HT Speaker setup dilemma

Several things could be playing havock on you right now. If you can actual pictures of your room would be a HUGE help. Also tell us your goal and an overall budget.

But for one when possible always place the TV and front speakers along the narrowest wall. So for your room that means rotating everything 90 degrees. Then with that said pull the couch at least 3' off the back wall.

Make sure your speakers are set to small and try 80hz to 120hz crossover see what cross over sounds better. The other thing is you are asking TINY speakers to fill a fairly large area. My guess is that their -3db point is like 100 to 120hz so they have no bass whatsoever and the sub is only good down to 45hz at -3db.

Not sure what your budget is but if you have to have tiny speakers check out these as they will be better than the Polks http://hsuresearch.com/products/performance2.html also I think you can order a single speaker so you can have a 7.1 setup. But unfortunately any time you limit the size of the speakers that much there is only so much sound they can produce and they will not sound as good as bigger speakers.

Audyssey keeps picking large for our mains and it confuses heck out of me as I know for purposes of quality bass management, the mains need to be set to small. What's with that?

(LPF set to 120Hz in Audyssey and both subs.)

Your problem is obvious; you have cheap little inadequate front speakers. The 3-inch driver in those things is about the right size for a motel clock radio, and that's why they sound like one.

Personally, I would say that the tiny Polk speakers simply don't sound very good to you; they wouldn't sound good to most people eother IMO.

I would recommend that you get a pair of KEF iQ3 speakers (KEF Direct website) or a pair of Monitor Audio Bronze BX-2 speakers. Either of those should give you about 500% better sound quality and solve your problem.

If that is more money than you want to spend, a pair of Polk Monitor 40 speakers would be a lot less money and still be a VERY big improvement over what you have.
Edited by commsysman - 7/31/12 at 7:42am

FWIW, every time I run Audyssey, it changes things to less than ideal; mains large, center channel LPF set to 40Hz.

This is what I found on Onkyo's "Loudness Plus."

Turning Loudness Plus off was the right move as it's in conflict with Audyssey's Dynamic EQ. I love Dynamic EQ.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/1/12 at 6:36am

LOL


The problem is how the sound engineer mixes music vs how the sound engineer mixes a sound track for an action sequence; two totally different animals requiring two different speaker settings. In my opinion, we're dealing with three different mixes if not a dedicated home theater system; mixed for television, mixed for music and mixed for THX movie theaters and the three do not get along and play well with each other.

For music and the television, I'm going go with three channel and a sub.

For THX theater mix, you need a pair of subs, LPF set to 120Hz and the Amp setting set to 7.1 at a minimum as there's all kinds of confusing choices for this setting. Let Audyssey analyze the room and go for it.

In the case of the Amp settings, set the amplifier settings as such:

Speakers:

All speakers set to small.

Mains LPF (crossover) set to 120Hz.

Center Channel LPF (crossover) set to 80Hz. (improves television listenability.

All Surround LPF (crossover) set to 120Hz.

Audio:

Center Channel or Dialogue increased 8dB. (improves television listenability.

The above settings are intended to create a compromise between television listening and THX movie theater mixes. Now one can listen to the television as ~90% of dialogue is ported to the center channel so the settings are center channel centric. This way, for television listening, for the most part, the subs do not need to be turned on unless it's a bass-y kind of action mix with a lot of bass mix or a full range music video mix.

Audyssey user settings.

Audio > Audyssey; Audio Surround Parameter:

Audio > Audyssey; MultiEQ XT GraphicEQ; On.

Home Theater EQ: On.

Dynamic Compression: Medium.

A hidden one in the Marantz is the button on the lower left of the Marantz remote control that shows on the on screen display, what DSP settings are available as movies, television and music might use three different possible DSP's; pick the one which reflects the most advanced possibility such as:

Stereo
Dolby Digital
Dolby PLII Movie

Currently, this is how our system is set to match our various viewing and listening choices.

Good luck as it seems Audyssey like to fiddle with the above.



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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/1/12 at 12:22pm

That's the rub of a music mix vs television vs a THX level movie mix; three different animals with only the music studio caring a wit about the poor bassist's feet. Well, that's the rumor but nobody's inviting me to any after parties and the drummer's not talking to me either, so I have go with rumor.

If the sound mix ports the 120Hz and below to the 0.1 channel, then zero will come through the mains or centers. But if you have the mains, both are playing and both are set for 120Hz, then the two sound waves, one from the mains and one from the sub, get into a street brawl and your bass, despite the quality level of gear, cables and subwoofers, will get in an argument with each other and you'll end up with boom-y, bloated bass notes that sound terrible as you try to deal with cancelled out bass notes, wanting tight, punchy bass.

Hopefully this link will give you more information to work with.

Here's a bit more from Audyssey.

And despite your best efforts, because it's not a perfect world, when the movie ends and you put on music, thankfully, the music studio sound engineer does a crazy good stereo sound mix and reasonably you want your mains to accurately reproduce the sound engineer's efforts so you know right where the bassist is. My solution, two subs, one on the outside of each of the mains, LPF set to 120Hz so when the music is ported to the mains, the bassist is right where he's suppose to be. But I lighten up on the center channel (80Hz) as there's where most of the television action is; compromise and balance.

Note how the specs of these Klipsch, THX bookshelf speakers are limited to 80Hz.


You're welcome. Hope the information is found useful.



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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/1/12 at 12:55pm

Most likely your speakers are the culprit. Those fronts are really old. Can you see the cones? Are they in good shape? They were just never designed for home theater use. Also your setup looks a little odd.

Look here:

http://www.dolby.com/gb/en/consumer/setup/connection-guide/home-theater-speaker-guide/index.html

and here:

http://www.thx.com/consumer/home-entertainment/home-theater/surround-sound-speaker-set-up/

for some help.

I also noticed you have a whole lot of very reflective surfaces in your room. That makes the sound bounce all over the place. As a result you are getting the same sound a varying times which will give you a very smeared impression of what you are hearing. Placing some absorption at reflection points throughout the room would help a lot too. There are a lot of threads here in room treatments. I think you could benefit greatly by doing a bit of that.

Did you match the parameters of your drivers to the cabinets? It isn't a simple matter to drop in new drivers that are the same size as your old ones. The cabinets and crossovers are specifically designed to work with the original drivers. If you already knew this then never mind.

You can always purchase uber expensively priced speaker cables and hope the placebo effect kicks in.

(sorry, couldn't stop myself)

The speakers for the television, up in the upper Left/Right are too far away and you have mismatched speakers, mains to center channel, creating a serious timbre mismatch. And the distance of the speakers is so great that you probably have a 6 - 9 dB differentiation as to output matching. Hopefully Audyssey addressed this timing/distance mismatch.

If I were to make any changes, I'd bring one pair of the little speakers down and put the pair on stands to the L/R of the sofa and then have the other pair about even with the front of the sofa just above head height pointing down at the viewers sitting on the sofa. Not knocking the speakers in the entertainment center, but I'm betting they're not a good match and should be used just for music and not be part of the theater system.

(my apologies if I'm now in trouble)

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 8/1/12 at 2:41pm

FYI, Audyssey is not setting the crossover point, it is determining the point that your mains roll-off:
https://audyssey.zendesk.com/entries/108049-crossover-frequency

If you have a dedicated sub, set all speakers to small and your crossover point at 80hz. Measure and go from there.

Thanks. I've read these articles over the past few days and believe what you're posting but as stated, it reports back to the AVR and because of this report, the AVR changes things.

"In your product, speakers found to roll off below 40 Hz are set by Onkyo to Full Range (i.e. with no crossover to the sub). That means that bass will not be redirected to the sub. Audyssey recommends that if you have a sub you should set crossovers for all your speakers."

So, as I posted a few posts above, I keep doing what Chris suggests. I'd much prefer the spoiled world of having things done my way.



Due to the wife watching the Olympics, I haven't been able to run Audyssey again to see if the changes I made, hold. The good news, I have a solid bass management plan in place. The bad news, the machines are conspiring against me and right now, they're winning.



(Oh, and I got my wire and RCA cable orders in today, so it was a good day. Soon I too can manufacture uber expensive speaker cables and then sell them to my unsuspecting self. I'll make a killing.)