Thrang's Home Theater (for now...) - Page 7

How high did you raise it Pete ?

I raised one of them (back right corner) when my friend came through I wanted to experiment with new ways. Didnt raise it too much but seemed to get a similar result.

It's in the blog - picture there.
About 50 cm...

But it's not on a wooden platform alone, the base is solid concrete...

Will have a look

I see that you were "considering" triad platinum's...I would definitely be interested in seeing ow 802Ds compare to them!

I would have to think the 803's would be better for wides than the 805's just due to the simple fact we hear more precisely from the front and even to the sides then we do from behind so the more capable 803's with the FST midrange and separate bass drivers would be the more logical choice providing no room limitations for their placement of course. Since you are also running heights it would be cool if you could get a wall mount apparatus to perfectly align to the holes in the bottom of the 805's because they would parbably make supurb height speakers even if inverted if you had to attach a mount to the ceiling rather than the wall.

Another way to add to the soundstage up front would be to add a center 802 but like myself your setup doesn't permit that unfortunatgely. Curse B&W for discontinuing the HTM1D. All us D2 owners need to get together and get a petition going

Have you tried heights before opting for wides?

Have a Happy Holidays Thrang! Remember to embrace what's important to you and also give that system a whirl, it needs love and attention too!

LOL.. I just assumed you were going to move your current 803's if you could move the wall unit, not get another pair Very, very nice. You could try and find a used pair of piano black 802's four 802's up front would be wild. Either way, can't wait to see those pictures

I meant keep the 803's in the surround position and get a 2nd pair of 802's, so it would be four 802's up front, the HTM2, the existing 803's for surrounds and existing 805's for rears rather than two 802's, two new 803's for widths, the HTM2, your existing 803's for the surrounds and your existing 805's for the rears.

802s for wides? crazy talk!

No such thing as crazy my friend That's like people saying it doesn't matter what speaker is used for surround speakers regardless of what the front 3 might be. I have never had an opportunity to listen to a system with wides yet and the manufacturers are oddly very vague in what the speakers real role is supposed to be such as how much content is being sent to these speakers and what frequency range the speakers are seeing however with the wides being up front the human ear is more likely to be able to pick out differences in performance in a wide speaker than a surround and especially a rear speaker.

What I would like to know with absolute certainty and it would be interesting to be able to do a test of this is to see if whenever the main L/R speakers get a signal if the wides also get the signal (and if it is the same frequency band or somehow always frequency restricted) and if there is no signal in the L/R speakers if the wides ever get their own discrete signal. This second scenario is unlikely considering there is no Blu-ray support for discrete channels beyond 7.1, you would need 9.1 discrete as channels 6 and 7 are used for rear surrounds, currently all channels beyond 7.1, so 8.1, 9.1, 10.1 and 11.1 are accomplished via matrix processing. Knowing all of this would go a long way in understaning the role the wide speaker plays. If going by the very name alone, wide/width one could make a reasonable assumption that these speakers are strictly tied to the signals of the main L/R speakers to widen or spreadout the soundstage but in practice that may not be what is happening. The other complication that comes to mind is different manufacturers using these speakers in different ways because these width channels, just like the height channels are essentially made up channels, for example dts probably derives these signals differently than Audyssey. Dolby only has support for heights so they aren't currently a player.
Edited by Rod#S - 12/25/12 at 6:51am

Hey Thrang did you have a lovely Christmas?

Gordon Ramsay has some nice food but wouldn't want to work for him we had a great Christmas thank you with family on both sides. congrats on your 8801 how is it? How did you go with the 11 point cal ?

Yeah give it another go, I'm sure the 8801 is fine, subwoofer distances are tricky for calibration software to measure accurately. So much so that the engineers at Lexicon did not include auto sub distance settings in the Lexicon MC-12 which I have and it actually uses 4 mics for calibration. It does everything else automatically but not that.

Awesome stuff Thrang. Wides and heights that will be amazing

Excellent, I'm gald the second calibration worked out. I look forward to your new wide and height setup. Seeing 805's mounted as heights will look awesome So for your wall unit are you just moving it, say to the rear of the room or getting rid of it completely?