Danley SH-50/SH-60 for dedicated Home Theater - Page 23

Yes I did. However, after setting up my front stage with 3 SH50s I decided to proceed with other things first and then with the purchase of the surrounds. I tuned the JBLs for the moment. I want to build custom telescopic stands for the SH50s since after playing around with them I decided that placement and height as well as the angle of them have great effect on their sound. So I will soon order them to a machine shop since I want them to fit perfectly with the SH50s. Yet, I will ask for a tilting option for them. They will be cut to the same shape as the SH50s, will be telescopic for perfect height adjustment and on hidden steel balls for the proper angle. After that I will go ahead with room treatments and then I will start on the surrounds that will probably be the SM96s for increased mid bass. Another option would be the SM100Bs. I have not concluded on the surrounds yet and since those I am thinking of are quite expensive I will take my time. I will post pictures when I start (quite busy with work lately) with the Room and the custom bases.

after being quite impressed with my yorkville unity speakers, i am now on the hunt for either sh50 or sh60s! these things are not easy to find on the used market.

They are tough to find. Good luck.

yea i know, i wanted to get a nice upgrade, have a pair of LS6 coming for my dedicated music setup, and the hopefully danleys for general/ht stuff.

Anyone near Ohio have a Danley system I can demo? Please let me know!

I had a chance to hear 2 x TH118's recently. Very good sounding boxes! They didn't play that low, but I know they are not supposed to. I emailed them a few times and got no response about possibly getting 2 for an older friend.
Not sure whats up with that but I think they wants about 3K a sub, which is not a very good deal since you can get a JTR OS that will play deeper and just as loud powered with a 4K amp for the same money OR the pro version non powered for $1699 right now. Their prices are pretty high but thats the price you pay when you start getting into the big boys toys hahaha

where did you hear them? did you feel they were more musical, hence their seeming lack of extension? i too am looking into Danley though probably not their subwoofers.without hearing them i am leaning more towards JTR Captivator S2 or maybe Funk Audio 18.3 (but i am unable to find much subjective (peoples opinions) on the merits or lack thereof of passive radiator designs). i am very interested in their loudspeakers, in particular their sm-100b, which seems to me on paper at least to be an ideal musical/ht speaker system. but no one seems to own them. instead sh-50, 60, sm-60m, 60f seem to find their way into folks home audio systems. may just say the heck with it and buy some Seaton Cat 12Cs' plenty of positive owner experiences and impressions out there to make conclusions from.

There was a local guy selling some gear and he had 4 of them in his HT room, though only 2 were powered at the time. They were very impressive but after about 40hz they dropped off very quick. IMO not a good choice for sub duty unless you had some other sealed subs taking over from 40hz down. They had really great slam and were being powered by 1 channel each off of a crest ca18. he's going to be selling them and getting 4 OS's from whats he said. I was there looking at some PSB Golds he had but their condition was pretty bad. After hearing them, it made me feel much better I went the way I did with my system as I was wanting them or a couple OS's for my system as well. He said they were $3400 each bought through a Canadian dealer and they are 3K or so in the US. IMO not worth that for a HT, maybe for a pro gig but for HT, there are far better choices that will outperform them for less money (in Canada at least)

hello all, only my third post, please forgive me if i bungle some etiquette. i am curious about a few things.

1) for those that own the SH-50, what non Danley speakers did you consider/audition? what were the deciding qualities of the SH-50?
2) what other Danley models (if any) were considered/auditioned? what tipped the scale the SH-50s' way?
3) self powered Danleys' or external power? i have a Danley price list and the for example SH-50 powered is a little better than $2k than the passive. which is fine to me, but are there any sonic advantages for an active speaker system over a passive system? Are Dasnleys' active speakers using the same amps that are selling separately as external amps? or are they using something like Icepower?

i have more but let me see if any one feels these are worth answering.

and there in lies the rub for me. i have been researching/saving for the upgrade over my SVS/ Emotiva gear, and there are so many choices the only thing i am sure of is what pre-po i am going to source. this part of the process for me is at once fun and an enormous pain in the neck!

i realise this is a very old post, but it illustrates my point about the sm-100b. i look at this posters requirements and immediately think...SM-100b, but the man who not only works at Danley but i believe i read where he stated the new SM-80 was "his baby" skipped all over the SM-100b! what is it about this speaker that no one (but me) finds it worth consideration? not trying to whine....just baffled.

The 100B will have more extension but the SM80 will have MUCH MORE SPL from its BW. SO for in a HT environment I would go with a SM100 or SM96 and subs. For full range their is the 100B but I like the specs on the SM96 and then add subs. Even with the 100B's extension I would still add additional subs for HT. From What I have gathered the SM80 will do nicely with a TH412. I believe the SM80 needs to be crossed at around 120hz

For home though I really like Mike Heddens old picture of his three SH-50's, DTS 20 and dual TH-50's front stage. Thats my kind of thinking.

There was a youtube clip of someone and their 100B's but unfortunately they were not listening to anything with real dynamics.

hi.....i only brought up the SM-80 to illustrate Ivans' status at Danley Soundlabs as the (i believe) designer of that speaker system. i mean here is a man who designs speakers for Danley and hediscounted the SM-100B for that application. it's moot anyway, i have decided against Danley. while i am very intrigued by the sonic qualities of horn loaded systems, just not enough info out there on the Danley speakers i am interested in. even if i were to drive down to Georgia for a listen, not my system, not my room.. there is a Danley installer a couple-three hours away from me though....i may call them before i place an order on Seatons.... i don't know. thanks for the assist though.

Makes sense. I dont think he was saying anything bad about the 100B just what he may have felt would work in that application. If you would give Ivan your needs and room size I am sure he can suggest you what would work best out of all the DSL lineup. I would definitely suggest having a listening session before buying anything that is 1500 or more for a speaker. I live in Australia and will be flying to DSL to listen to their lineup this summer. Fly in and then fly out over a quick 4 day trip. But I figured it best because I wanted to be buy the SH96 and 1500 for a ticket and listening to everything they have is all worth it verse reading about it.

Good luck in your venture.

While waiting for two custom stands, I have been experimenting with placement options with the SH50s and I have to say that it is quite a task! Right now they are sitting on two short temporary stands (made from aluminum extrusions) so no height adjustment is possible. Current height from the floor is only 1.3 feet and I can only play with the toe in angles.

I am having a difficulty to widen the sweet spot! Siting right on "the money seat" (or dead center) imaging is perfect and you would swear that the center speaker is playing. However, moving left or right you hear the corresponding speaker augmented masking the other. To be honest, by placing the speakers with one side parallel to the side walls but NOT touching them places the two seats (left right) adjacent to the money seat outside the radiation field of the horn at 3.8 meters from them. Placing them ON the sidewalls is something I can't test right now since I can't move them alone and there is a distance of 40cm from each wall. The room width is 5.6 meters.

So my questions are:

A) Is the low height from the floor (only 40cm) really detrimental? (The new stands will allow for height adjustments in the range of 50cm to 1.2m from the floor.
B) What is the best angle for the widest possible "sweet spot" in stereo?

Any suggestion would be welcome.

I did manage to make some adjustments that widened the sweet spot but the speakers are "really" toed in. The horn throats do look at the side walls but at 2/3 of the sitting distance while all seats still remain within the radiation pattern of the horns. I guess that if raised a bit and tilted some degrees down so their "fire" crosses just in front of the seats (as Danley suggests too), less toe in will be required. One certainly needs to experiment quite a lot with them before the optimum positioning is achieved.

I've read that having them above the listeners and toed in so the middle of each speaker is aimed at the furthest listening position past the centre listener. Of course, you have to ensure all positions receive coverage.

You should try plotting out your room on the computer or on some graph paper. Do it to scale and use a protractor so you'll be able to see where the limits of the coverage pattern are.

Keep us posted on your progress and post some pictures.

There is a Danley software tool on their site that I downloaded and I could probably design the room in there but I need to find the time to play with it. Nonetheless, if all goes well next week I plan to order the stands! They are not going to be cheap though the way I want them that is why I am saying "if all goes well". I want something pretty that can raise the aesthetics of the speakers quite a lot since I might be modding their external appearance as well. That is for just for the long term though.

Interesting, what do you plan on for the external appearance?

First of all as I said I will start with the stands which will enhance the look anyway. For the top part now it gets a bit more difficult given the "square hole" this speaker looks like.Yet, given the fact that the horn should not be touched then we are only left with the outer shell to mess with and this means that by adding anything to it could also increase size. I am still thinking about it so if I mange to come up with something that makes sense I will post pictures here. My SH50s are custom finished anyway so adding to them will also damage the finish and that I need to think about carefully. The whole idea is for use in a living room and increase WAF but mine are in a dedicated (dark) room so it just for fun working on any looks modding. For sure I will post pictures of the stands when they are ready.

The custom stands have been ordered and will take about a month to get here. All I can say for now is that they will be height adjustable and weight assisted through a spring mechanism, they will have concealed wheels, tilt capability and support for slide prevention of the speaker and will look nothing like the usual. They will be heavy though!! More than 110Kg each! When the 3D models are ready I will post some photos here. Perhaps we make them available to other people as well although the cost is certainly very high since for their production both lasers and CNC will be employed.

I love my DANLEY SH50'S, SH69, and 4 SH 100 and 3 DTS 10. sOUNDS AWESOME AND SWEET.

It's been over a month and the stands are not ready (damn!) but soon the phone will ring and they will be! Oh well....

Kutlow, since you mentioned your configuration and given that I have not yet bought the surrounds (using some JBLs) how do you find the SH100s performing for mid bass? How do they perform from 80Hz upwards compared to your LCRs? I have been puzzled by this question and the next model suitable for surrounds the SM96 is seriously more expensive and 4 of them is pushing it cost wise here (15-16,000 EUR) with all tax and shipping. I was also thinking about a pair of SM60Fs for surrounds as well that I could also use for other purposes from time to time but I don't know whether they are a better option for surrounds. My main concern is to match the bass performance of the LCRs above the 80Hz crossover point.

Oh the stands are ready metal cutting wise and they will be saint for coating this week. Hopefully, they will be ready next week and I hope I did not miss any important feature. As I said, the will allow height adjustments up to 115cm from the ground and the lift will be assisted by a spring mechanism so it can be done with one person. There will also be tilt, and the speaker angle can be adjusted easily since the base has concealed steel ball wheels aka B&W 800 & 802D. It took really long but it had to be done in between other jobs in the machine shop.

So I hope to come back with pictures next week finally.