Athena owners thread. - Page 19

Cool.


You don't need much room for the R1's to be wall-mounted above and behind the seating. The side-firing tweeters help here, too. Just a thought.


Well, the F2 are as dynamic as all get-out. Only another F2 would really "keep up" once you've reached a certain volume level. However, short of another floorstander at center (only really practical with front-projection), the C1 actually has more woofer surface area than the other bookshelf models (quite a bit more, actually) and so would probably keep up best looked at that way. The B2 has an advantage in dispersion, though, how it sounds far off to the sides.


Sometimes "non-centers" make the best centers. There's rarely anything really "special" about a "center" speaker except that it's made to sit, and fit, on a TV.

Haven't seen any real testing on them. I doubt either could keep up with a PB10, or even the Mirage for that matter. The 6000 intrigues me, and I'd probably pick one up just to try/return if they sold them in the local stores. They're cheap, sure, but I'd only say they offered good value if the performance set them apart.

I read somewhere that the side and rear speakers should be separated enough and the rear speakers should be further back in a 7.1 configuration. I only have 2-3 feet probably behind the couch to mount the rear speakers.

btw, thanks for all the advice. I want to decide and move on to my next purchase, several amps and several pre-amps.

lmao!!

hmmmm.....now that would be a awesome horizontally mounted speaker

Do you angle the R1's down at the listening position, or is that not important with bi-pole?

Dont know at all, just researching what I should buy for my new house.

Hmm, trying to picture the room. The sides should be to the side and above the couch. 2-3ft is enough room behind to put rears, I think, a couple feet in from the corners of the room. You wouldn't have a diagram of the layout, would you?


Hah...you laugh. Here's a older setup/screen with one of my F1 between F2's. That's the idea...the center doesn't have to be horizontal if you have room below the screen.



This is the current setup, below, with a C1 between F1's. The screen got wider/taller, and I didn't want the bottom of it too high, so I went with the C1.

Don't have to, they fire straight out.

Just the full house layout.....http://www.penngray.com/house/house.gif

its the room that is on the top right of the page, its shown as separate because its actually a room above the garage.

its 16' wide by 25' long.....

There is a window at the one end and the entrance at the other, we want to have a bar at one end of the room where the window is and so instead of going the length of the room to watch the movies (play xbox!!) we are going to place the A/V stuff against the Left wall. That gives me 16 feet from the TV to other wall. We are not going to go with Projection either, probably 60''+ rear projection LCD or maybe 50''Plasma that will be mounted on the wall itself.

Now 7.1 system has two initial problems....
1. Side speakers on Ceiling or 10 feet away on each wall.
2. Rear Speakers behind only 2-3 feet assuming we are sitting 12 feet from the screen.

Nice house!

I see your situation. Were I to do it, I'd just go 5.1 with the R1 surrounds on the back wall. The ceiling-mount is another option, if feasible for you. I wouldn't bother with the far walls.

Move the seating up so you're only 9'-10' from the screen, unless that messes up the position of the side speakers. This will give you plenty of room for the rears.

Thanks, I would do 7.1 if it made sense and I dont mind the ceiling. I just want to make sure that 7.1 will give me more then 5.1.

Well, that's a whole other question I can't address since I'm still in the dark ages of 5.1. I'll go 7.1 with the next receiver and in the meantime I'll continue searching for another pair of R1's from the original series...

I finally replaced my old Yamaha 595a receiver with the Onkyo TX-SR573 this weekend. The Yammy was too bright from my Athena B1-C1 system. Also I get Dolby PLII/PLIIx now plus Neo:6 for TV listening and all channel stereo for the occasional party. After calibration the overall sound is better and I'm a happy camper.

The Yammy served its purpose for 6 years but its time had passed.

The Onkyo is also XM ready and has an iPod connection. All for less than $200 from Fry's. And its a good match for the Athenas.

Finally hooked up my point 5 system and s8 subwoofer with my htr 5860 reciever and I must say that I am amazed. It is so cool it is leaps and bounds better sounding than my previous cerwin vega set up.

I'm no expert, but this is what I would do:

Plan on being about 10' away from the screen. This would be ideal if you go the 50" Plasma route. This will leave approx 5-6' walkway behind your theatre seating to get to the Bar area at the end by the window. You may even have enough room to build a small bar/stool area behind the theatre seating and still have enough of a walkway. Also, depending on the type of seating you are using, I would build a raised platform for the rear seating. There are a bunch of examples in the before and after home theatre thread.

I would go with a 5.1 system for now, using the rears, but run wires in the ceiling (now while you are running wires anyway) for the other 2 7.1 speakers. If you get it setup and decide 5.1 isn't good enough, then add the other 2 speakers later. I would want them ceiling mounted as I think 10 feet will be too far away.

For about $250 the P-6000 was a good balance of price & performance for my situation. At least for my house, you could even say it's quite overpowering, and I couldn't fathom getting anything more substantial. But everybody's situation is different.

To anyone with a Point 5 setup, what receiver setting do you have your speakers at, LARGE or SMALL?

I tried P-4000 in my Audition series but found it overpowers the rest of the speakers even when I turned down its volume. Music sounds somewhat mismatched with other speakers. The only good thing is it does create floor shaking effect on action movies.

I compared it head on with Velodyne VX-10 in similar price range and found that the Vel sounded much natural and coherent in the system especially on music performance. Now I can see that manufactuers specalize in subwoofers like Velodyne, SVS do have their niche in the market. I am going to keep VX-10 for sure.

My system is:

2 X F2.2 (front)
1 X C1.2 (centre)
2 X B1.2 (rear)

^^why'd you go with the B1.2s as rears instead of the R1.2s?

Small

small, but I only use .5s for the sides and rears.

Anyone not happy with R1.2's as rears over a B1.2, micra, or some other equivalent.

I have the .5 MKII setup and I have them all set to small. For Music or Movies I think they sound great. While watching TV though (usually PCM audio) I sometimes need to set the center channel volume to +3 or +4 to increase the dialogue volume.

Need Your help/Opinion

I am considering the following

Athena 15373 Micra 6 Speaker System, Silver/Black going for $299.00

or

JBL SCS180.6 Complete 6.1-Channel Home Cinema Speaker System 250.00

Does anyone have an opinion of these speakers?

Pleas let me know.

Thanks.

Since this is the Athena owner's thread, you will obviously get votes for the Athena system here. Post this question on the JBL owner's thread for the opposite result

I would go for the Athena .5 MKII System, then add a Dayton 12" sub from Partsexpress. You may still be able to find mkii system at Best Buy on clearance. Total would be a little more than the Micra system, but I think the mkIIs are larger, and you would also have a larger sub.

You won't get any responses for the JBL here as this is the Athena Thread.

Don't see them at best buy and amazon say they are no longer available. I also have to keep size in mind. Thanks for your input. I gues I will lean towards the micra's

http://www.onecall.com/ProductDetail...d=458&id=21573

Darn, I went to one call, they don't have them either....Oh well