Carp's basement hide-out - Page 5

Yes, the pics are 16.5 feet and that's where the couch was for the blind shootout too.

Oh yeah, the Budokan concert is great. The guitar solo on Hollow Years is an all time favorite of mine, it gives me the chills. Singers voice is a little flat most of the concert, but he sounds great in the "Score" disk, I wish I could combine the overall sound quality of Budokan with the on key singing of Score.

I have one for you if you don't mind a little female fronted symphonic metal. The band Within Temptation has a Blu-ray called Black Symphony. It is the best sounding concert disk I own, and I have a lot. From about the half way point on the songs just keep getting better it's a goose-bump a thon. I've heard the same songs recorded in the studio and they just don't do it as much for me. Live with the orchestra playing behind them, wow. Here is a mellow duet from the concert, they obviously have much heavier songs but this was the youtube video that prompted me to buy the blu-ray.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR_mBh5mqok&list=PLE1CF064FEBFACB5E&index=2&feature=plpp_video

The disk looks and sounds much better of course even though you can select 1080p on the youtube video.

Yeah, Scott Ian is probably 50 now - wow.

Thanks man. I am REALLY digging 7.1, I should have done this a long time ago. Just watched The Grey over the weekend and I was in the snowstorm/wind/plane crash etc. It was amazing, even if it did anger the wolf community for being so fake, haha. My room seems to be perfect for it with leaving what were the side surrounds and now using them as rear surrounds and putting the new side surround speakers to the sides of my LP.

Wow, 10-11 feet from 126!! I'm 14 feet from 124 in 16:9 and 158 in 2:35:1 and I thought that was close... I know how this works though, at first I thought I might be too close and now the screen doesn't seem overwhelming at all. I don't know if I could ever do 5 feet though, haha.

Ha, yeah I still listen to Rust in Peace (the only Megadeth album I LOVE, I like plenty of them) and Reign in Blood, I'll never tire of 80's thrash. Piece of Mind, hell yeah love Revelations!!

I assume you are familiar with Opeth? If not, oh boy, you have a ton of unbelievable new to your ears music waiting for you. I first heard them 10 years ago and at first I didn't think much. I almost force fed myself the album Still Life since I had heard so many great things about them. I'm glad I did, because now I think they are the best band in the last 20 years.

Check out the album Blackwater Park first - give it a chance. It's the type of music that takes awhile to click but once it does you never get sick of it because it's so varied and non-cookie cutter.

BTW, Steven Wilson does a lot of backing vocals on Blackwater Park and also some on the next 2 albums Deliverance and Damnation.



IMO they have 5 albums (their 2nd through 6th albums) that are damn near perfection:

Morningrise
My Arms Your Hearse
Still Life
Blackwater Park
Deliverance

2 more albums that are a tier below but still great

Orchid (1st album)
Ghost Reveries (8th album)

Watershed is solid (9th album)

Oh, and if you like Steven Wilson you should love the album Damnation (7th album), it's all clean vocals (the music isn't metal but it's awesome) and he does a lot of backing vocals on this one too.




OK, I got a little carried away.... but I absolutely love this band. So much so that even though I hated their album they just released last year it doesn't bother me since they have so many great albums and I'm sure they will release something great again someday.

Ahh crap, what are you trying to do to me DD??? I just told myself I was done for awhile after the last 2 eD speakers...

That is a good deal even if it is the non HP version.

Wow, cool I'm really surprised you haven't run onto them. It was so cool getting into Opeth, so much great music. Ok, dip your toe in slowly... let's see... I assume you use grooveshark or spotify so you can check out songs/albums for free?

Try the song A Fair Judgement from the Deliverance album first. No growls, I don't want you to get scared off right away.

If you want to jump in to a whole album then yeah, check out Blackwater Park. Don't judge on the first listen, I had to fight off that urge because I wasn't impressed right off the bat. Judging from you musical tastes there is a good chance you will love this band too. I completely agree with your Enter Sandman opinion, ugh.

Just got my side surround speakers mounted to the wall. It was a bigger pain than I thought getting the speaker wire behind the wall for my right side surround speaker. I already had a speaker wire run under the carpet for back when I had my passive Captivators and was experimenting with placement. I figured all I would have to do would be take off the bottom trim and drill a hole in the dry wall, drill another hole behind were the speaker will be and run some fish tape and I'm good.

Nope.

Even using fish tape it was impossible to not get tangled up in the insulation and I accidentally poked holes in the plastic vapor barrier. Nice. So, I had to cut open a big section of the drywall, get some of that really sticky vapor seal tape and repair my damage. I used a butt-load of drywall compound last night, so I hope it's dry enough to sand tonight.

I hope the rear surround speaker on that same wall won't cause the same issue but I bet it will, I'm expecting to have to cut open the drywall to get the wire fished through.

I'll post some pictures later of how things look with full 7.1 surround. I'm not too upset about the extra labor because I'm loving 7.1, I had the speakers up on stacked end tables on one side and a ladder on another for a couple of weeks to make sure I really wanted 7.1 and it makes a big difference in my room.
Edited by carp - 8/30/12 at 10:16am

Thanks goto10 for the compliments! Yeah, it would be nice to have a dedicated room, but I think I actually prefer having a multi-purpose room... good thing because I could never afford it anyway.

I mounted my 4 surrounds speakers with brackets from Axiom. http://www.axiomaudio.com/fullmetalbracket.html I really like them because the speaker stays close to the wall, you can angle side to side and up and down, and they are very sturdy. They say they are rated for 40 pounds, but I bet they could hold more than that. My eD speakers weigh 22 pounds so the brackets are plenty. I also got a discount since I have bought several pairs of Axiom speakers over the years.

I ended up not tearing the plastic when I fished through the speaker wire on the right rear surround speaker thank god, so I won't have to cut out any more drywall. On the other wall the laundry room is on the other side so it was piece of cake getting the wire to those speakers since that is the same side of the room that my closet is on where all my components are.

Finally, I'm 7.1!!






I had to get creative to try out the speakers at the height I thought I would like, they were like this for 2 weeks which my wife really loved...






The above pic shows the speaker wire coming through the wall for the left surround back speaker. I drilled a hole there because that is where my Magnepan surround speakers used to go.







Avove are the right surround and rear surround speakers from the LP. This was a pain to get the speaker wires through the wall!! I think I already mentioned this, but I had the speaker wires already run under the carpet so all I had to do was take off the baseboard and drill a hole and fish through the speaker wire using fish tape. Unfortunately on the side surround speaker I accidentally tore through the plastic vapor seal so I had to cut out a big section of the dry wall and repair my damage. Patching up that hole wasn't easy, I haven't worked much with drywall before so I was pretty happy with how the repair turned out I really can't tell that I had to cut a large section out of the wall.

Fortunately I didn't tear through the plastic vapor seal when fishing the wire to the higher rear surround speaker.







Above are the left side and back surround speakers. It was easy to get the speaker wire to these speakers, on the other side of the wall is the laundry room and my equipment rack is in the closet on that side of the room. I painted over a lot of areas on these walls where the kids had gotten them dirty. The paint is flat which is impossible to clean and gets dirty if you breathe on it. I prefer the look of flat though, so that's the trade-off.






In the pic above you can see that the surround speakers are obviously different heights. I did this because I thought the sides sounded better for music a little lower. The rear surrounds are obviously the same speakers I used for surrounds when I had just 5.1. I put them up that high for 2 reasons. First of all, I don't want to hit my head on a speaker as I walk into the room, and also the back of my couch is kind of high and this way the speakers have a direct line to my ears and are not blocked at all by the couch.






Above is why I have all my surround speakers upside down. I am able to angle the speakers away from the wall much better this way than if I had screwed the brackets higher up on the speaker with them right side up. I actually prefer the look of them upside down anyway.






I love these Axiom speaker brackets. They are expensive, but I did get a 15% discount since I have bought a few Axiom speakers over the years. I already had a set on the rear surrounds so I ordered 2 more for the side surrounds. It's good to know that Axiom's customer service is still outstanding. I like these brackets because they are extremely sturdy. The say they are rated for up to 40 pounds, but I bet they could hold a speaker heavier than that. Mine are 22 pounds, but as you can see the rears especially are angled way out which would put a ton of pressure on the bracket but these hold no problem.

http://www.axiomaudio.com/full-metal-bracket.html


Also, the wall plates look much better than just having holes in my walls. Dirt cheap from monoprice.


http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10425&cs_id=1042503&p_id=3324&seq=1&format=2

Also, I was only able to use a stud for the left side surround speaker, the other speaker brackets are in the drywall only. I used these wall anchors which work great, I've had the left surround speaker held up by one of these for months so I know I'm good.

http://www.toggler.com/products/snaptoggle/overview.php





I have a few odds and ends to tie up in here. Above shows a couple of them. First of all I need to get black wall plates/sockets and also I need to bury the subwoofer cable under the carpet.




Also, I need to raise my projector a few inches. My LP used to be almost 3 feet back from where is is now, and I didn't have to worry about hitting my head on the projector when it was like that. However, since I moved up to just under 14 feet from the screen the projector is now out in the middle of the walkway to the couch. The bottom of it is 5'10", and I'm 6'1" when standing up tall so that's no good. I can only raise the projector 4 inches though because of the ceiling fan. I am not going to take out the fan, my wife and I use it when we do a workout so that isn't an option. Raising up the projector to 6'2" will be plenty, most people, myself included, walk a little hunched over so unless someone 6'4" or taller comes over I'm good. Jonathan, if you are reading this it will be awfully close for you!!

Thanks Holt. Make sure to post pics and impressions of your new projector, that's awesome. Do you have a thread on the room config forum? I'd love to see your setup.

You should download Spotify. You can get get all the music you want. If you type in an artist, all their albums come up and it's all nice and neat. They do have commercials of course, but not that often.

Thanks Andrew - wish I was coming out with Jonathan to your place. I'm looking forward to reading about it though, that's for sure. Yep, start a thread here!! I've seen a few pics of your place but more is always better - plus I'm sure people will be curious to see what your room is like prior to the GTG, you could link it in your GTG thread.

I'd love to, but I've developed an intense, irrational fear of flying. I used to fly all over the country for track meets when I was in college and it didn't bother me at all. I don't know what happened...

Yep, using your wall prior to buying a screen so you know what size you want is the way to go.

Spotify has more music than any of the others that I've tried (I think I tried Mog too a long time ago and wasn't that impressed), and it's layout is very well organized. If you search for and select an artist it lists each album separately and usually in chronological order of album release. It's like an itunes player with unlimited songs. Every once in awhile there will be an album or song I can't find but it's rare. The only catch is it is a program you have to install and not just a website like Grooveshark.

Thanks Bunga, much appreciated. Right back at you though, I love your room and I bet music in there is unbelievable. I read what you said your wife thought of 4.1 sound and how it made her dizzy and that the center channel sounded great (even though it wasn't on). That must mean the combination of your speakers and treatments gives you great imaging/soundstage/etc. In my room PLIIx music sounds fantastic and it's what I always use now, but I bet if I had your setup I'd be going strictly stereo too.

Thanks Tim.

Can't believe how good youtube can look and sound. Here is a pic from the full 720p concert in Nimes France. The sound and picture are awesome.

Here's a couple pics with lights all the way up:





Lights off:





Man, the band is spot on even on Dyers Eve. Incredible.

I may have already posted this link earlier, but just in case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMpKsRcGyTI

I have my PC connected to my projector with a crazy long HDMI cord. I don't have direct tv, sorry I can't be more help on that.

Also don't forget to change the resolution to 720p.