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
