Not quite the Mother Of All Posts but here’s a big ‘un.
Several days ago I received a pair of M60s, a pair of QS8s and a VP100. They are going to live in my basement that is about 12x35 with 7 ft ceilings, but the theater/listening area is about half of that. The sweet spot is a sofa against one of the long walls (toward the end) directly in front of my Sammy HLN61W dlp, viewing distance about 7.5 ft. The M60s are about 2.5 ft from either side of the TV, about 2 ft. from the wall behind them making them about flush with the front of the TV. There is a door on either side of the sofa, so the QS8s are about 3 ft directly to the side of the sofa on QS stands.
When they were first delivered I thought I would first simply swap the M60s in for the mains and listen to CDs while I assembled the QS stands.
Now I know what everyone was talking about regarding the differences in CDs. With some I couldn’t tell much difference from my old speakers, but others simply blew me away. There were several times I thought “Hey, the receiver is using the center channel for vocals!” even though my denon 2805 was set on stereo direct. As soon as I took a few steps toward the center it was obvious that it was in fact only the two M60s. How do they do that? Is that what is referred to as imaging? Gorgeous. In fact as I sat and listened it sounded as though there were lots of points of origin of sound, as though there were lots of speakers. And I hadn’t even calibrated yet!!!
During/after calibrating I had some surprises. I’m not sure I’m doing this stuff right, so if any of this sounds off please let me know?
1. I had to set the crossover at 60 in the receiver setup. Anything less and there would be a big hole in the Avia frequency sweep (I hope I’m using the right terminology here; I mean there would be no sound at all for a block of Khz tones). I would have thought the M60s could go lower. I can’t turn crossover off all together on my sub, so I set it the lowest it could go (which I believe is 20) before even starting the calibration.
2. After calibrating all 5 to the same SPL with pink noise, I found that when playing DVDs I couldn’t really hear the CS8s at all. I’ve since boosted the levels to be LM=1, center=0, RM=1, LS=3.5, RS=3.5 and I think I may boost the surrounds a tad more yet.
3. The VP100 is quite nice! It didn’t blow me away like some CDs through the M60s, but speech is very clear and distinct. I was skeptical based on what I read, and because I like my current JBL center (the S-centerII, a 3-way) so much. It is smaller and lighter than the JBL and I do think it is marginally better (size doesn’t matter!
). I have not done any A/B testing, just basing this on my memory from having played source material I’m very familiar with.
I’m having some problems aiming the QS8s. After some trial and error I have the flat-front face facing the main seating, which means one of the tweeters bounces off the rear wall and the other faces toward the center of the room. It is pretty good, but too directional. I can point right to where the QS8s are if I close my eyes and just listen. Maybe because of the rear wall bounce? I probably need to post some pics or diagrams of my room to get help with this, the description in the beginning of this post may not be sufficient.
Regardless, the QS8s are heads and above what I’ve ever had before. Just last night I played only the credit sequence of all 3 LOTR (the extended versions, including the 20 min. fan club list on each) just to listen to the DTS score. The rain/crickets/thunder of my DTS version of Twister. Superb. I rented Master and Commander after reading it made great use of surround channels and being enveloped in the creaking of the wood and ropes felt like really being on the ship.
Boy, if this even gets better once I get the calibration/positioning worked out I will be, um, happppyyyyy. **Sigh**
I will try to get pics up soon. Any feedback or helpful info is appreciated!!
