So, as some of you may know, I’ve been doing some renovations in my home theater. I’m nearly finished. All I need is for my Primacoustic panels to arrive. I decided a couple days ago to hook-up my speakers and finally get a feel for my new VP160. Besides the new center speaker, my system includes a Denon AVR-3808CI, 2 M60’s, 2 QS8’s for sides, 2 M2’s for rears, and an EP500. With the exception of the VP160, all my speakers are v2’s. When the VP160 first arrived I hooked it up to my TV set-up in the living room and it sounded very nice, but in the home theater it is very thin and tinny--almost as if the dialog is coming from a tin can. I’ve run the Audyssey on my Denon and this is what it gives me:
Crossover Freq:
Front 40Hz
Center 40Hz
Surround A 90Hz
Surr. Back 60hZ
LFE+Main 80Hz
Channel Level:
Front L +4.0dB
Front R +3.5dB
Center +1.0dB
Subwoofer -9.5dB
Surr. A L -1.0dB
Surr. A R -1.0dB
Surr. Back L +2.0dB
Surr. Back R +0.5dB
I think I’m overreacting as my room has a good 12 feet of exposed walls between the front speakers and the listening position. That space it where 8 of my 12 acoustic panels will go. The room has new carpet where before the floor was laminate with an area rug. I had 4 homemade panels before—2 on each wall—and the acoustics were fine. What’s interesting is I think if I sit really close to the VP160 it seems to sound fine, but take a few steps back and suddenly the sound becomes thin. I tried switching the Audyssey EQ off, and there seemed to be a slight improvement, but I think and hope the real culprit is the bare walls. Does that sound right to you? Can those walls really make that much of a difference? Do you think the Audyssey settings are off? I know I’m worrying too much. I really should have waited for my panels to arrive, but I really wanted to hear the VP160.
Going forward I plan to wait until I install my panels—hopefully next week. If that doesn’t make a difference I’ll try the VP160 upstairs again to see if it still sounds as great as when it first arrived. I can also get back my VP150 that’s currently living a friend’s home and do a side-by-side comparison.
