Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Setup for DVD-A and DVD-V ?

Hi,

Just wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts on how best to setup the following equipment to get good home theater and DVD-A sounds.

I currently have M60s, VP150 and QS8s. I plan on putting the QS8s at the side of the main listening position but have heard that the QS8s, since the aren't direct, will not be good for DVD-A. Any suggestions on how I can keep the QS8s in the picture yet still put something further in back (I've got at least 10 feet behind the listening position to the rear wall) to get good DVD-A sound ? If it were a pair of say M3s what would that be considered in the whole 6.1 and 7.1 world and would DVD-A even take advantage of them. (not sure if it's 5.1 or not which if it were it might still use QS-8s in this scenario). And one last item. Any recommendations on a sub $1000 receiver to pull this all off. Preferably something with bass management as I've read I need that... (I miss the days of simple DD 5.1...)

Thanks,

Paul

You can get as fancy as your wallet will allow.

DVD-A is mixed with equal sized speakers at all four corners. The ideal setup for HT and DVD-A combined with shared components (and something I've considered doing but won't bother with until the music industry gets its head out of its ass and starts producing a quality product on a high quality medium (DVD-A) at a reasonable price (below $10)) would be to use a receiver with two selectable surround speaker outputs in addition to one or two rear speaker outputs. My Denon AVR-4802 does this as does the higher end 5803. There are undoubtedly others as well.

You would then put a set of QS8's on the surround A and a set of M60's on the surround B to match your M60's at the front. Whatever speakers you choose for the 6 or matrixed 7th channel in the rear for movies would go on those outputs (perhaps another set of QS8's, perhaps a direct firing speaker...). The QS8's would go beside you, the M60's would go in the back corner and the rear speakers would go in their ordinary placement directly behind you.

When watching DVD movies, you would have power going to the QS8's on the side. When listening to music, you could then switch to the secondary surround output and power the M60's in the corner.

This would be the ideal setup for a system capable of both, but whether or not you wanted to pay that much is entirely up to you.

Thank you for the excellent reply. Not sure I can get away with the M60's in the back of the room due to a proposed kitchen counter top. I'm wondering what would sound better for movies and DVD-A (not two channel stereo) M60s up front with M2s or M3s in the back or four M2s or M3s up front and back. I've currently got the M60s in my office and really like the way they sound in there so I've got a use for them if I decide to change things up in the Home Theater area. The way I look at it the office would be used for critical listening and the Home Theater would be first and foremost HDTV and DVD viewing with some DVD-A thrown in the mix just to impress my ears every now and then. Keep in mind I'll be using the VP150 for my center and QS8s for side surrounds so whichever speakers I choose should match up with the VP150.

Any Thoughts ?

Paul

Hi Paul,

Semi_on is correct that in a perfect world we'd have both setups switchable from the receiver or processor. But who has the room? And as I've pointed out in a numerous previous posts, using bipolar/quadpolar (QS8s) surrounds for DD 5.1 and DVD-A/SACD works wonderfully well. The "sweet spot" is very generous, and yet when instruments or vocals are "hard-mixed" to a rear/surround speaker, the directional acuity is preserved. In my listening tests of direct-radiating rears for DVD-A/SACD, the sweet spot was impossibly acute. The image collapsed to the nearest speaker when one moved a few inches in any direction. This occurs partly because there is no digital delay in the rear channels as part of the standard (unlike DD5.1 and dts), so acoustical theory would predict this collapse would happen.

I believe the use of mulitpolar surrounds for all formats is an excellent compromise, especially given the serious limitations cited above.

Regards,

All I can say at this point is I have the following for HT: M60s, VP150, QS8s, and a JBL PB12 subwoofer. We recently upgraded the DVD player to one that supports DVD-Audio and it sounds GREAT.

I have 5) M22s on the way to setup and try for DVD-Audio since you are supposed to use 5 matching speakers. Once we get them hooked up and try them out we will let you know if we think it sounds better, worse, or just different.

I'm not expecting a huge difference, but like I said it sounds great with the QS8s already.

As far as the digital delay, I have heard that upcoming DVD players will support bass management, and digital delays for DVD-Audio as well as DD and DTS)

Michael

Same topic with newbie ?'s...Do I need to make sure my next DVD player has DVD-A? What will DVD-A mean to my 6.1 system of 60's,8's,150, and 175 in regards to sound quality (as opposed to listening to cd's with my system now)? Is DVD-A video and sound?

In reply to:

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As far as the digital delay, I have heard that upcoming DVD players will support bass management, and digital delays for DVD-Audio as well as DD and DTS)

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Some do now, but most low end ones don't, sadly. This was actually kind of assinine on behalf of the player manufacturers.

In reply to:

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Do I need to make sure my next DVD player has DVD-A?

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Depends on whether or not you have any interest in listening to multi-channel 24-bit 96KHz audio disks. I know some people that just don't have any interest in being in the middle of a recording studio and prefer the front stage effect of stereo. Up to you.

In reply to:

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What will DVD-A mean to my 6.1 system of 60's,8's,150, and 175 in regards to sound quality (as opposed to listening to cd's with my system now)?

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Music in DVD-A is fully multi-channel with each channel carrying a much richer 24/96 (versus 16/44 currently) signal. You can use DPLII and the like to simulate surround sound from CD's now but they aren't encoded with that in mind and don't sound right in any format other than stereo to me. Your current system would probably be very enjoyable for music even if you don't have the ideal speaker configuration for it.

The QS8's should do a fine job of filling in for a couple M60's in the back for most people. I doubt many would complain at all.

In reply to:

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Is DVD-A video and sound?

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It has room for extras just like regular DVD's so a studio could stick a movie video there if they so chose. However, the RIAA is sucktacular at adding value to their pathetic product so I don't expect a lot of studios to do this, certainly not at the rate of current CD production.

DVD-A is intended for Audio above all else. That's what the A stands for.

Regards,
Semi

Thank you...I think my speakers have the ideal configuration for DVD-A. It's definitely perfect for movies. I like the sound of sitting in the middle of a recording studio. I guess it would depend on the artist. Now I just need to find a multi-disc DVD player with DVD-A, progressive scan, and no chroma bug.

No dvd-a but multi disc, prog scan, and not too expensive:
panasonic cp67
I did see a dvd-a, sacd and prog scan dvd player somewhere recently...brand new item.
Can't quite remember who was making it though. Sony or Pioneer perhaps....i'll look around again.