Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater My Order Arrived today!

I have a 2 story great room. Originally, I was going to set that room up but the echo effect is horrible. My wife insists on hardwood floors - before we bought a rug, you could not understand conversation, let alone the TV. We bought a rug, hung some quilts on the wall (not enough) and it has helped some. If I had it to do over again - no 2 story great room. I know I have posted this several times - I ended up doing my set up in the Bonus Room over the garage. It has excellent acoustics plus it is virtually separated from the main part of the house. That played to my advantage in that I can listen at louder levels than if it were in the Great room and not disturb the rest of the house.

I was specifically looking for houses that had great rooms. Sound’s like I was lucky all the houses I looked at with “great rooms” the room was usually “L” shaped and I wanted a rectangle for symmetry. I think I would have been happy with either a vaulted or 10’ ceiling (in my case I ended up with 11’ vaulted)

I also need the screen wall to be 9 1/2 feet or higher to fit my M80s under the screen size I wanted.

I wish there was one place where all the good info like what you just posted could be found. When I was searching for info for setting up a dedicated HT room there was no one site that seemed to have all the pertinent info and even in looking at a combination of sites finding everything was near impossible.

I don't really have a dedicated room - I do have a good room. So I never searched for HT specifics. There is a ton of experience on this forum - There may already be a thread on HT Tips or, if not, I can't think of a better group to start one? This is one place where the crowd "gets along" and offers help (complete with excellent sarcasm) rather than making the newbies feel like idiots.

Sorry no pics. Barely had time to set the speakers up and give it a trial run. The drywall is currently being finished, so I can't set them up in the media room yet, and with little kids running around, I didn't want them tripping on speaker wires/knocking stuff over in the living room. So I set it up, played a bit, and took it down. Plus, with the tropical depression that just blew over, we found two leaks in our roof- so I had to deal with that.

Preliminary impressions are good, everything I expected. I will probably get a 2.1 setup in our bedroom for music and further evaluation.

I wanted to ask about some humming from the sub. I hooked up my macbook via mini-display to HDMI adapter, with mini-toslink optical for the audio. When the receiver (Onkyo 3007) was set to the macbook input, I got a very faint hum from the sub. I tried both sub outputs without change. When I change to a different input (where nothing was connected) I didn't get any hum. When the reciever is off, no hum. I tried removing the grounding screw, but that made it worse. Im using a cheap 12' monoprice cable. Both the reciever and the sub were plugged into the same surge protector.

I'm going to try some more inputs tomorrow, DVD player, ipod, etc. and see if I can reproduce it again. Anythoughts? Do I need to return the receiver? The hum is only noticable if I have my ear up to the sub. I can't hear it from a few feet away.

Sounds like you might have a slight dround loop problem as when the receiver is off the hum goes away, maybe try plugging the receiver and sub into different outlets, also disconnect any other equipment from the receiver one at a time to see if one of those components is back feeding through the receiver.

Another night shift, another day away from the speakers...

Come to think of it, I had the laptop directly on top of the reciever when I noticed the hum, and later when I removed the laptop, the hum was gone. I haven't had a chance to try it out again.

I also noticed in the manual for the Onkyo, there's some LFE line filter setting that can be adjusted for hum...

What about the switch on the sub that says "low frequency filter" (or something like that, I don't remember)? It's an on/off switch. The back of my sub looks different from what's on the website, the manual doesn't address it. Did I get an older/newer version?

I also realized that the audessy setup had my front speakers crossed over at 40hz, so as good as the bass was during my test run was, apparently I was just barely tapping into the sub.

More tests tomorrow (hopefully).

The filter is for using the onboard bass management on the amp itself. Leave it off as you are using a receiver that is capable of doing this.

The fronts at 40hz isn't uncommon but you certainly can run them higher say 60 or the more common 80hz, try the mains at different levels and go with the one that sounds the best to you.

And don't be afraid to bump up the levels for the sub if you want/like more bass.

Hi rprice54,

You got the very latest version of the EP500, with the new amplifier faceplate. The On/Off filter switch at the top is the Subsonic filter, which cuts off low frequencies below 20 Hz. Leave it off unless you are playing back vinyl LPs that may generate low-frequency rumble and other anomalies.

The crossover filter should be labeled "Crossover". I'm just editing the latest owner's manual now.

Congrats on getting the T60s. I'll be interested in your feedback on their performance once they're installed.

Regards,
Alan

Well there you go, the real answer.

Thanks for the reply Alan.

Hooked up for some stereo today, again from the macbook, but not on top of the receiver= no more hum. I also set the Onkyo crossover to 80 which made a huge impact, letting the EP500 strut a little bit more. I also figured out I was only outputting stereo surround from my macbook, not 5.1, so I need to try that out again.

The speakers sound great (2.1) standing up in my bedroom. I will be a bit before they are installed in a cabinet- I'm building it around the speakers and the yet to be determined PJ screen.

Need to sleep. I'll post some pics in a bit.

Alan, I spoke with Brent (who's been great) and it looks like the sticker on the back of the T60's says 4 ohms, but he's assured me they are 8.

To any bystanders, the T speakers apparently use the same cabinet, so my T60's are as big as the T80's. So with the grill on, my speakers look just as big- and we all know that's important to how they sound

Installing them may be a bit tricky as big and heavy as they are. I may build the cabinet with them in place. The other question is securing them so they don't vibrate out...