Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Dialog Inteligibility with VP180

I'm with Alan on this. It's not so much the cloth that would concern me, but the diffractions from those other solid objects that are between the front plane of the speaker and the listener. Even if the framing and such is not directly in front of the drivers, it could still impact the dispersion quite a lot. You have to remove that variable first.

AWESOME AWESOME ROOM!

The fix is easy...

Audyssey Multi XT32

Dana

Hmm.... never noticed that the VP180 was 'hidden' I thought I was looking at the l80 in open air, so much for my powers of observation. I am with Alan as well, try the 180 on top of that housing right side up and upside down and see how it sounds. I wonder if the Sub could be affecting the sound somehow, if the 2 are not isolated from each other.

That makes two of us Jason, I thought for sure I was looking at the 180 in open air.

I attribute my lack of observation to old age.

That would make 3 of us.

I guess that is a good tribute to the builder of said enclosure.

1. Wow, beautiful rooom.
2. If you calibrated for the front row then the dialogue will be disproportionately softer and the effects disproportionately louder when sitting in the back row.
3. A few feet off centre is not your problem, I can sit 11ft. off centre and still hear my VP180 crystal clear.
4. Having your SVS underneath is not your problem, but having both in an enclosure may be. Try testing the VP180 with it out of the enclosure.
5. Not angling the VP180 up enough is not your problem, it has outstanding vertical off axis performance.
6. Use Dolby PLIIx / Cinema instead of DTS.
7. DRC/Night/Dynamic Volume can all help if you don't mind the limited dynamic range.
8. Good luck and let us know what you find.

Don't have time to check through the thread at the moment, but did you verify that all drivers are working? I've never heard someone say that they have a lack of intelligibility with a 180...

The word enclosure is misleading. It is a slim mdf frame and acoustic cloth. The frame is 1" thick. If you took away the cloth it would look like a cube frame open at all ends. You never see the VP180. Everything is surrounded by cloth on 4 sides, top, front, sides and they resemble wood framed speaker grills. The VP180 is pushed into the cloth (not literally touching...) such that there is nothing directly in front of the speaker and the frame for the cube is at the most extreme angle from the drivers. The frame is above the speaker not in front of it and the top of the speaker is below the wood frame. There may be a little dispersion off of it, but it is essentially in open air. I don't think that's going to change. He's not taking away the frame and cloth. The VP180 isn't ugly, but the sharp lines don't exactly fit the curvy 40's style decor of the room.

The decorative element is clear in the pictures and sits below the VP180 by a significant amount. You can clearly see the drivers of the VP180 in the picture so you can get an idea of how much it sits below the VP180. I suppose that could add to some dispersion effects, but it doesn't seem any different than if the VP180 was sitting on a TV stand. That could be changed I guess, but it would be a costly upgrade.

The most obvious thing to check is that all the drivers work. I'm awaiting word on that. Thanks everyone for your suggestions.