I finally made up my mind and ordered the M60's, QS8's and the VP100's.
I ordered the SVS 20-39 PCi and a Harmon Kardon 630 receiver.
All I need to get now is the wiring, any tips on that?
I sure hope everything arrives at the same time!!!
well, alright man.. you have made some wise choices.. i guess we helped you real good.
as far as speaker wire, you cant go wrong with simple home depot 12 gauge wire at .29 cents a foot. you can get by with 14 gauge, as long as your runs arent over 20-25 feet. now your component cables, thats a lot bigger beast.. almost everyone has their own opinion, and not to many agree. i use the fusion cables from radioshack, had no problem with them.. blue jeans cables are very popular, and even axiom makes cables. just dont use the cheap, thin ones that you get for free in electronic equip.. those are low grade, bottom of the barrel. be prepared to spend at least another $75-$150 bucks on cables.. depending on how many units you have to hook up.
bigjohn
Another good place for cables is partsexpress.com
Particularly the Dayton line of interconnects from
PartsExpress. I use 'em, and I like 'em. They are moderately priced. Not cheap, certainly, but not "monster"ously expensive, either.
I ordered a
Blue Jeans sub-woofer cable. I had a 12 foot Monster Cable and wanted to move my sub, so I returned the Monster and ordered a 25' cable from Blue Jeans at almost 1/2 the cost. Great cable with very high-quality Canare RCA connections (much better than the Monster Cable).
You shouldn't have to spend a lot for 12 guage speaker cable. Try
Parts Express (I got this 100' spool there and its very good) or HD as suggested in other posts. But as suggested, don't skimp on the component interconnects. I think Blue Jeans is a lot like Axiom - you don't have to pay a lot to get great quality.
Din, You are going to be sooooo happy! I have the exact same setup.
Let us know if you have any questions.
Michael_A
Din, you haven't completely described what cables you need, but certainly you'll need speaker wire, so if you haven't already done so
this explanation by a well-respected veteran audio professional should be studied. Inexpensive wire in a suitable gauge can be had, as the other replies mentioned, from local sources such as Home Depot or online sources such as Parts Express.
As far as interconnects, since manufacturers don't sabotage their own products, any cables you might get included with a player, etc. are fully adequate in most cases. The cable for the sub and any others you might need is usually suggested to be a coaxial cable(although this is a bit of overkill unless interference in the area is very heavy)and for that you shouldn't at a maximum need to spend more than the Dayton cables at Parts Express run.
JohnK,
Thanks for that link. Good read. I can understand why there isn't more of this kind of literature in the mags.
Hey Din. Looks like you got quite the rig set up to blow your mind right out of the room. And that's no lie
My one contribution to this thread is simply a tip. As a H/K 630 user I learned something while fiddling with my reciever the other day. There's a setting on the receiver when you go into the OSD (On Screen Display). Go to Speaker Setup, then go to X-Over. In there is another menu with a selection for LFE. It allows you to make settings for one channel (Center, Surrounds, etc). I've done some testing on it and I'll tell you straight up. Put it to center (or you can put it on left/right, but IMHO center just fits a little better). I noticed a huge appearance of my subwoofer suddenly on scenes like the ring drop in Fellowship played in DTS. I used to think that only DD had that bassy drop and explosion. Not anymore.
My other tip is in regards to matching your SVS with you H/K. I have an SVS and their manual suggests that you set all your speakers to small, so that the sub takes over the rest. Well...true, the H/K has a robust bass management, and if you set all your speakers to small your sub will sound fantastic, but you lose something in all your other speakers (it seems to thin them out a little). I have all my speakers set to large. Your welcome to experiment, but I've found it's not worth the sacrifice. If you make enough adjustments, such as the tip above, you'll get it to sound virtually as good in the sub department and you'll get your Axioms to sound the absolute best. Enjoy the good sounds
Thanks guys,
I am new to this, and the advice is greatly appreciated. I did have a concern with setting the speakers to small.
I thought that if I set them to large, and then set all four crossovers to 80 that may be a good starting point. I thought that the x-over was just a way you could set the speakers to be, "kinda" small. Instead of just setting them as small and sending all the low frequencies to the sub, set the x-over and still send all the low end to the sub, but still send some to the mains, centre, and rear.
Let me know if I don't understand this correctly. I think I will be playing around alot this weekend. I sure hope everything gets here on time (and at the same time!!)
I just called H/K and talked to them about this. It truely is supposed to take over in the lower Hz range and leave the rest of the range alone when you set the speakers to small (i.e. - if you set your x-over to 80 Hz, the sub gets 80 down and the speakers get 80 and up.) I KNOW it's not doing that on my receiver. It's tinkering above the 80 Hz range. Way above. So, either my receiver is partly malfunctioning (which I'm going to test tonight with my Avia disk), or the people at H/K never really tested their equipment very good
Either way, my rig sounds fantastic right now, but if there's room for improvement...I'm there. I'll keep you posted on my findings Din, as it will benefit both of us.
No matter what though. You have fantastic stuff there and you will be supremely happy! I know I am
Hi Again,
Can any of you HK630 users out there let me know if I need to buy plugs or clips to plug the speaker wires into the receiver and into the speakers?
Can I just use raw speaker wire ends? I want to have everything set up for when the packages come in.
din-
you could just use bare speaker wire, but it is not recommended.. you should always use some speaker connectors if able.
there is another thread
here dealing with this exact topic. it is being discussed in the 'technical questions' section of the forum. there are some great links on this particular thread to give you an idea of what you might be looking to do.
bigjohn
In reply to:
you could just use bare speaker wire, but it is not recommended..
Umm.. I recommend it. Only reasons I can see using any sort of connector is for ease of changing them out (but I'm assuming your HT isn't going to come with you when you go visiting) or in a case where, due to big meaty flanges (guys with meathooks for hands, like me - fine motor skills are not my forte) it might be hard to work in the confined spaces of the back panel of your receiver.
It amazes me how somehow terminated speaker wire is considered "normal" with the extra solder or screw-down connection at each end, but no one would ever
think of running two shorter wire lengths and using a marette/wire nut to cinch them together. Advertising has a strange way of making you see one splice as good and another splice as bad.
Does either make an audible difference? Nah. Does either provide more protection from oxidation? Nah. You'll end up touching the bare copper and putting finger oils on it quite a bit to get it in a screwdown banana plug. It's a matter of convenience.
Bren R.
In reply to:
due to big meaty flanges (guys with meathooks for hands, like me - fine motor skills are not my forte)
thats me!! and when i was setting up my speakers, when i first tried to wind the speaker wire around the posts, i could never get a good connection.
so in a nut shell, with bare wireing with a good connection, will you have a diminished sound, no.. will it be a lot easier with terminated speaker wire, hell yes.
although, with my QS8's, they wouldnt fit on the wall mount with banana plugs, so i just stuck the bare wire in the hole, and screwed it down.. i can only work with what i am given.
bigjohn
Hey Din. To reply to your question...my last receiver I used connectors. With the H/K...I'm just using bare wire. Why? Because as has already been stated...it doesn't make any audible difference and I had money to save up for a subwoofer at the time rather than drop $$$ on connectors. At least that's my impression. So here I am. Proof that you can fit 12 gauge wire just fine into the 630. Albeit, it would be a lot easier to have connectors on the end so when your receiver comes in...pop, pop, pop, they're in and you're ready to get rolling. But fitting the bare wire in is not that difficult.
The only tricky thing you'll run into is the bi-wiring (if you so choose that option). I did and was able to stick both wires into each of my left and right channels. Bare wired - one up and one down (both sides of the binding post). When you get your receiver, you'll know what I'm talking about. And if you don't, feel free to send my a PM (personal message) and ask me to elaborate or translate
.
I went from bare wire to banana plugs only because it is stupidly convenient for me since I tend to move stuff around. Screw screw screw screw screw, twist twist twist twist twist, poke into a little hole, screw screw screw screw screw is a huge pain when you are talking about doing it 20 times!
I heard absolutely NO difference in sound quality with the plugs.
jr
In reply to:
is a huge pain when you are talking about doing it 20 times!
Whoa... hmm... assuming that you don't have to disconnect a speaker if you keep it on the same wall, 20 times divided by 4 walls, your setup has been on each wall 5 different times?
Bren R.
Well, I was thinking 5 sets of 2 (each speaker cable has two wires that connect on each end [speaker and receiver], so again x2) 5x2=10 10x2=20. Was that wrong?
Or did you think I meant I had connected/disconnected all 5 speaker cables 20 times? Cause that would be just plain not fun.
jr
The flanges thing was a joke, used to work with a Dutch soccer player who had these stubby little crooked fingers (he was only 23 or so at the time)... and he called them either flanges (instead of FUH-lan-jees) or snausages.
Bren R.
I've always used bare wire, but am gradually moving away from it for a few reasons:
-12 gauge wire is so thick it doesn't seem to like to stay screwed down.
-cranking down the plastic nuts on the back of my receiver (trying to make sure the 12 gauge doesn't gradually loosen) makes me worry about breaking them.
-when would-be Axiomites come over for a demo I'll be able to swap speakers quickly and easily.
But mainly for #1 above.
Have any of you tried inserting bare wire into a Denon? It's hell in a handbag. For speakers themselves, bare wire is fine. For the back of recievers I would recommend banana plugs. I know everyone knocks spring and clip connectors but they sure as hell are a lot easier to insert bare wire into.
Ditto all of that - I have a Denon - but the spring and clip thing can make 12 gauge a bit difficult to use. I'm sure some of our more well-endowed members can empathize.
Amen... I used spring clips on my centre (scratch built in 1993) and doing the 12ga squash into it is ANFFAA.
Bren R.
Whenever hooking up anything with the spring clips on it, I generally tin the end of the wire with a little solder. It definately keeps the strands from going awry.
It would work really well with binding posts as well. I'm using banana plugs now, but I might take them off later after I am certain the AVR is going to stay in the same spot for a while. I prefer the ugly, but solid, mechanical connection over the pretty gold "audio bling bling".
THe other day, I stumbled upon the same thing with the 630 that Misfit did. Even with all speakers set for an 80Hz crossover, setting the "LFE" option to center seems to produce more bass out of the sub. The odd thing is, you can set it to "center" even in the Stereo DSP modes. What's up with that? It seems unnatural set it that way for stereo listening, but it works.
Yeah Michael_A. Let me tell you. I'm all over the place with this thing. I just did another test of small vs. large last night. Switched to small..calibrated everything. It still lacked in the fullness of sound. My "sound" conclusion on this is that when switched to small the 630 actually does a compression of the audio, or a filtering. Either way, unless I really did have "small" speakers I don't want it. I did everything...set the crossover to 200 even. That helped a little, but it still lacked, and it gave the sub too much to work with on bigger scenes. Nope. I have to believe that Large is the only way to go with our speakers and this receiver.
I've contacted Harman Kardon twice and I got two different answers when I brought this up. My question has now been forwarded to an engineer. When I hear back from him/her I'll post up the results of that. I'm sure, as there are a few owners of H/K receivers here, more people would like to know what's really going on.
Or maybe mines a lemon. Who knows?! We'll see I guess.
Please do keep us informed of what you find out. That HK is on my consideration list of receivers (not that I'll be buying it soon) so any quirkiness I would like to know about.
Thanks Misfit, I'de appreciate any info you can pass along.
I have been doing some sub tuning with the old SPL meter and Excel. Part of my problem is that the entire right front quadrant of my room has a null at 71Hz. This is where the RF M60 is, and also my preferred sub location. My LF M60, on the other hand, sits in a smaller 36Hz null. The differences between small and large speaker settings are not as drastic with the sub on the right side of the room where the 71Hz null is. I believe that the sub fills in a little of that, but it's too close to the crossover frequency. The sub is not putting out a whole lot of 71Hz. Of course, on the other side of the room, I feel big difference between small and large because at 36Hz, the mains don't contribute much.
Setting LFE to center seems to have had far less effect with the sub on the right side. I still have a lot of testing to do before I understand what is happening. I suspect that If I could find a place for each front speaker that had nulls at the same frequency, I might not notice the differences as much. My room is fighting me on this endeavor.
I'll post updates after more testing.
Anyone know if this sort of stuff applies to the 525? I don't even remember how I've got it set up right now...
Ken, depending on what stuff you mean, if it's the wire use it bare unless those Parts Express plugs are too cool-looking to resist(of course then you should set up a bit unconventionally, with the backs of the M50s and the 525 facing you!). If it's the crossover of the low frequencies from the 5 channels, set them all small and the cross at 80Hz. If it's the crossover for the LFE channel, the 630 has a separate adjustment for that which the 525 doesn't. I don't follow some of the discussion here on that point, since if all the speaker groups are set identically(e.g. 80Hz)then there should be no difference as to which group the LFE is set to match.
I meant the second... If you read my other thread, you'll see that I'm getting the bananas for the receiver only, because the binding posts on the H/K suck.
The H/Ks can be set with different crossovers depending on which channel you're setting it up with.
In reply to:
since if all the speaker groups are set identically(e.g. 80Hz)then there should be no difference as to which group the LFE is set to match.
John,
The discussion is precisely that, they don't
seem to always sound the same, like they should. I was just changing settings around a few minutes ago, and it doesn't seem as noticeable now as it did before. I always assumed that it was me until I read it in this thread.
Maybe we need a new thread for this topic. It was an offshoot on the H/K 630 recommendation (which is still a YES from me, btw). In my situation, this is an oddity, not a "problem". At least it is until one of us finds out otherwise. Overall, my 630/Axiom (and SVS) system sounds wonderful.
I second that. I may be questioning the potential "quirkiness" of the large/small speaker crossover deal...but I still say the Harman Kardon 630 is awesome and is the best receiver I've ever had. Two thumbs up of recommendation.
I can't believe how ridiculously painfull this!!!!! Waiting for this stuff to arrive is killing me!!!
Now UPS says I wont get my new receiver until AFTER the long weekend. AARRGGHHHH!H!!!H!!H!H!
Try to take some comfort in the fact that every one of us here understands. You are not alone brother!
What are you doing to try to distract yourself from thinking about it? Being a computer geek and gamer I played games like a 16yr old highschool outcast.
jr
Incredible sympothies to you Din. I've gone over this anquish again and again. I just had the anquish with my subwoofer last week when they were en routedelivering it to my house, got to the bottom of the hill to where I live and turned around and went back to their warehouse (2 1/2 hours away) because they brought a semi and he said my road was too small!!! So you know that I took the next day off waiting for the driver to bring my subwoofer in his van. Oh the bittersweetness of an audio-lovers life.
LOL ouch!
Well at least until last night I had the Flames to cheers for... GO FLAMES GO!!!! WE"RE GETTING THE CUP BABY!!!!
I guess now I can plan my wiring better and have everything ready to plug into the receiver when it gets here. I was thinking of upgrading my S-Video cables as well (My TV doesn't do Component) and the Audio cables from the DVD player as well. I am also thinking of picking up a new CD-Player, but I need to do some research on that first.
Any tips on buying a CD Player?
Well. I suppose the first question to ask yourself is, do you care to listen to SACDs or DVD-As? Then you'll need a universal player. But if you just plan to listen to standard cds (Redbook cd) then you have more options. Things will narrow down to your listening prefernces (the formats just mentioned), your particularity (do you need to hear every nuance...or the fact it just plays is good enough
), and of course price.
There are a number of threads in these forums to occupy your curiosity. Just go to search and type in 'cd player' or 'universal player'. Don't forget to adjust the date range. It defaults to 1 week, and you'll probably want to look back further than that.
Good luck!