Who has auditioned the Kharma Grand Exquisite 7.1 Cinema Package? - Page 3

C4 is a good looking speaker IMO. Much much better looking than the Kharma GE IMHO.

first off a perusal of your huge list indicates that these are mostly old MSRP's as the price has gone up on most of the listed speakers.

Second Peter I am sure you know that it is easier to spend your client's money rather than your own.

I still strongly disagree that you need spend $55K on a center channel.

Seems your clients either have more money than you can shake a stick at and/or they have no knowledge about high end systems and have given you carte blanche on the project.

Well, there's a third option - they have more money than you can shake a stick at and they expect to get 5 SOTA speakers, rather than just two, in a dedicated theater system.

Tell me OB you haven't wondered about what that would be like, even once...

The advice I have received is that the left, center & right channels should, where possible, be the same exact speaker in an HT.

Why stop with that? Last year I played around with the same speakers on the same plane in a 7.2 channel setup and the difference to even closely matched speakers in the same line is significant. The achieve the virtual hologram possibility we all thought surround could be I think you need the same speaker all the way around, in the same plane, and that means the center too, as much as I don't like AT screens, it is increasingly apparent that this is the way to go especially if you're trying to effect SOTA.

The X2 has rear firing supertweeters. Cineramax, do you see this as an issue for some reason? C'mon, these have Miami Beach written all over them...

not even once

the human ear cannot hear the Ultra Tweeter

Perhaps you are referring to the fact that the X-2 is rear ported

There is a gentleman here in Silicone Valley who has a MC setup with 5 X-2 driven by 10 bridged Halcro amps

Do you say that one need the same surroundspeakers as front speakers?

Yes, NIN exactly. Preferably 7 of them. Creates a truly holographic surround field, it's breathtaking. I've found with changes from the vertical plane, differences in room effect, comb filtering, tonality differences in satellites and localization really take me out of the illusion of being immersed in a movie's soundscape and have me thinking about speakers unless they are all the same. IMO only way to do it and certainly the way these surround mixes are optimized to be decoded in room.

I don't agree. I do agree that the front and center should be the same but not the surroundspeaker, they have another task and should be different.

Most recording studios I've seen to use identical rear speakers, so if you want to hear what they hear as they're mixing, that's what you do. Doesn't mean they have to be expensive, just using equal drivers to the fronts.

Why is their task different and how should a surround speaker differ from the front and center speakers?

The movie I like to use for seamless soundfield test is I Am Legend. There are many good TOTALLY immersive test scenes in the surround mix for this Dolby True HD BD like the cricket sounds in times square, the lion leaping out from behind the back left seat and the real test: the Ford Shelby GT500 spinning out and hitting traffic markers as it pulls a nice circular spin out pattern. If you are getting an absolutely seamless soundfield, you will feel as though you are in the car with each marker being hit making a completely consistent circular pattern around your room. This is a very difficult thing for a system to do correctly and on the TrueHD track very very impressive. This scene must be awesome in D-Box!

I would go with some Revel Salon2s Peter, all the way around... Oh, wait, I already did!

In all seriousness, why not Salon2s in the front and Gem2/Voice2s (if you must use monitors...) for all the surrounds? It doesn't get much more SOTA than the top of the line Revel speakers, and you don't have to spend a ton of money either...

Because they have different task. The front and center do 46 degree at front and the surround (5.1 or 7.1) have the another 314 degree. To do that with same speakers, like in the front, you will get a very bad sense of surroundsound IMO. That's why THX recommend dipole speakers, but I prefer another kind of speakers and use more (6 or 8 surroundspeakers for 5.1-7.1).

Yah, ok but I like the way QueueCumber's done it. He's in a good position to comment on going full range all the way around from satellites. Apologies for pilfering your pics Jeff but the truth must emerge...

Cool room but I would think the speaker right beside the sofa would be too much "here I am" for me. I absolutely hate it when I can locate the surroundspeaker.

The one I will get is somewhat odd. It looks like this (but I will have another color)


Then you place them something like this



That give a superb surroundfield that both sound in focus and clear but also "diffuse" in the sense that you cannot hear that the sound come from "that" speaker.

What a thread...

I few comments. I thought that 80% of the dialouge came from the center not 80% of all audio content. If I'm wrong at least I've learned something today.

Peter, what about PHC or PMC? Those big boys from PMC I bet could hit 120+dB. If you can hide the stuff what about JBL or KLIPSCH pro cinema line?

$55K for a center channel is like paying $40K for a watch. If you are Steve Wynn it's all about prestige not performance!

I was out at church for band practice (Baptist rock) and I can tell we use SPL (Sound Pressure Labs ?) arrays and SPL "runts" for stage monitor and the sound is pretty dang good. Will a $55K center sound better? Yeah but not 18 times better. Most of the cost in high end speakers is labor and the cabinet. There is no economy of scale due to limited production. Look at the PC power supply for example. Early on (early - mid 80's) they were $400today they are $15 ($12 if you buy 5 or more).

BTW I know it sounds odd that I go to church for those of you that know me and have listened to some of my off color rants about this or that. Hey without church I'd be an ass all the time now its just some of the time.

But this applies to ALL things audio and most things in general. I'm not sure why it is accepted with some product categories and not others.

I think that given the recommended best practice of matching your LCR speakers for an HT, you will be looking at paying roughly half the cost of the L&R pair for the single center channel. Whether one considers this worthwhile for a center is a different issue, IMHO.

Of course using the same speaker for the LCR assumes you are going AT (or having a very high screen! ) If you are going for dedicated HT you are more likely to be going AT than someone who is primarily two channel, with an occasional movie sound requirement.

Sean

I have to agree, PMC do great professional and home speakers, and I am a fan of their ATL.
The largest home version (BB5 XBD) has 124db spl at 1m with amp rating up to 1kw.
http://www.pmc-speakers.com/product....de=view&pid=44

Cheers
DT

With the caveat that the prices for these speakers sound insane, even to an audiophile fool like myself....let's be careful about the rationalizations we use.

Dismissing the price of, for instance, the Kharma center channel, shouldn't be done on the basis that "all the center channel does is produce the dialogue." (I'm speaking as someone who works in film sound, here). The center channel is at least as important as the L/Rs because a significant amount of sound effects are produced via the center channel! From the film mixing stage standpoint, tweaks to frequency of individual sounds here and there aside, there is typically no global attenuation of the frequencies going to the center channel (e.g. no one is removing bass from the center of of the movie sound-stage in the center channel). Of course most people use a sub to reproduce the deepest bass frequencies, not only for their center channel but often to help out the L/R etc. But the point is that center channel information is as rich as the L/R info frequency-wise.

FWIW, how the center channel is mixed often depends on the mixer (and often the dialogue mixer at that - they tend to be the "king" at the mixing console). Dialogue mixers are usually looking for dialogue intelligibility and they'll deal with center channel issues in different ways. For instance if you've got a mono clock tick in a scene some dialogue mixers will tell the FX mixer to get it out if the center channel and pan it to a side channel. Others will be fine with it in the center channel but just ask it be lowered in volume, others may not mind the original volume etc. But a lot of effects end up in the center channel (as well as background tracks that spread through L/C/R).

So the center channel tends to have an even harder job to do than the L/Rs insofar as it must simultaneously produce sound effects AND produce most of the dialogue. To ensure the richness of the effects AND the dialogue is reproduced both articulately and naturally - simultaneously from a single mono speaker - is no small task of that mono speaker.

That is of course talking strictly about movie sound track reproduction.

Cheers,