Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater New HT for a newbie

wait, i skipped a post.. of course you have seen it..

thats what i get for surfing during my first hour at work..

i need more coffee..

"I'M GONNA GIVE HER MY OOOHHH FACE"...

bigjohn

Ray, you hurt my head. You keep making me rethink what I’m doing. (Thanks!) I don’t mind you encouraging me to talk to SVS at all. In fact I’ve done so but only by email. I sent them a diagram of my HT room, which for having a fairly large house is a very small room. Its only 12x16 plus a 3-½ foot triangular section added at the end. In total that’s only about 213 square feet with an 8-foot ceiling. I also sent them some photos to give them an idea of my layout. They responded 3 times to me in two days! I initially told them no more than the fact that I wanted a “round one” and that money didn’t’ really matter a lot but I didn’t want to waste any either. They fired back with a few questions, I think the key one was at what volume do I listen and the other was how much pipe organ music do I have and what genre to I normally listen. I told them that I love reference level listening but the WAF is low at that volume so I don’t do it often but I love to crank it when I can. I told them in my reply that I listen to mostly rock with some classical. I think my comments on how I like reference level influenced their recommendation of the 25-31PC+. I too think that the next one up from the 25 in either the PCi or the PC+ may be the way to go. A little loss in SPL at normal base frequencies but better low-end response is indeed a good compromise. Based on what you have said I may want to consider between the 20-39 PCi and PC+. I don’t really mind the extra two hundred difference. Since I’ve never done this before, is it possible to have too much of a sub? Is it possible that I would prefer the 20-39 PCi over the plus? Since I haven’t talked to them on the phone I will do that next as soon as I get a chance and will let you know what input I get.

I paid for the 3805 two days ago and it should be here on April 5th!

I will tackle the M60/M80 decision next.

Hey Macdiehard! I used a Mac for years when I did video editing...so if that gives me any kinship then welcome brother On that last note of 60s vs 80s...I can tell you right now that you'll likely end up with the 60s. With that size room there's no doubt the 80s can be overkill. The 80s need a lot of room to breath and my room was right on the edge where it was deemed that I could go either way and mine is 15x20x15. I ended up with the 60s.
The two biggest issue you run into with the 80s in smaller rooms are listening distance from the speakers and speaker placement is "said" to be a little more picky for the sweet spot. And on it's "more than 60s side" it has more detail on the high end and a deeper bass response. But with either sub you go with...you'll more than cover the low end. And as far as the detail, the 60s got plenty. So again. I'm here to tell you that you'll be told 60s...BUT...this is American...enjoy your freedom

Randy, there is pretty much no such thing as "too much sub" and you can control the gain with a simple twist of a knob. If the $$ don't matter, by all means, go for the PC+ rather than the PCi. BTW, I think you will appreciate the 20-39 since it goes lower.

I have both a Mac and a PC; IMO there just is no comparison. However with all my sailing, navigation, maps, charts and GPS firmware updates I got pretty tired of having to do all that stuff using Virtual PC on the Mac. Apple’s mistakes in marketing remind me of Sony’s mistakes with Beta. Now the higher quality format is dead. But who cares these days…tape is dead.

Thanks for the pointer. I was just assuming that if I bought too much speaker I would just turn them down. Sounds like too much speaker affects how they perform as a unit. Would going to the 60’s change my selection of the center? When I decided to replace my old Pro Logic receiver I didn’t originally plan on purchasing speakers as well. It compounded the decisions I had to make so I’m going about this kind of linearly and backing up where necessary. I will definitely talk to Axiom before ordering. If I get the 60s I can always use the extra money to move to the 20-39PC+!

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I am purchasing a better system than I would have done by myself. And I have all of you to thank!

When it comes to the center channel you have more flexibility. It's not prone to the issues that the 80s have. The 80s are A LOT of speaker (not to mention they play in 4 ohms which not all receivers are capable of). You're getting more in the 150s vs the 100s. Here you'll have a similar comparison as between the 60s and the 80s. More detail, more volume capacity. But here's a case of turning it down (if needed) for balance will do well. The center channel is THE most important speaker for movies. 70-80% of the sound (dialogue) will come from it. So...I'd go with the 150 personally. But I believe them to both be excellent units. Many people who have the 60s have gone with the VP150 as their center channel, so it's a fine match.

I spoke with Eric at SVS yesterday. Eric indicated that his first thought was just like yours, the PCi would be plenty. However when I indicated that I really do like reference level, whenever I can get way with it, he understood why Tom (also of SVS) went with the PC+ recommendation in a response to my email. Eric went along with his recommendation to the PC+ when he knew that I would like to have reference level SPLs when I have the chance. The other advantage Eric saw was at lower WAF listening levels (which would be most of the time) you can tune them down, get more lows and still have plenty of output. Then when the wife is out of town and boys come over for cocktails, toss the plug(s) in the corner along with the cap off the whisky jug and let 'em rip. You could also pull the plugs when watching dynamic movies and the WAF is higher for loud movies as opposed to loud rock.

Ray, regarding your thought of the 20-39 PCi, Eric had the exactly the same things to say. Eric said that since I want a more normal listening level most of the time, he would recommend that I move up one level in either series to the 20-39 PC. That way I would have plenty of low frequency for my normal listening but when I needed more output for a movie I could toss the plugs. Eric said there is a noticeable loss in db at normal base frequency but indicated that I would still have plenty of power to compensate.

So with all of that I plan on taking your advice to move to the 20-39 and since I like the tuning feature of the PC+, I plan on going with 20-30PC+. With the higher out put of this model I plan to tune them down to 16 Hz or lower depending on how I like the sound. So unless someone turns the back-up beeper on I will be ordering the next piece by tomorrow. Thanks again.

Excellent!! I'm excited for you. Once you get everything delivered and hooked up, you won't believe the impact.

Hmmm.. All this light side / dark side talk has me confused.

What side are us Unix geeks on? The flip side? The egde? Yeah, I think the edge is probably right.

At home, I'm a dark sider. M$ ripped off so many Unix ideas and commands that I can run XP in command prompt mode and forget all about being on the light side. At least when I accidentally type "ls -l", XP still gives me the listing I want.

Besides that, I actually like Bill Gates. He is a shrewd guy that took the cards he was dealt, and played them to the max. I envy, despise, hate, admire, and wish him well all at the same time. He won the game, period. That's why most of us can't stand him. I sure wish I were him.

Mac, FWIW - I'll give another heads up on the 60s.

Thanks for all of the sub talk folks. I will be ordering my SVS this week. I was thinking 20-39+ until the Ultra came out. The pictures of the Ultra driveron their web site make me drool - it's not pretty. Seems to me that it would be bottom proof on my (or anyone else's) system. Did SVS even mention the Ultra when you called, Mac?

I'm not sure if any of you saw this but it's kind of neat to hear them talking about the guys in the control room. SVS on TechTV .

SVS actually recommended that I go for a PB2isd rather than the 20-39PC+ because for an extra $75 I will get an extra few DB out of the PB2 (tuned to 20hz).