Originally Posted By: Andrew
Hi everyone.

I just stepped in the door after a 6+ hour drive back from Montreal. smile The show was exciting, vibrant, and full of music lovers from all over! It was a great pleasure meeting Luc Raymond and EricF and many other Axiom owners who are not on the forums. The LFR1100s sounded very good given that they were essentially in a large ballroom/meeting room! But take that with a grain of salt...I'm biased.

I see there have been a number of technical questions and guesses regarding amplifiers, room sizes, how to integrate the DSP box, what configurations are available, etc.

So, even though I'm pooped, it's time for some answers as I've been absent from the forum for over a week.

Let's start with the room.
Ideally, in a perfect world, you would have a wide enough room where the side walls were at least 3 or 4 feet from the speakers and you could get the LFR1100s out from the back wall by 2-3 feet. However, not everyone has the space, or the room environment that will allow this. Our solution is a compensation switch, if you will, on the back of the DSP box that will have settings for "less than 2 feet from the back wall" and "2 feet or more from the back wall". Naturally you can switch between these two settings to see what works best in your room.

The amplifier question is frankly something that should have been better explained from the start. Mea culpa.
The LFR1100 system requires FOUR independent amplifier channels, as one speaker is essentially two complete speakers in a single cabinet. The amplifier power does NOT need to be identical for the front and rear sections. A good rule of thumb is 60% or more of the front section power. An example would be a 200 WPC stereo amp driving the two front sections. You would then want at least 120 WPC for the rear section. Any less than 60% and you risk the rear sections running out of power before the front sections. Now, even though the amplifiers do not need to be identical in power rating they MUST have identical gain. The is easy if you are dealing with amplifiers or amp channels from the same manufacturer as this is often standard within a particular company's model line.

The DSP box for the LFR1100 is stereo in with four channels out. It allows for both singled-ended RCA connections and balanced XLR connections. I think Steve took some photos of the back panel and I'll ask him to post one tomorrow. If not I'll get out my camera and take one! smile The DSP itself does not nominally have any gain, and will not alter volume level settings when inserted into an existing system. So if you usually set your pre-amp to a level of "20" for a good listening level, that will not change with the DSP. The box could easily be inserted into the signal chain before the pre-amp if desired. The only warning is that the DSP is designed to operate at standard audio signal levels and accepts a maximum input of 2Vrms. Anything more than that will overload the inputs of the A/D converters.

Ian's pricing for the M80/M60+VP180/VP160 and M80/M60 did not include a version of the LFR1100 + centre. There is no reason it could not be produced if desired and I'm sure Ian will figure out the cost once he reads this post! Likewise, if you use a vertical M80v3 or M60v3 as a centre the DSP can easily be programmed to work with your system. While preliminary code has been written for the M80v3, the tooled chassis parts are only arriving now, so I don't have any photos. As soon as we have one mocked up I'll be sure to post one here.

Cheers!

Andrew


Thanks Andrew for the info! I'm newly signed up for the Forums but already have a set of M80's and VP180 in my home theatre room. In fact I saw this discussion last week and signed up for the LFR1000 right away -- I think I got in at around #5! I wonder if all of the first 10 signed pairs are spoken for yet?

Anyway I'm trying to sort out the details of my configuration with the LFR1000's. I noticed you mentioned the possibility of a new LFR1000 + centre. I was speculating that one might become available but wonder if there is a need for one. Many people already seem to like doing two VP180/160 centres, one above and one below the screen. That might be a good option too but would we be able to setup the DSP accordingly? Also, for those of us who already have a VP180/160, would it make sense to produce something like the back half of an LFR centre -- perhaps with additional bass driver(s) -- and use that in combination with the VP?