealous/envious.

Michael

Thanks for the comments Michael.

I'm looking forward to actually being able to sit in the room and experience it as well.

I did watch about 30 minutes of Iron Man last night and my initial impressions are very positive. Unfortunately, lack of sleep overtook me before I could do any critical listening. I can say that the Aerial subs are strong performers. I was impressed with how they filled this very large room with sound given the relatively modest size of their cabinets.

More later...

Jason

Oh my!

Do you call that the PETA spontaneous combustion room?

Yes.

My dad went on 1 Safari in 1985 and has never been back. 90% of what he has in the room is from that trip. The black bear and mountain lion are the exceptions from separate expeditions soon thereafter. I guess he figured he had no more room for new animals and moved on to something different.

So when myrison read Spiderman comics growing up, who wants to bet that his favorite villain was Kraven the Hunter?

How many of the audio cables were captured in the wild?

Wow, that's a heck of a room Jason ... seems like one could almost get caught enough with the decor of the room where the HT system could almost be overlooked. Can't wait to hear your thought on the sights and sounds.

There has to be a very funny story line somewhere with the way the animals are arranged and looking at each other, in a comical and cartoonish way.


Thanks for sharing!

Thats an incredible room that your dad has there.

Best. Post. Ever.

Overwhelming.

*smacks forehead*

I just got it. "Lions and tigers and bears ..."

Good one, Jaime G.

Thanks to Tom for making me look twice.

Nice system I'd bet. The room it's self seems overbearing and a bit (a lot) to much for a theater room.

At Christmas, they put Santa hats on each of the animals to lighten the mood.

The first time they did it, one of my younger cousins came to visit and said in a pout "You shot Pumba!" (from the Lion King)

The amusement sticks with me to this day.

Jason

Wid, yes, it's more "theater-ish" with the lights off... with the lights on, you almost can't tell it's a theater, which was of course my mom's goal.

I missed the joke in Jamie's post too... Definitely a good one.

Jason

Hey, don't get me wrong the room as a trophy room is fantastic.

No worries Wid.

Over the last two nights I've watched the first 1/3 of Iron Man and all of Hitman on Blu-Ray. Both movies were watched at moderately-loud levels (I'd guess peaks around 95 dB, most of the dialogue far lower). I have also listened to a few songs on the Dave Matthews Blu-Ray and the Rush Snakes & Arrows 5.1 DVD (listening to that as I write this).

First thoughts, as expected, this is one amazing-sounding system. I'll try to be as objective as possible, but I have to believe that knowing what this system costs affects my mind & ears at the very least on a subconscious level.

The two things I am most impressed with are the bass and the surrounds. This room is sizable (roughly 30x25x12) and also challenging from a sub perspective as it has three openings to other rooms as well as an opening directly to a staircase leading upstairs. I really didn't expect the subs he has to be able to reproduce the same feeling of pressurization I get in my much smaller room (20x14x8.5). However, they more than hold their own.

In fact, I really feel a sense of smoothness in this room that doesn't quite come across in my room. As I compare well-known scenes on his system to mine, I notice a bit less boominess in bass here than I do in my room. By this I mean boominess in a bad way. In my room there is a slight resonance in extreme bass scenes that lingers after the original sound subsides. I don't sense that here at all. I'm not sure what causes the difference, but it seems likely that it could be room refractions in my small room that cause sound to linger longer. In any case, the difference is subtle, but I'm fairly certain there really is a difference and it's not just my mind playing tricks on me.

The other thing I am noticing with the bass is the sense that it is coming from all around me, not just from one direction. I know this is the desired feeling for LFE, but I've never felt it quite so immersive as this. It could be his setup, which includes 2 front subs and one rear sub, that causes this feeling. On LFE-intensive scenes, it almost seems as if there are subs immediately to my left and right as well in front of me. If I didn't know the side speakers were crossed at 60 Hz, I'd suspect they were being sent a full range signal and kicking out some serious LFE. Whatever it is, there is a palpable feeling of bass on all sides and I like it a lot!

Second, the surrounds. I noticed immediately when watching Iron Man and Hitman that I was hearing a lot more from the surrounds than I was used to. At first, I thought maybe they were just turned up relative to the other speakers (which maybe they are, I don't have an SPL Meter to confirm). As I listened more though, I realized that there is a lot I'm missing in my home setup. It's not that I don't hear the surrounds at home, but the effects there are very very subtle compared to what I'm hearing here.

The surround is still not overt as I am certain I would not like that, but you definitely notice the sounds more than I'm used to. In Hitman for example, I asked my dad if it was raining during one scene when the soft rain sounds from the movie were just barely audible from his surrounds. He listened for a second before we both realized it was the movie, not the rain outside. While unscientific, to me, that's a perfect level of surround sound... it's there, but not so obvious that you can pinpoint that it's coming from the speakers.

I suspect this is a configuration issue in my home setup rather than any deficiency of the QS8s. I'll experiment when I'm back home with bumping them up a dB or two to see if I like that better. (right now they are perfectly level matched) It could also be that his surrounds are mounted quite a bit higher than mine (around 12' versus my 7'), which creates a different sound when not quite so close to your ears. [this sounds unlikely to me even as I write it, but something is undoubtedly different in a good way and I'm not sure what it is]

I'm still waiting for the chance to really crank the system up and see what 300 WPC can do, but I think I'll need to wait for my parents to leave the house before I try that trick.

Finally, some notes on the speaker setup configured by his installers. One thing I found interesting is that they used a flat crossover for the entire system at 60hz (in the Denon's crossover menu) as opposed to crossing the fronts/surrounds at different levels. They have the front 3 speakers set to large, the surrounds set to small, and the sub to LFE+Main. I can't argue with the way it sounds though.

So far, it's a lot of fun.

Jason

Thanks for the write up!

I wonder if the bass/LFE is as flat in your dad's as you have it graphed in your house. It could be you like a little more kick and the subs are not flat like it is in your room, but with 3 subs I would like to think it is realtively smooth.

I have always found surround effects to be better in larger rooms for some reason. I like Mojo's system better than mine for this reason, his surrounds have a more airy sound to them while mine are right next to me no matter what I do due to physical space limits.

A flat crossover for all the speakers is not unheard of as long as the surrounds can handle the lower frequency. Is Audyssey being used as well?

Nope, Audyssey is off. I think the large room is a big part of the effect. Airy is exactly the way I'd describe it, so it appears you know what I'm talking about.

Jason

PS: I also brought "the Pulse" DVD to try it out on his subs... I'm not expecting much given that no sub I've ever heard can handle that scene, but that's not going to stop me from trying.

Must be time to buy the eD A7-900, I believe that is one of the very few Craigsub said would handle that scene.

Well - Craig hasn't tested the EP-800 yet. From the FR curves on both subs, the 800 looks even more capable than that 435 lb monster, which is hard to believe. I'm looking forward to confirming for myself.

Jason

DSP can do wonders.

Yes, especially when Ian says "I wonder what this will do?"

Well, this morning my parents exited the building for an hour and I cranked things up to see what the Theta Dreadnaught (side note: I believe this is the best name for an amp I've ever heard) was capable of.

As someone who not so secretly harbors the desire to add dedicated amplification to my own setup, this was an interesting test for me to see what the additional power was capable of. Even though in the rational side of my mind I know that there are few situations when the extra power will make a difference, I still want it. This was a chance to see just how rational or irrational my desires are.

As it turns out, they're pretty irrational. The Theta (290+ wpc x 3 channels) is unquestionably capable of driving exceptional volumes out of this system, but I could come nowhere close to fully taxing it. My ears gave up long before the Theta did, which I guess this means I can't apply to the Iron Ear club!

I used two tests, first the Dave Matthews Blu-Ray and second the "Mr. Price" scene from the Hitman Blu-Ray. I realize I should have listened to some classical music to test the dynamic range, but since I really haven't developed a taste for classical and I only had so much time, I opted not to go down that path.

On the DMB Blu-Ray, at about -5 on the receiver, it was so painfully loud that I just couldn't bring myself to push it further. I backed out into the next room and pushed it to +1 (still far from the max) and even from 40' away, it was painful to listen to. At that point, having had my fun, I turned it down.

I next popped in the Hitman scene I've mentioned several times before here. Great gunfire, explosions, etc. and a soundtrack overlaid that further enhances the scene (IMHO, it is awesome). Here I noticed something different than I did at home. As I slowly bumped the volume, the speakers had no problem keeping pace, but the subwoofers did. At a certain point (over 100 dB by my estimation), the subwoofer volume wasn't comparatively as loud as the speakers. While this has nothing to do with the Theta's amplification, it was an interesting test of these $5k subs (each) to see where they gave up in terms of SPL. As I slowly dropped the volume back down from the maximum, I could hear where the sub level and the speaker volume again came into synch. This was something I hadn't experienced before, so if nothing else it was interesting to hear that effect.

What did I conclude from these tests?

1) Most importantly, it was fun.

2) These Aerial subs sound absolutely fantastic at normal and even moderately high listening volumes, but gave up earlier than my EP-600 does at home (but in a much smaller room).

3) I don't need more amplification (at least not until I get a lot bigger room)

Does #3 mean I won't do it anyway? Never say Never I guess, but what I experienced here definitely has me thinking twice about it.

Jason

Very nice write up Jason. Thanks for sharing your experimentation with us. Sounds like you were a kid in a candy store. Now you can go back home and start or should I say continue the tweaking process on your own home theater. It might take a bit for your ears to break back in to the Axiom sound. Have fun and again, thanks for sharing the experience. Your folks have quite the place there.

Thanks for the write up, I too have the desire for more amplification without the need for it.

Glad to hear it guys... yes, just like a kid in the candy store.

Jason

But in the back of your mind, are you worried about "Jason, ever since you were here...somethings not right with the stereo....I can't get XYZ to work .." phone call?

I get those calls all of the time anyway. It's not "since you were here..." It's just "this isn't working right... can you help me troubleshoot?" Fortunately, I enjoy it.

Jason, great review, you weren't kidding when you said Safari room, I'm just glad you got through the listining test without shaking an antler off the wall and getting impaled.

That would be like a scene from a Stephen King movie... Wildlife Cemetary or something.... The animals spirit is rekindled by the unbridled beat and it seeks revenge on the hunter.

BTW your dad's trophy room is amazing and has left me quite speechless, except to point out that now I see where your drive to build an over the top HT setup came from!

Jason,

Thanks for the review. I now know who you get the HT gene from. Quite a set up! My daughter would have nightmares for weeks if she had to watch a movie in there. It's too bad your dad couldn't figure out how to mount the projector inside one of the animal heads so the lens points out of the mouth. That would be cool!

Scott

Scott - I'll suggest it to him. The bear at the back of the room is lined up the right way to make it happen. It's not completely out of the realm of possibility.

One thing I've been meaning to write back since experiencing his setup is to confirm my longstanding theory on home theater pricing.

If absolute audio nirvana is represented by 100% on the quality scale (which to me is represented by my dad's setup, it is the best I've ever heard), comparing his setup to mine confirms that you can get to 98% quality for around 10% of the price... going that extra 2% does result in subtle audible differences, but costs you A LOT. Admittedly, maybe for others with better-trained ears or more listening experience the differences are more apparent, but for me, this breakdown holds true.

For some people the extra 2% is worth the dough, and if money was absolutely no object, it probably would be worth it to me as well. However, until that day comes, last week's experience in the safari room confirmed that there is very little I'm missing in my Axiom setup. It's truly just about as good as I've ever heard, and by this analogy, available at a 90% discount from what you'd pay for full-priced audio nirvana.

I'm thinking that wrapping in fur, an electronic device that tends to blow 400 dollar bulbs if it overheats.....maybe not a god idea.

However, if you find a way to keep it cool, cool it would be.

I think it would take divine intervention to keep it cool.

We could probably install a blower in the mouth of the elk hanging on the wall next to the bear... that should take care of it.

So the elk would be blowing the bear?

That defies the laws of nature.

I think I saw that in the trailer for "Who's Nailin' Paylin?".

Sean, didn't Negative Orange have walk-on parts in that recently shot masterpiece?

I don't know, but I bet CV has the "Hockey Moms Take on Russia" bumper stickers to prove it.

Good one.

I always feel a sense of tension while these go unanswered.

You just scratched my itch!

This one was tough. All I could come up with were some raunchy ones involving the word puck, you know, for hockey. . .