It's a little different than I pictured it. I was expecting the same metal cabinet as the VP180. Instead, as a surprise, it's all made out of wood, and painted black. Interesting. Here's some pictures of the in-cabinet model.

This is one time I wished I had a 2 wheeler handy. I wimped out and drug it across the floor and up the stairs.

Wow, that looks really nice. I am surprised that even the in-cabinet part looks nicely finished. Looking forward to seeing how it looks installed and your listening impressions. You must really have that 'wall of sound' effect with your front setup.

Oh yeah, don't forget to remove the cat before installation!

Cheers,

I tried to set Mains to small and Center to Large, but MCACC wouldn't let me, so I have them all set to Small with a 50hz crossover.

The first thing I'm playing is Police, Certifiable, because I never was satisfied with the bass. Now I can hear much more detail in the mid to upper bass that I felt was missing before. And when low notes are hit for an extended period for effect, it's sounds amazing.





Notice that it's the box that isn't square.

crap, I hope your wall cavity is thick enough, that is crazy.

Wall cavity is plenty big. It's between 2 floors, sort of, and is a vacant cavity above the furnace area, near the heating ducts. From prior measurements, it should be an exact fit.

Possibility it might stick out a fraction of an inch. If that's the case, I'll just fill it in with some small wood painted black.

My next step is to cut the hole, carefully, there's not a lot of room for error. Then build a shelf for it to rest on. There is good access from the rear side right now. With this finished wood surface, it looks like I need to line the top of the shelf with something that won't scuff it up.

looking forward to pics, should sound awesome.

Better leave room for a bigger TV!

There's a 37 inch there now. About 2 years old. The biggest that will fit that spot good is a 47 inch tv. It's on my buy list. Been looking at a 47 inch Visio LCD for $700 at Target. Visio is underrated.

If I were a VP 100/150 I would find the VP160, well, intimidating.

Should be a fun install and keep the clean look

That's what I'm saying Brian...your sound is getting bigger than the picture.

Hi,
I know exactly what you mean. I had that impression when I was using an Epic 80 - 150 - 600 in a 7.2 configuration with a 56" RPT. The picture was way too small for the sound I was hearing. Moving to a large front projection screen; balanced the equation.

I'm afraid that 47 inches is the biggest that'll fit in that spot, without removing the mains. That'll probably be my next upgrade.

I should be able to make the 50 inch Panasonic TC-P50GT30 tv fit my wall. This looks like probably the best one for around 1 grand. Anybody here have any experience with this one?

I would probably have to upgrade my receiver before I could use the 3D feature.

So, now I've got the hole made. Cat loves it, btw.

The first problem I've run into is I've got 13 inches from front of wall to closest point on heating duct vent. The speaker cabinet would extend into the wall almost 15 inches. I knew it would have to stick out some, but this is the first time I realized it was going to be about 2 1/2 inches. I don't want it against the heat duct. Need about 1/2 inch clearance or so.

Next step is to reinforce the upper and lower part of hole with some 2x2 on the inside of the wall to protect the drywall and build a shelf.

After the speaker is mounted, I need to find some filler wood that will fill the 2 1/2 inch gap on the outside.

The most I could move the speaker up from where it is, is about 1/2 inch, because that's where the next floor up starts with some support lumber.

Is there a way you could modify the ductwork to give you 3 more inches for the cabinet?

You've got a good point there. I'm going to check and see what it will cost to get someone to do this for me. I think it can probably be done.

Here's some pictures of that area.

5 minutes and a hammer should do it.

5 minutes, a hammer and a quiet pair of shoes should do it.

That's no moon...

I gave the measurements to a friend in the HVAC business and he's getting a quote on parts. Parts should run somewhere around $200 + labor.

Most of the visible duct work here would be cut out. Then 3 pieces would be installed. The bottom piece would be a 7 inch offset to the rear side of the cavity. The top piece would be a square corner that contains deflectors. These would be joined with a 14 x 8 inch sheet metal column.

Flexable duct is not recommended in the main duct work coming out of the furnace.

Well that's good news that you have it figured out. I could understand labor costing a few bucks but curious why parts for that would be $200.

I was told the parts have to be custom made. I'm not sure why. It seems like they would be ready available to me. But it's around $80 per top and bottom part for $160, then the middle part and misc whatever.

Hmmmmmm. Custom assembled but I wouldn't think custom made.
There seems to be enough pre-made parts of all shapes and angles to accommodate what needs to be designed here.
Just a few examples from my first search.

Of course, I may be greatly oversimplifying and I'm probably the type of customer these contractors really hate for doing so. Perhaps the 90 degree fitting with the deflector in it but I can't see that being complicated or hard to find.

murph, a hard 90 would cause problems with the air flow... air doesn't like to do sharp 90 degree bends, if you were to put a 90 in there it would greatly reduce the CFM rating of his HVAC system... this is probably the reason for the custom part, maintain the CFM rating with non-standard parts... you will need the same overall volume inside the duct, with a non-standard shape....


I believe this is the reason for the "custom" work...

After 3 evenings of listening to something with my current setup...

2 pairs of M22 mains
VP160 under
M2 over
EP350

here's my observation so far...

The M2 and VP160 is a poor tonal match. With the VP100 and VP150, I couldn't even tell that the M2 was working. With the VP160, it's obvious that the tonal quality of the M2 is much, much higher than the VP160. it gives certain voices a colored upper end sound (a tinny sound, if you will). An M3 might make a better match for my upper center channel, but I wouldn't know without trying one first.

The M22 and VP160 combination is working good together. That might be good news for those that want a VP160, but don't want to swap out their M22 mains. The VP160 adds a lot of missing dimension, especially for special effects where a loud noise gets blasted in the center channel. For music, it also adds in some mid bass that I was having a hard time hearing before.

So, overall, I'm quite pleased I've added the VP160 center channel to the mix.

I want to hook up my 160 above and my 150 below but Brent said I should hook them up in series instead of parallel with my 5500 onkyo amp. Any thoughts on this JohnK?

Interesting report Brian, thanks.

How is the tonal match between the VP160 and the M22's? I know you said they work well together. I guess I'm surprised since the M2 and M22 have a good tonal match to each other but the 160 does not play nice with the M2 but does with M22? Maybe it's more obvious as they are both being run as center channels with same input signal?

Series = 14 ohms.
Parallel = 3.43 ohms. (Note: 2 8ohm parallel = 4 ohm).

Calculation follows:

vp150 = 6 ohms
vp160 = 8 ohms

To calculate Series, it's total ohms
6 + 8 = 14 ohms.

To calculate Parallel, it's done this way:
1 / (1/6) + (1/8)
= 1 / (4/24) + (3/24)
= 1 / (7/24)
= 1 / .2916
= 3.43 ohms.


(I've been running my center M2 + VP150 at 3.43 ohm with a Pioneer Elite for months with no problem.)

I'm not finding something that sounds 'wrong' with VP160 + M22, like i did with the M2. So, to me, there is a good tonal match. If I were to do some sort of A/B comparison I would probably hear a difference, but with both of them playing at the same time, I can't detect any tonal miss-match.

I hope that answers your question.

I think it would be safer to run 14 ohms than 3.5 ohms. I would NOT want to fry my amp. I just need to be sure before I mess with it.

Just to add, this is calculating nominal impedance, when you start applying an AC sign wave i.e. Music, the resistance's will change, and could result in a lower than the nominal calculated value... I would not hook any speaker or speaker circuit (which you would be doing by wiring the 150+160 in parallel) to a receiver, you would need a pretty beefy amp to handel that load...

Shawn, the calculation for parallel impedances is as Brian illustrated(the sum of the reciprocals of the individual impedances equals the reciprocal of the combined impedance), using the rated numbers of 6 and 8 ohms. Of course those numbers for impedance are simply an approximate rating and they vary greatly with frequency. In any case, impedance is rarely a real problem with equipment of reasonable quality and shouldn't lead to overheating and shut down at typical sound levels. It's unlikely that the parallel connection would cause a significant problem with your Onkyo and the assumption at this point should be that it'll work satisfactorily.

OK,good to know! Thanks for the info guys.

Shawn, your amp may be able to power it, but be careful how loud you play it... if your Onkyo can handel a 4 ohm load, it "should" be able to handel that load.... However, if you wind up driving the amp into thermal protection, i would change to a series set up..

Running speakers in series(at least if they're not identical)is generally a bad idea; for example, see discussion here . In practice, the problems caused may or may not be audible, but this should be used as a last resort, and is unlikely to be necessary, as mentioned above.

I run my 2 8 ohms (4 ohm) on L an R and used to run my 8 and 6 ohms (3.43 ohm) on Center. The Pioneer Elite never got hot, even at loud listening levels. Warm yes, but not hot.

Yes, that's why I mentioned it might be the deflector driving it up. Still, I ran this scenario, pics and all, over the guy fixing the bathroom fan button hooked to our air exchange system last night and his advice was, rough quote...

"I won't criticism another professionals pricing but your friend would be smart to get two or three other quotes before settling on the job."

Hope you don't me checking with him. Just trying to be helpful.

Thanks. But, I'm not sure what you mean by "his advice was, rough quote."

Did he think $200 was way too much for this?

Ok, I got a price quote for the 2 custom parts for my HVAC duct renovation. It'll be $111.57 + tax. Much more reasonable than the original $200 guesstimate. Also $22 per hour for installation sounds reasonable.

I gave him the go-ahead to get the parts built.

My amp has a switch from 4 to 6 ohm but reading more on the subject, I think I will just be happy with the 160 hooked up. I like to crank it up every once in awhile so I better not get too greedy.

Cat, any updates on the ducting/ 160 install?

My HVAC friend ordered the parts and sent me out to pick them up yesterday. I noticed the bottom part was bending the wrong way. According to the sheetmetal company, he ordered an offset, where he should of ordered a riser. I was forced to pay the $33 for the offset that I didn't need because it was a custom built part and I ordered the riser. I'll pick up the riser today.

Other than that, I'm just waiting for him to get a day off, so we can get this done.

If the offset was bent the wrong way what would a riser accomplish? I am confused. How about a pic of the wrong piece?

I can't do the pictures right now, nor today, but here's a description.

Duct coming up from room below. Looking at it from hole where speaker goes, you are looking at the wide side of it. It measures 8 x 14. You are looking at the 14 inch side. It needs to move farther away from you, then back up, to make more room for the speaker. Instead of moving away from you, the offset goes to the left (or right), then back up instead.

The Offset bends on the 8 inch side, leaving the 14 inch side flat.
The Riser bends on the 14 inch side, leaving the 8 inch side flat.

There will be a quiz next week to see if you can pass your HVAC class.

Makes sense to me.

The HVAC duct work has now been modified.

First picture is BEFORE modifications.

The next 2 pictures show the modifications. The top square corner contains 3 curved pieces to direct the air flow in a curved fashion.

Total cost, a little under $200.

did they say anything about a reduced amount of airflow due to the 90?

Very little to no reduced airflow. It's only 90 degrees on the outside. Inside, there are 3 curved pieces of metal to direct the air around the corner in a curved fashion. You can see the heads of the screws that hold this contraption in place in the bottom picture.

There are some minor leaks in the connections. I'm going to get a tube of silicon and seal these joints up good, as my next step.

Was the same thing i was thinking, reduced airflow, but if that unit was designed internally to be curved, then some engineer had his smart hat on that day.

In re: to the leaks, use aluminum duct tape. Silicon sealants fail over time.

I might use both then. The HVAC guy said that some of his clients request him to seal it with silicon. He said to use pure silicon if I do it.

Then maybe I'll go back over it with the aluminum duct tape.

If you get a quality aluminum tape there will be about 1-2mm of adhesive on the back side. There would be no added benefit of using silicone in addition to the aluminum tape, the aluminum tape will create a solid seal.



Having diverters inside the 90 is Very good, was going to ask if they did anything like that, glad they did.

use aluminum duct tape! yes

Use the aluminum, Luke.

Aluminum tape is the bomb. Seriously thou, my house is Energy Star certified and has every HVAC joint wrapped in the stuff. I was using the stuff to seal the joints in my insulation when I was putting it up in the basement. It's like duct tape for duct tape... if that makes sense.

Ok. I'm convinced. Aluminum duct tape it is. As soon as I find the time to do it. Going to a birthday breakfast this morning, then some of them will probably come to my house for a couple of movies.

I know you are all easily entertained. So, here's the picture of my new duct work after it's been all sealed up with duct tape. Yippee! Now I can actually work on getting the speaker installed.

Looks good, Cat.

Greater efficiency....!

Oooh Shiny!!!!!!

Also, can somebody please tell me if contractors and home tradesmen are superstitious and if part of that superstition is they they feel it is bad luck not to leave at lease one nail or screw lying around in an enclosed space. It seems like it's a rule. If you pick up that last nail you dropped, something bound is sure to happen.

That's a gripe of mine. In all the work the I've had done on my house, I have only had a couple contractors completely clean up after themselves. It even happens with contractors that have worked here numerous times and I've gained a rapport.

I'm sure the fact that the majority of contractors are men has something to do with it. That's obviously not credible reason though.

In the grand scheme of things, I think that poor cleanup goes along with being a contractor.

That nail has probably been there since 1956 when the house was built.

I thought I was going to have to build a shelf. Now, I don't think I'm going to need one. I installed a 2x2 above and below the hole I made and the VP160 is resting on this wood. I also have the slight backend down tilt I was looking for to evenly distribute the sound a little better.

Sorry, 7 pictures follow.

Cat, is there some way you could squeeze two more speakers between the upper M22s and the upper-center M3/M2?

There's kind of a gap there that looks weird.

Kitty portraits! In gold spray paint macaroni frames!

It's funny. The M3/2 (Axiom should make an M-16!) looks like it was photoshopped in.

Maybe you should have looked into poly planar speakers? Kidding, kidding, no angry letters, please.

And who's the ugly tranny on the TV?

That's Lila Downs.

This is sounding incredible, though, regardless of how it looks. The VP160 adds a lot of extra emphasis in music. It also helps male vocals sound more natural in movies.

Currently listening to Madonna's Sticky & Sweet concert.

Looks like I should of cleaned up fingerprints and dust before taking the pictures.

I was going to say,lol.

edit: looks good....by the way!

That heater sure likes getting it's picture taken.

How are those M22's setup? Are you using an external crossover or are they doing duty as L/R mains.

It's a 3.1 system. The M22's are the mains.

Next upgrade is a bigger TV.

After that, I may add 2 QS8's sometime in the future. They'll have to go halfway between the seating position and TV wall.

It's a little more than a 3.1 system, really. Maybe a 3.141592654 system. A π system.

Looks great. VP160 seems to fit in well there actually.

That's funny. I was thinking the same thing. I think he should shift the M2/3 up, put an M80 in-wall center there and open up an Axiom showroom.

Nice work Cat. That M60 center install looks really slick.

I also like the omni-polar heater.

Looks great Bryan and I bet it sounds even better. You just need to figure out how to get in-cabinet M60s in there.

I think I'm done with this particular wall for now, audio wise. I might order a couple of wall brackets later and get rid of the stands though. One less thing to have to clean and move around.