Fall Frenzy, Curve Frenzy, Man of Steel theater (You pick) - BIGmouthinDC hits the road again -... - Page 7

Ahhh - yup - thats what I did :-) searched for 3.875.

Thanks!

Up here in Canada, HD has Ridgid hole saws. You buy the arbour then buy whatever hole saw size you want. A bit pricey, but they have all the sizes up to about 6".

Thanks for the info. Those are the exact same lights I am using in my soffit. My soffits are 5 1/2" high, so I was very happy to see that I am not the only one with a "short" soffit. I am curious to see what you do for the lip that will hold the rope light. I have been playing with a couple of ideas, but nothing that I am crazy about yet.

Off to Amazon to order a hole saw!

Hey Big - I know I asked in another thread what bulbs you are using - Just wondering if you are using the same for this build?

I can tell you just by looking at them that those are GU10 bulbs, either 35 watts each or most likely 50 watts each.

Here is the info on the bulbs we ordered at 1000bulbs.com

MR16JDR-9817FP Hikari JDR-9817FP - 35 Watt - MR16 - Flood - Frosted Capsule - GU10 Base - 2,000 Life Hours - 120 Volt.
Edited by vikgrao - 11/23/12 at 11:53pm

Cool - thanks guys!

Question - do you guys ever sleep? Seems like I see posts at all hours of the day and night!

3am-7am is more than enough for me!

What's the advantage of using the QSC Audio gear? Their website has a lot of detail,but I could not make out the bottom line advantage of their sound processing that an Audyssey-capable preamp would not also offer.

Watching with interest as you are basically in my back yard. Looking good and to have someone with Big's rep and experience involved is the icing on the cake. Excellent work and progress.

Regards,

RTROSE

Thanks RTRose! PM sent!
Edited by vikgrao - 11/24/12 at 10:57am

An Audyssey pre-amp won't even come close. OTOH, the QSC gear requires a professional and professional sound measurement equipment. With Audyssey, just keep pressing the "calibrate" button until you like the results.

To carry on what Dennis mentioned, here are a few questions for thought. What if you don't get a result you like, and how do you know if it is accurate? How could we change it so we do "like" it? Do we just take Audyssey's word for it?

@DIY...Audyssey is not usually correct. It has come close in rooms I have done using it, but that's after I messed with it and used a lot of gear to measure the response (Only the pro version and a subEQ combined with it...I won;t even touch the onboard software as that comes nowhere near close). I have yet to perform an Audyssey calibration, both onboard and pro, that I haven't had to adjust some big issues to get it somewhat into alignment. It doesn't work very well without a lot of help. It is NOT the magic bullet...not by a long shot.
Edited by SierraMikeBravo - 11/24/12 at 9:55pm

Thanks for the response. One of the factors, I suppose, one has to weigh in before spending ~$6K for QSC gear and service. OTOH, on the Audyssey thread, here is what is claimed:

Finally, this post http://www.avsforum.com/t/759877/seaton-sound-submersive1/4500_100#post_19446901 shows the results of Audyssey XT32 for equalizing subs. The results are quite amazing.

So, as long as the goal of making it sound to reference is achieved, it should be good enough because that is what the director intended the audio to sound like, shouldn't it?

Also, why use a rubber underlayment/OSB on a concrete slab in the basement? What is the sound source that is being isolated? Unless one lives next to a busy freight train track, it is not clear what purpose it is serving.
Edited by DIYHomeTheater - 11/25/12 at 6:51am

Actually, that's the point I was making. Audussey IS NOT close to reference. That's what I usually have to adjust. Audyssey still takes a lot of work to make it reference. I have been working with it for almost 6 years. I have yet to run it and it does it correctly. In all honesty, the marketing should read preference instead of reference. Don't get me wrong, I'll do an Audyessy calibration, but it STILL takes as much work to deal with it as it would the QSC gear, and the results are not the same as it would be with the QSC. Once I am in a room calibrating, folks finally understand the versatility and right decision of the QSC gear. Everytime I leave an Audyssey calibration, there's always some issue I could not resolve due to its severe limitations.

The floor...hmmmm. You got HVAC in the house? You have other noises in the house? The house is attached to the concrete. Concrete is an extremely efficient xmtr of sound....12,000 ft/s. all that sound from the house comes into your room via the concrete floor. The question you need to ask yourself is, do I want to do this right or what you may think is "good enough". This is the pot calling the kettle black, but websites are FULL of misinformation.

I am responding in this thread because DIY PM'd me and asked me to offer my thoughts. I have not read the whole thread, and I am only responding to the discussion about Audyssey.

To a certain extent, I agree that Audyssey is not a perfect solution. It's a generalized solution attempting to correct some very specific and unique room acoustic issues. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes users really like the results, other times, not so much. I also agree that Audyssey most often doesn't get the optimal results. In fact, I think it is very important to verify and optimize Audyssey with measurements. If you read the link DIY posted, you'll see I did just that.

IME, Audyssey almost always get the crossovers wrong. It measures the -3 dB point of the speakers in the room. However, the -3 dB point at 75 dB is almost always different than the -3 dB point at 100 or 105 dB. I find that I very often need to raise the crossovers set by Audyssey.

Also, Audyssey often gets the subwoofer Distance setting wrong. It measures the subwoofer in isolation, checking the acoustic distance based on the arrival time of the signal through the subwoofer system. However, it never goes back and *measures* the blend of the subwoofer(s) and the speakers. I usually find that an adjustment of the subwoofer Distance setting is necessary to optimize the blend. Sometimes it's just a few dB, sometimes it's huge, as much as 20 dB.





Still, in all, these are relatively small problems, and they can be discovered with inexpensive measurement gear, and corrected with a little insight into how the system works. Once these issues are corrected, Audyssey's EQ provides very "flat" response, (which is what I think you mean by "reference.") Above the mid-bass, Audyssey does very little. It sets a flat midrange target curve and a HF roll-off of 3 dB above 10 kHz. I admit Audyssey doesn't have much adjustment capability, but there's not a lot to adjust there. It does a pretty good job of hitting it's targets:



Some users may not "prefer" a flat response, but if they want a rising bass response, that is what Dynamic EQ is for.

Can a "professional and professional sound measurement equipment" do a better job? Yeah, probably, although that comes at the cost of a "professional and professional sound measurement equipment." The cost differential between a full-bore QSC system plus the labor to implement it vs. an Audyssey based system can be *HUGE*! For a guy who's internet handle is "DIYHomeTheater", it would seem like Audyssey XT32 plus an inexpensive measurement system, and some time spent learning how to use it, would be a much higher value proposition. I know it was for me.

Craig

Craig,

In addition to the problems you have noted I have experienced several additional issues. One of which is setting distances wrong for many if not all speakers. This is quite evident in playback (and the pro version at that). Further, it has a tendency to also deal incorrectly with polarization. I dealt with an issue several years ago where Audyssey Pro was unable to resolve a boundary gain issue for the left front speaker. If a more robust system had been incorporated, this would have been no issue. Once again, audible in playback. For a room where people spend tens of thousands of dollars, DIY or not, are all these potential issues "good enough"? Maybe for some, maybe for all? I also disagree that the mid range does not need work. IME, it almost always does. For those without measurement gear, and given the issues identified, which almost always appear, how will one know when it is "good enough" or if Audyssey missed the mark? Do we just cross our fingers after spending $20,000 or more on construction and equipment and hope for the best? Audyssey can do a fair job, and I do still actively recommend it given certain parameters and budgetary constraints, but always with the understanding of the limitations. Lastly, once multiple rows and side speakers are brought into the equation, Audyssey picks up its bags and says "see ya" as is the case whose thread this is. The one factor Audyssey has always gotten right is that it successfully brought the importance of acoustics into the mainstream. I don't want to sound overly harsh on Audyssey. It is what it is, but once you've drank a glass of the good stuff, it's just kinda hard to go back. Just my two cents.

Anyway, let's let Vic have his thread back and discuss this in a different thread.
Edited by SierraMikeBravo - 11/26/12 at 9:11am

Off topic, but Big visits Columbus Indiana, takes a day off goes to Indianapolis (a city I visit on a regular basis) and finds a good place to eat that I have not heard or or seen and makes me want to go there for eats. Big can do EVERYTHING. Next thing we will see is Big in a red convertible with spiky blonde hair doing a tour of home theaters and Mexican restaurants. Dinner and a movie. Hey wait a minute? Hasn't that been done before?

Regards,

RTROSE

Is this the same Big we have caught glimpses of before?
If so; I am having trouble visualizing the spiky blonde hair ??

This should help. I know I had trouble as well.



Regards,

RTROSE

The Mexican food must have been real good, or real bad because there have been no updates on their progress since.

Well in a sound isolated room there is limited air movement as well or at least tightly controlled airflow. If one of the vents/doors was sealed could have spelled the end for both of them and no one would have heard their screams for help.

Regards,

RTROSE

All is good Busy these two days harnessing as much as electricity we possibly can for getting unlimited power to the theater and equipment room!!

I wish I knew more about calibration to the point of correcting things myself, but after I looked at speaker settings POST-Audyssey, the settings seemed odd to me. The crossovers were all very different than what I expected, and things like the sizes of the speakers were almost always changed to small. (I think I noticed in your other thread you mentioning a point about why is there for a need for full size speakers in a surround setup with subs) But the one glaringly obvious thing was the subwoofer volume. Every time I ran it, the volume was too low. I needed to raise each of my subs db levels to get it to where I thought was the sweet spot. As far as listening, the one thing I do notice about the XT32 calibration was how crystal clear the vocals were. The front sound stage sounded very natural to me. If I knew what I was doing, I'd probably invest in gear and figure out how to tune my settings to get better results. To be honest, I need to do this with my projector too, but I also don't know how.

How much longer are you in town for BIG? I need to pay a visit to this build since I'm only about 45 minutes away.