Family Room 5.1 System

My preferred room in the house.

Display:
Panasonic TH-42PX60U

Equipment:
Denon 3808CI (AVR)
Toshiba HD-XA1 (HD DVD Player)
Sony BDP-S350 (Blu-Ray Player)
Custom-built HTPC
Wii and Wii Fit (Game Console)

Speakers:
Athena LS-300B (Main)
Energy C-C100 (Center)
Energy Take 2.2 (Surround)
AudioSource SW-15 modded (Subwoofer)

Front view


Close-up on center speaker. It's resting on Auralex Mopads, angled 8 degrees down.


The subwoofer is placed on the right corner, sitting on a Auralex Gramma.


Close-up on equipment.


Side view, taken from open space to the left side.


Back of the room. Has an open door to the kitchen.


I'm constantly tweaking things and my latest upgrade was the Auralex Gramma and Mopads. I'm not sure at this point what will be the next upgrade, probably replacing the couches.

Thank you pcweber. Yeah, it's a shame HD-DVD lost the war so soon. I'm not ready yet to part with my HD-DVD collection, and the XA1 doubles as a great CD player. With Blu-Ray, I haven't really bought too many titles; I've been mostly renting from Netflix.

Thank you ddgtr. The Athena's are pretty decent for the price; they are the same as the Energy C-300s, minus the spikes and bi-wiring postings. For movies, they do much better than the Energy Take 2.2s they replaced. They fill the room and blend really well with the Energy C-C100 center speakers, since they are close cousins and share the same components. For music, on the other hand, they leave something to be desired. Low quality recordings with too much bass sound boomy, and some times the highs can be raspy (if that's a valid term ). I guess I mean there's some distorsion.

I will probably end up replacing them at some point, but for now, I think I have weaker links in the chain.

Thank you all for your kind words.

ldgibson76, the HTPC is based on a 780G motherboard, with an integrated ATI 3200HD video card, 4GB Ram, 320GB hard drive, standard DVD drive/burner, Microsoft IR keyboard with integrated mouse, running Vista Home Premium 64-bit. The case is an Antec Fusion Black, with a built-in IR reader.

On the software front, I mostly run iTunes (my only iTunes library is on this PC), Pandora, Netflix Instant Watching, and BeyondTV Link (DVR client). I don't save any videos on this PC; TV shows are stored in another PC, where the BeyondTV server runs.

As far as a 7.1 set up, I hadn't really considered it for this room. I didn't think the acoustics of this room were that great with the open side on the left and the windows and sliding glass door on the right. Do you think I'll notice a big difference between 5.1 and 7.1 in this room? Maybe I should try it.

Hopefully not much, since both the woofer and the tweeter are above the couch's arm, but a new seating configuration is definitely in the wish list.

I've made a couple of changes and I finally got around taking a picture.

• Replaced the main speakers with Energy RC-10s, sitting on VTI steel stands
• Replaced the center channel speaker with an Energy RC-LRC
• Added a power conditioner (APC H-15)
• Removed the bottom drawer in the entertainment center to make room for the power conditioner
• Moved the subwoofer away from the corner

Plans for the future:

• Paint the power conditioner black
• Get a better subwoofer; probably a 10" or 12" sealed subwoofer
• Look into accoustic treatments
• Replace the couches

Yes, the feature pack came included when I purchased the 3808. I love the Dynamic EQ feature, but I'm not a fan of Dynamic Volume. It compresses the sound and the kids still wake up. Also the HDMI CEC feature is great for when I need to use headphones.

By the way, my set up doesn't look like these pictures any more. One of these days, I'll do a 2.0 thread.

Like this?




Great minds think alike!

I actually have 3 subwoofers now. The ones in the front are Mirage Prestige S10 and there's an AV123 MFW-15 in the back.

I'm afraid the RC10s have been replaced. They are great speakers for music but they couldn't keep up with the rest of my setup for movies. I replaced them with DIY speakers, based on waveguides with compression drivers, which are much more dynamic and provide more of a theater experience.

Thanks, Mike. The cabinet is a Salamander Synergy 237 in cherry/black.

I followed Zilch's design. He posted a couple of designs with smaller drivers in the mini e-Wave thread at Parts Express.
http://techtalk.parts-express.com/sh...d.php?t=219975

My build thread is also at the Parts Express forum:
http://techtalk.parts-express.com/sh...d.php?t=230517


There's no center and I really don't miss it. The phamtom center works well in my room.


You are welcome