Danley SM60F L/C/R in-room design and setup

So I finally got CFO approval to go ahead and get the speakers I really want. It's taken a lot of overtime shifts, but I'm sure it will be worth it. I'll be ordering these in a few weeks, but in the meantime I'd like to figure out the best way to set them up.

Here's a few shots of the three basic locations available to me. Any recommendations for toeing or adjusting the position of the speakers are welcome.

I'd like to have a general idea of where the speakers are going to go so I can plan accordingly.

I could provide a complex, detailed explanation of all the factors involved in why it is important for me to know if all the speakers will go behind the screen, but suffice it to say for now that it's complicated, and it will be very helpful for me to know ahead of time whether I will be putting them back there or not, and whether putting them all the way out to the side corners should even be considered in my particular situation.

The first model shows the three speakers behind the screen, with the L/R acoustic centers at a 25 degree angle from the primary listening position. Note that the L/R speakers can't be moved any farther out laterally due to the screen border -- the L/R speakers can't fire directly into the non-AT screen border, and they won't fit in the recess outside the limits of the screen.



The next model shows the L/R speakers at a 35 deg angle from the listening position. These would be wall mounted on Danley u-brackets.



And the last model shows the L/R speakers mounted to the side wall on french cleats, at a 45 degree angle from the listening postion, with the side walls serving as an extension of the horn mouth as is recommended in some installations. Probably not recommended for my extra wide room, but I'll put it out there just to have a look at it-- you never know what tricks may be up the sleeves of these unique speakers.



The back wall of the theater has multiple large openings. This, along with the assymetrical recessed window, played a significant role in determining the unusual orientation of the theater. I do understand that the more conventional layout is for the theater to be longer than it is wide. It is my hope that the openings in the back wall will have the effect of creating a larger room acoustically, and be a positive rather than a negative. We do like the way the room opens up as you walk in and you don't have to walk around a sofa. The flow of the room is much more inviting in this orientation. An additional bonus of this layout is being able to watch the movie while milling around in the hallway behind the theater. Here are a few models and photos of the theater layout.

We do plan to add as many acoustic treatments as are deemed necessary.















Thanks for your reading through my lengthy post here, and for any insights you have to offer.

Hey Robert -- thanks again for having me over the other day. Your setup was really, really sweet. If I can get my theater anywhere near as dialed in as yours I'll be a happy camper . I figured I couldn't go wrong with the Danleys, and they fell in between the price range of the JTR's and the Catalysts, so I'm pretty comfortable in my decision. These are the ones I've really been after since deciding to go with high efficiency controlled directivity design, so I just decided to bang out some overtime and get what I wanted. I held out for a kit as long as I could, but I can wait no longer.

I did get a chance to hear some Danleys this year at a wedding, and really did like the sound. It was just a pair of SH100's and a horn sub at an outdoor wedding and they sounded fantastic, so needless to say I'm eager to see how these turn out inside mated to the massive IB! Not to mention how much fun it'll be if we ever get around to doing a side by side of the JTR's, the Catalysts, and the SM60F's...

If I was to guess I would say that the 35 degree option would be a good place to start. All 3 speakers equidistant to the listening position, mains outside the limits of the screen avoiding the minor HF loss associated with an AT screen, and the largest sweet spot of the three options. But that's just what it would be -- a guess.

The screen is 120" wide, 130" diagonal 2.40:1 SeymourAV Centerstage xD acoustic transparent.

And oh don't worry -- I most certainly will try all three positions. I'll probably try thirty positions! But I can't just shelve this project until they get here. I'm way too excited for that!

I'm not expecting any definitive answers -- that would be unrealistic. But I'd love to hear from Ivan Beaver or Mike Hedden, or someone else with extensive experience with these or similar speakers, about where they think would be the best places to start, and any other gems of knowledge they would care to share. I made up the diagrams mostly out of curiosity and excitement, but they should also be helpful to others trying to get a picture of the scale of my room and how the speakers could be integrated.

I wanted to see what kind of coverage I would get laying them up against the wall in the corners like I've seen Danley recommend in narrower rooms. I was also a little concerned about bunching them together on the front wall, thinking they may interfere with each other so close together. I wanted to make sure that option 2 didn't have the mains too far forward, and closer to the primary listening position than the center channel, and now know that it's actually equidistant. So it was an exercise not completely in futility. I think it's very interesting to have them diagrammed out with their coverage patterns, and a good place to start, but in the end you're right Robert, it all comes down to how they sound in these positions, not how they map out in google sketchup.

And hey did you get a chance to try that Raspberry Lambic? What'd you think... pretty good eh?

Hey Forin thanks for stopping by! That's great to hear. It sounded like flush to side walls was the ideal setup, but I was a concerned that my room might be too wide. I'm still within pattern all across the couch from all speakers, so it might still work. The middle seat would definitely be happy anyway. Can't wait to give it a listen now!

Ugh the SH-100 center channel. I went back and forth with this one. I'd love to A/B them, but I'm afraid if my wife got wise to what I was doing it would be all over for the SM-60F center channel. Seriously I think I'd have to sneak that one in when she wasn't around for the SM-60F to have a chance! The SH-100 just makes a lot more sense behind the screen simply due to its much shallower depth of 8", but I'm not going to make any significant compromises in sound quality to accomodate the shallower speaker. I guess if it's something a few acoustic panels on the ceiling would fix, then maybe...

I'll be in touch via PM. Thanks again.

You're probably right that comb filtering won't be an issue. I seem to remember reading on a pro audio board that you don't want the signals to overlap, but I think that may have been for horizontal arrays, and probably doesn't apply to my L/C/R front stage. I'm still liking option 3 as my favorite option thus far.

It didn't occur to me to ask Tom Danley to chime in. I guess I didn't I was quite far along enough yet where I felt it would be worthwhile to bother him, but I didn't seem to have a problem inviting Ivan and Mike over here . No offense Mike and Ivan .

I only PM'd them on Friday and I imagine they just haven't gotten to their inboxes over the weekend. I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say. Maybe they'll be able to tip the scales for me on the SH100 vs SM60F center duty dilemna I'm facing.

I also have a discussion lined up with Forin and I imagine he'll be able to give me some valuable feedback on the SH100 as center duty between two synergy horn mains.

I'm going to integrate some older stuff to get started, but after the dust settles I'll be upgrading piece by piece. I do have a Behringer EP2500 and a DCX2496. Initially I'll probably just pick up another EP2500 and use the Behringer stuff for the IB. That would put out about 225w at 8ohms per sub, which should be plenty to get those 18's moving in free air. If they need more power I'll run try running them at 2ohms and give them 650w each.

For now I'll probably just make use of an old Newcastle pre/pro I have laying around. It's a nice 10yr old unit which should tide me over until I can afford to upgrade to the UMC-1. Hopefully I'll be able to pick one up before they run out, then follow their nicely packaged upgrade path when the XMC-1 comes out.

We've got two big vacations coming up to Hawaii and to China, so I'm gonna have to cut some corners somewhere. I'll probably pick up a pair of QSC RMX amps off Craigslist for the mains. I have an old Yamaha 2-channel power amp that I bought new 20 years ago and has never let me down, so I'll use that to power the SH Micro surrounds -- it's good for 170wpc at 8ohms, so it should do just fine for starters.

At some point I'll probably upgrade my PS3 to an OPPO for blu-ray duty, but I'll tough it out for at least another year anyway with the PS3.

Now, off to chat with Forin about his setup...

I just talked to Ivan over at Danley and he answered all my concerns very thoroughly and gave me some good ideas with mounting.

So it'll be SM-60F across the front and SH-Micros for surrounds.

He actually recommended starting out with option #3 and toeing them in even farther, so the dispersion centerline of the L/R speakers is aimed at the opposite end of the couch.

He recommended this so that the amplitude would be more symmetrical across the listening positions. This way the side listeners are getting on axis response from a speaker that is far away, and off axis response from a speaker that is closer. This equates to relatively equal volumes from each speaker at all listening positions. There is also the added benefit of deeper extension with the corner placement of the mains, and the wider soundstage will have a more dramatic side to side panning effect.

So the speakers would actually be closer to being mounted sideways on the front wall then frontways on the sidewall. I'll have to take a look at toeing in the speakers a little more in the model once I get home to see exactly what that will do to the soundstage, but it looks like it'll bring it out in front of the couch a little more too, which would be better for standing up in the room and listening to music. That's a big bonus, as I can see myself standing there cranking music sometimes too.

I can't wait to see what it sounds like.

So here's the jist of what Ivan recommended. I think this is pretty close to the angle he thought would work the best.



I won't be able to use french cleats for this positioning -- I'll need to get the u-brackets.

More good advice from FOH! Thanks again FOH, not only for this nugget, but also over at the IB forum for steering me in the direction of these speakers. I definitely will be patient and enjoy the process of taking my time getting these setup like you recommend.

Ivan did mention that they have a demo room that is dimensionally very similar to mine that works very well set up with the speakers very wide in a short room, throwing across the listening position like in the last model, so that's a good start anyway.

He also recommend trying the back wall with and without absorption, with the couch against the back wall or within a foot of the back wall to minimize the effect of a delayed reflection off the back wall, and to improve bass response.

I also plan on roughing together a temporary riser to get the back of the couch elevated to the bottom of the window opening behind the couch -- to see if a permanent riser would be of any benefit. It may or may not be helpful -- and in fact it will likely make it worse with all the untreated reflections in the room behind the theater. I'm thinking some heavy drapery to cover the entire back wall of the theater is my best bet, with a 1' x 2' cutout for the projector's beam of light. My original plan was to treat the entire front wall and back walls of the theater with 2" OC703, with panels also at first reflection points on the side walls and the ceiling. I'm hoping I'll be able to get away with much less. We'll see.

Got the order in for 3 SM-60F and 2 SH-Micros.

OK so here's the latest incarnation. I'm fairly confident I'll end up with the speakers in the front corners like Ivan recommended. The variable will be the toe angle. It looks like it should be really close to 45deg to aim the speaker at the opposing passenger seat.

So after crawling around the attic and ruling out various IB locations, this is the latest incarnation of the IB/LCR, with the center channel attached by flypoints and set up to raise and lower from behind the cornice (for lack of a better term). There will be five separate IB manifolds. Two in each front corner -- one venting into the ceiling/attic and another venting into the floor/garage attic. Also front and center just in front of the cornice there will be a 2x2 cutout / vent with a 4-driver IB manifold in the attic.

So in the image below I've come up with dual IB's straddling a soffit mounted SM60F. I'll give Danley a call to see if they've developed an optional crossover with no BSC for soffit mounting the SM60F. I would imagine there's only the standard crossover available, so If I end up going this route I'll likely end up running the signal through a mini DSP to tame the bottom end.



Any thoughts? This is not your typical full wall baffle mounted type soffit mount. Would I be better off just making the subs as small as I can and not walling in the SM60F?

Hey thanks for saving me the call Ivan. I'll just use a mini DSP or my DCX2496 to tame the low end then. I think having the extra extension on the low end will help integrate the mains to the IB.

BSC = baffle step compensation.

So what do you think of the corner pillars with the SM60F walled in as shown? My wife sure likes the idea. Do you have any better ideas to get them hidden into that pillar somehow? I'm going to cover the whole thing in AT fabric, so there are a lot of options available.

Also, the IB manifolds can be made taller or shorter to make for a tight fit for the SM60F or to give it more space.

Thanks Ivan. I think I'll start a new soffit thread over in Theater Construction to see on getting some more input on soffits...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post21058999

Speakers are in!

I only got about an hour of listening in late last night, in a primitive setup running off the Comcast box, and with the wife and daughter in bed, but they've got me very excited. The most remarkable thing about them at low volumes was the incredible imaging and very wide sound stage. I've owned quite a few good speakers and a couple really nice car stereos in the past, and have always tried to convince myself that I was hearing good imaging. I'm chuckling at myself now as I see I was only kidding myself. I now realize that when you have good imaging, you'll know it. You won't have to look for it, analyze it, or try and imagine it. I was also never able to understand how people could do a 2.1 with a "phantom center", but I think I could have gotten by very nicely for quite some time with a phantom center. In fact in a tight budget I would definitely recommend that route with these speakers. I think it would be a huge understatement to say I'm happier so far with my 2.1 Danley SM60F system than I was with my Klipch Reference 5.1 system. Even without eventual upgrades, I'd rather run this 2.1 in my theater than that 5.1, no question. Am I happy I didn't try a $4-$5k Planar/Ribbon based DIY project, which I nearly did? Absolutely.

I watched the last part of a Sara Bareilles concert on cable last night and it was nothing short of amazing, even at low volumes. Watching and listening to her sing and play the piano, it reminded me a lot of a small Marc Cohn concert I went to fifteen years ago, which was the best acoustic experience I've had. I'm working a double today, but I'm eagerly awaiting the 45 minutes of solitude I'll get on Friday after work before everyone starts coming home. I'll really put them to the test tomorrow. More pics and impressions to follow on Friday. I think I even have a copy of open range lying around somewhere...

I think my favorite soundtrack is "Man On Fire". I guess I'll run over to Blockbuster after they get home and fire that up tomorrow night. I'm really, really looking forward to that...