My Humble HT/Living Room

Display: Pioneer Kuro Plasma 5080

Receiver: Onkyo 805

Speakers: Triad Gold LCR & Sapphire dipoles for surrounds

Subwoofer & Transducer: Seaton SubMersive HP & Crowson Technology Dual Shadow-8 Motion Actuators

EQ & Acoustic Treatments:
Audyssey XT & Anti-Mode 8033C
6 GIK small custom sized Monster Bass Traps for corners
2 GIK full size Monster Bass Traps covering rear window
2 GIK 244 Bass traps for front main speakers
5 GIK 242 for reflection points - sidewall, ceiling and rear wall

BluRay Player:
Oppo 93 & PS3

HD DVD player:
Toshiba A2

Remote:
Harmony One by Logitech

TV Stand:
Z-Line

Other:
AT&T U-Verse dual tuner HD DVR cable box, cabinet loaded with different formats of movies. Monster HTS 1000 MK3 Power Center.

Notes: The room is only ~1150 cubic feet. My wife actually made the curtains for the big back window behind the recliners. It does a great job of keeping the sunlight out.
The wife and I dont have any kids and Love watching movies. We watch approximately 1 during each week day and 2 each day during the weekend.

Triad Gold LCRs -



 

Left Front Wall Treatments:

 

Right Front Wall Treatments:

 

Side Wall, Ceiling & Back Window/Wall/Corners Treatments:

 

2 New La-z-boy Recliners:

 

 

Room Layout:

Attachment 183047 Attachment 183048 Attachment 183049 Attachment 185331 Attachment 185332



Thx for looking,
Claude

 

 

 

 

PREVIOUS Set Up pics below:

Edited by Bunga99 - 2/14/13 at 1:58pm

Thanks for the kind words and the suggestion. I'll have to look into that for the center.

I placed the sub in the rear because this room is so small (1150cu ft). that there is no other place for it. I could not place it up front because the door at the right of the TV is to our bedroom. This was the only place for it - besides me and the wife love the mid bass slam from having it nearfield

Here's a shot of the entire room.

The view from my chair with speaker grilles off. I usually leave the grilles on.

I appreciate the comments but even though we dont have kids, we usually either have my wife's best friend come over or my best friend come over and watch movies with us so the 3rd chair is needed.

I did run the Auydessy twice before and dont like the sound of it. Without it and just level matching my speakers with a SPL meter, they sound fuller and more natural. With the Auydessy out it gets a bit bright/harsh to me and can get fatiquing. I prefer it with the Auydessy off.

We actually tried many different configs before settling on this one. Believe it or not, I think it sounds great as is but like all things probably could be better with adjustments.

I should have mentioned this earlier but this is my main living room where we watch our movies and some cable TV but there is another living room (same exact size) in our home that we also use to watch tv, play Nintendo Wii & Xbox. That other living room has a 36inch Sony HD crt tv with a sofa and love seat and a nice coffee table in it so we do use that one too for entertaining if we have more folks over.

Some other cool stuff (cool to me anyways). Our home was actually a duplex built in the 1960s. The previous owner knocked down the middle wall and decided to make it one long house instead of a duplex (hence the other living room of the same size). The whole house is made of concrete block with double paned windows. Another interesting fact is that the house has two roofs (older style flat roof in good condition and a newer roof built over the old). Our closest nieghbor is ~50ft away and his home is also concrete block. Its very common for me and the wife to be watching movies and hitting well over 105dbs in that room at 2am in the morning during the weekend and our neighors never hear it. We've been doing this since we bought the house 2006 and I always check with my nieghbors and they say they dont hear a peep out of my house

It does have an EQ. It sounds great to me without Auydessy but with Auydessy on then it sounds bright. I could be wrong but once I run Auydessy, I can either turn the Auydessy EQ off or leave it on. I dont think I can fine tune it once the Auydessy EQ is set to on.

I did all the other settings by SPL Meter and distance settings with a measuring tape and recorded tape. One of my closest friend who appreciates audio (probably more than me) was very impressed by it too. During a demo scene from Flight of the Phoenix as well as some others, his jaw hit the floor I think his last sentence was "This sounds so strong yet so balanced!"

Thanks Mike!

You along with a few other SubM owners pretty much had me sold on the SubM after the rave reviews you posted. I should have mine in apprx 2 weeks or so. I will be posting my results in the SubMersive thread once I get it and play with it for a bit. To say I am excited about the SubM, is putting it Very Mildly!

I see you finally gave in to Mark's ridicule and replaced the ole CRT

I have a similar CRT in another room and still like it.

I sit approximately 8-9ft away (depending if I am reclined or not) from my 50inch Plasma and I love it.

pcweber111,

Yep, you are correct. The speakers origin was from one of the founders of Infiniti. I went into a Tweeter store (about 5 years back) to audition some speakers. I was looking to spend about 1000-1200 bucks on a set of speakers at the time. I was only looking for 2 towers at the time and after I listened to some well known brands like Polks, Klipsch and whatever else they had at this price range. I thought the horn of the Klipsch was too bright for me and the Polks they had at this price range had more bass but was not as clear as the Klipsch. The Sapphire (to me) sounded like a perfect blend between the Polk and Klipsch. I think the price was ~1200 bucks (tax included) at the time for both but since he did not have any more in stock and I had bought some other products from them in the past, he let me have the floor model for just under 800 for both tax included, they came with a 5 year warranty from the store. Of course that store was only in business for 3 more years
I then went back a month later and picked up the center channel, then two months later for the rear dipoles.
There was another room at the store that had better Polks that I liked overall sound better than the Sapphire but the price of those were a little more than double what I paid for the Sapphires. I think last year or the year before some online company ( called The Speaker company I think) was selling these same type of speakers (could have been the same exact thing for all I know) for pretty much the price I paid for them.

I can push them out another 4-5 inches each away from the TV but like them where they are at. At my listening position (center recliner - sweet spot) they sound great.

MikeD,

The TV is a 50inch Plasma. I think your vertigo does not come from your TV but from your SubMersive moving you around at below 20hz and giving you motion sickness
I really like your set up as well. Glad you got that center channel it that better position, I bet it all sounds fantastic! From what I read, any advice Mark gives always makes improvements.

I got that DVD cabinet over 5 years ago at Rack and Stands online. It stand the test of time pretty well considering we use it a few times a week. Don’t know if my pic or the link shows it but it’s a pretty sturdy piece for the price. Without any movies in it, its like 70lbs or something. It states it can hold up to 320 DVDS but I noticed that 4 DVD cases equals about 5 bluray cases so I think it should hold about 400 Blurays/Hd-dvds. It also comes with a key to lock it. The lock is good if you have any kids but wont do jack against a burglar that wants in there.

http://www.racksandstands.com/Prepac...5-PRP1024.html

Hey Mogorf,

Hope all is going well and thanks again for all the recommendations!

Yes, I tried running it 5 more times since you posted that with the all the techniques that mentioned in the Audyssey thread. It gives really accurate readings in terms of distance. There’s two things that it’s doing that I can’t stand.

1. It sets my towers at 150Hz and the rest of my speakers to 60hz. One of the times it dropped the towers down to 120Hz. The only thing I have done differently with the receiver is processed a DSP firmware update. When I first got the receiver and ran the Audyssey, it would always set my towers to large, then sometimes it would set the center as large as well. Other times it would force the double bass feature on which I could not stand. I would always go back in and switch it to 80hz. May be the firmware update did something to the receiver. Either way, I did a search on the Audyssey thread and someone else had the same problem. His THX certified speakers kept getting crossed between 150-100hz every time he ran Audyssey. Then he switched receivers from his Onkyo 906 to his 876 (I believe) and re-ran Audyessy at it crossed all of his channels at 80hz. No matter what he did, one receiver would be crossed much higher and the other would set the crossover frequency perfectly. From what I read - with Auydessy you can go up but shouldn't go down. Meaning….If Audyssey crosses something at 100hz, you can manually move that up (say to 120hz) but should not move the down (say 80hz). I even ran some low frequency sweeps to see if my towers were producing frequencies below 80hz and they were pretty strongly down to 35hz with no weird noises or nothing - just clean bass.
2. The first couple of times I ran the Audyssey, it seemed to sound OK. I did not notice the bright harsh sound I was talking about earlier. Later, I decided to turn it up (-10db from reference) and to me it started sounding more bright. The more I turned it up, the brighter it got. I prefer the sound of these speakers with just the correct distance measurements and everything crossed at 80hz.


To tell you the truth, I think I may not be one for the “Reference Sound” but more of just my preference. A few years back, I had the Pioneer 1014 receiver and after I ran the MMACC thing, it sounded the same as Audyssey to me. I love how my speakers sound without Audyssey (warmer but still very detailed). With Audyssey it sounds a LOT like the local IMAX, very clear and very good bass but too bright for my taste. I feel the same about some Klipsch speakers, a lot of people love them and I agree they are very clear but (for me) they can get fatiguing. I think it’s just my personal taste - no matter how wrong it might be

Now, I do LOVE what Audyssey does for flatting out the bass in my room.

Not yet. Spoke to Mark yesterday and he was a tad behind with some of the other stuff he was working on. He did say that I am next in line to get it and it should be out later this week if all goes well.

Normally, I would not be this patient but the VAST majority of SubMersive owners (You included) always say its worth the wait plus I am starting to think think Mark has OCD
It seems to me, he would not want to send a product out unless its completely up to his standards. From what I've read and the few times I talked to him on the phone, the dude is on some quest for perfection in his products. I'm sure or at least hoping, I will enjoy the fruits of his labor

Hopefully, next week I will have it in my room and will be able to pull myself away to write up my thoughts on it. Trust me - I am so excited about it, I am even thinking of taking a day off of work just to play with it.

More to come