Triad Owner's Thread - Page 147

You could do Bronze or Silver Surrounds in the ceiling if you can't install surrounds symetrically in the side walls. Also, you'll have a huge 70 Hz (and 140 Hz) peak in that room most likely. You can saw the peaks off with Audyssey in your receiver (if it has it.) And make sure you don't sit dead-center in the room, because bass does not exist there, and there's no way to get it back in that spot without pulverizing anyone sitting elsewhere in the room.

If you buy Triad Surrounds, order from an authorized, local dealer and submit a paint number for exact matching to your walls or ceiling. It's worth it (it's free. Duh.) and you cannot repaint the grill inserts in case you order black or white ones.

I do have Audyssey and will use for the setup. Will I notice much difference if I ceiling mount the surrounds vice in Wall? The one will fit over the door frame but has very little flexibility for placement. Can I mount the center channel behind the 52 inch monitor or should I mount below or above? The top of my monitor is 52" from the floor and I have 8 foot ceilings in this room.

Paul, don't know how often your around anymore but I've had someone ask how the Bronze LCR compares to the Gold Omni SE. I don't have nor have I heard the Bronze LCR so I can't make much of a judgement, so curious what your thoughts are.

Those two speakers are for different applications. The Bronze LCR will play louder with more dynamics and it's for use as an LCR. The Gold Omni SE has a more focused, accurate sound, but it doesn't play as loud. It would make a superb distributed audio speaker, an LCR in a very small venue, or a great pair of stereo speakers in a small room.

Paul,
My room is 16.5x16 with 8 foot ceilings. Based on your recommendation, the surrounds will be going in the ceiling. Would you recommend Silver or Bronze surrounds for this size room? The LCRs are Silver In Walls.

Either will work well, but the Bronze Surround has less headroom below 100 Hz, and you may have to set the crossover to 100 Hz or even 120 Hz. If you can, use Silver Surrounds. Although both speakers sound very close, when pushed, the Silver Surround has more poise, and setting the crossover to 80 Hz keeps them from sounding "thin."

Sounds good, silver surrounds it is. Working with your DC rep to find a local dealer.
Thanks for the help!

Washington DC area? I'd recommend Audio buys in Gainesville. There's a place in Tysons Corner but I'm not a fan of them. No one in the area stocks anything so if you want to hear them before buying you will have to rely on fellow AVS'rs ....

No, I am in Virginia Beach. Even more audio challenged than DC!

My uncle lived on 23rd Street. Nice place.

Just got my gold lcr's installed and they really sound terrific. I was a bit leery of buying speakers that I hadn't listened to, but for in wall speakers to sound that good is really impressive. We are so happy with our decision to go with Triad. I also decided to go with the XPR-5 instead of the XPA-5, probably overkill, but what the hell. I did have a few questions though. I ran the audyssey auto set up through my AV-7005 and it set the mains as large and full range, the gold center (in room) as small / 80 for the crossover, and small / 90 for the crossover for the in wall silver surrounds (which are mounted in the ceiling). Sounded ok, but then I set the mains to small/80 to match the CC and the sub was hitting a bit harder. (svs pb12 plus/2). Audyssey also really had the levels set pretty low on the mains, cc, and sub. Now the room is still not completely done, installing sound treatments, etc, so I know I'll have to run the setup again, but any thoughts on crossover settings, etc? Thanks.

Your fronts should be set to Small, not large.

Set all speakers to 80 Hz. I am really at odds with the implementation of Audyssey on many pre/pros and receivers. Just because a speaker has the ability to deliver decent bass at 50 Hz doesn't mandate that it be run full range. A good subwoofer will outperform a Gold LCR at 50 Hz by a mile. By definition, an LCR is designed to be used from 80 Hz and up, with a subwoofer. Set your crossovers to 80 Hz and you'll have far more headroom and less distortion than if you run your LCRs fullrange. If you have power handling issues with the surrounds, set them at 100 Hz. And the room will calibrate differently after the acoustics are addressed. My belief is Audyssey works great as a digital EQ, and not so great in determining your speaker crossover points. In fact...FAIL.

Paul,

You are blaming the wrong entity. Audyssey doesn't set the crossover. Audyssey measures the in-room -3 dB point of the speakers and *reports* it to the AVR or pre/pro. The AVR manufacturer then decides how to use that information to set the crossover. Marantz, like several other manufacturers, decided that any speaker with response below 80 Hz would be set to Large. That is obviously a stupid decision, and it results in inappropriate crossover settings, as experienced by jimbo70. Audysey must have measured some response below 80 Hz, which wouldn't be too surprising in a speaker with a specified - 3 dB point of 50 Hz. Nonetheless, it's not Audyssey making the crossover decision; it's the manufacturer of the AVR or pre/pro.

Fortunately, in most recent implementations of Audyssey, the manufacturers have taken a more sensible route and used 40 Hz as the -3 dB point below which they set the speakers to Large. That's better, but actually all systems with subwoofers should have the speakers default to a crossover setting, and force the user to manually go in and change it to Large if they want to make the mistake of doing so.

Jimbo, your decision to use an 80 Hz crossover with your Gold's was a wise one.

Craig

Just want to point out that your speakers being set to "large" or "full range" is not Audyssey. It is what your amp/receiver defaults to and Audyssy themselves advocate setting them to small. To Paul's point, I agree that Audyssey tends to set the crossover point too low. My main speakers are rated to 20hz and Audyseey typically tries to set them to 40hz and have even seen 30hz... I have done lots of testing and 80hz clearly is a better crossover point for me, even with main speakers capable of playing well below 80hz. Human ears cannot localize bass below 80hz, hence the recommendation to let your subwoofer handle it.

Also, you can still leverage the Audyssey EQ system as long as you raise the crossover point that Audyssey sets. If you lower the crossover point vs what Audyssey sets it at, you effectively disable EQ.

Setting it to 80hz also your dedicated subwoofer to handle the bass, and gives more headroom to your main speakers.

Reference:

http://www.audyssey.com/blog/2009/05/small-vs-large/

Edit just saw Craig's post and learned something myself about how Audyssey determines the crossover points.

Just to clarify, you don't disable the EQ if you lower the crossover. Audyssey will still provide room correction, (EQ) to the -3 dB point it measures. But, if you lower the crossover below the -3 dB point, you won't have EQ below that point. In fact, you won't have flat response below the -3 dB point anyway; the response will be rolling off. For that reason. setting the crossover below that, is not a good idea.

Craig

Please note that I said the "implementation" of Audyssey; not Audyssey.

Hello all,

I am buying a house with a pre-wired five speaker ceiling and I stumbled upon this thread during my research. Here's a floor plan schematic. The approximate speaker locations in red and TV in blue mounted above the fireplace.

floorplan.gif 21k .gif file

As you can see, my HT will be in a large, multipurpose open area on the first floor (19x22) with nine foot ceilings. Adjacent to that area is the breakfast room, kitchen, and dining room. There will be a sectional couch about 12 feet from the TV and we'll have a rug underneath, but otherwise the floors are hardwood. Directly above the great room is the master bedroom (all bedrooms on 2nd floor). This HT setup will be primarily used by the wife and I to watch TV, movies, and to throw a kick ass Super Bowl party We are not going to be cranking the volume and blowing out the speakers... but I do want a good surround sound system! We might use the system to play music but it would only be for ambiance.

What appeals to me most about the Triad speakers are the enclosures and the 45 degree angle for in-ceilings. Based on the 9 foot ceiling and the location of the LCRs, a 45 degree angle should project the sound to the couch area quite nicely. And having them enclosed should help limit sound bleed upstairs.

I've already bought the TV but I don't own any of the speakers/sub/receiver yet. I've got a marantz SR6006 on hold at Best Buy since they are on great closeout pricing, and from what I can tell it might drive 4 ohm speakers decently.

The In Ceiling Bronze/8 LCR are in my price range; the Silvers are not. I could really use some advice on choosing between the various in-ceiling models:

- Mini/8 LCR
- Bronze/8 LCR
- Bronze/8 Satellite
- Silver/6 Satellite
- Silver/8 Omni

Which ones would be suitable for my floor plan? Is the marantz a good receiver for my setup?

I don't have a subwoofer picked out so I could use any advice there as well. The sub does not have to be in-wall, it could be in-room. I don't think the wife will let me get away with two subs.... :-(

I've contacted the regional rep and gotten one referral for the local rep but I could use any thoughts/advice here as well. I'm in St. Louis, MO.

Thank you!

Go with the Bronze/8 LCR if you can afford it. I've had both the bronze and mini lcr and the bronze are noticeably better.(and play louder) The Marantz should work fine. I use a denon 3312 to power my IC bronze lcr and it handles it without a problem.

What is your budget for a sub?

Thanks for the response! If I go with the Bronze/8 for L, C, and R, what should I use for my two surrounds?

Re: subwoofer - Under $1k, preferably $500-$700. I have no idea here so I am completely open to suggestions.

Subwoofer. You have a large room. I would get one of these if you can up the budget to $800 shipped:
http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/vtf-3mk4.html

Another option would be one of these:
http://www.svsound.com/view-all?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=14

Or one of these if you are getting tight on the budget:
http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/lfmEX.html

Adding a second sub down the road will help with smoothing out response and giving you more output.

If you want to stick with the Triad line, under $1000 would be hard. However, you could go used. There are a few Gold subs on audiogon, not dsp ones, but probably still sound great!! And for the money, you can't beat them IMO.




Sent from my iPad

Problem I have seen with used subs on Audiogon is the cost of shipping unless you can find one local. And then it is still used which means you don't have a warranty since Triad does not transfer warranty from the original purchaser.

What area are you in? There might be a good deal on bronze/8 but local sale only.

Anybody have an opinion on how a platinum DSP sub compares to an SVS PB13 Ultra. I am currently using our PB12 plus/2 from upstairs (which we have had for years and really like) but the plan is to go with 2 subs for downstairs. I was pretty much sold on the SVS, but we are so happy with the Gold LCR's that we're also considering the Triads. My concern, (probably unfounded) is the Triad is sealed and the box is a a fair amount smaller than the SVS. I don't care for over the top bass when listening to music, but for movies I am really looking for disturbingly loud and tactile bass. The room is a bit large at just under 3000 cu ft, but it is completely sealed. We would most likely be adding one sub at a time with a few months between purchases. The costs are basically the same depending on finishes, so it just comes down to which will perform the best.
Thanks,
Jim

I am in the greater St Louis, MO region.

possibly stupid question...

can i "frame in" an in-wall (like a windowbox) and mount that on-wall?

the reason i ask is because i eventually hope to end up with an at screen/cloth wall, but it may take me awhile to get there... however, i'd like to transition over to an in-wall/on-wall solution in the meantime...

tell me if i'm being an idiot... i'm a big boy, i can take it...

thanks.

You can do it for sure. I've mentioned this to Triad a couple of times that they should create a finished frame for their inwalls. That's what the Dali Phantom Frame is for their inwall..

^^^

wicked cool... i can handle constructing something like that... thanks tony...

Chris,

I am sitting here scratching my head trying to understand why you would want to do this. You are in the Triad thread, so I assume you are considering Triad in-walls for this installation. All Triad in-walls come with an integral enclosure and a standard in-wall speaker mounting system. What would a "frame-in" offer over that? It seems to me it would just be an alternative mounting system, more complex and potentially more problematic than Triad's own standard in-wall mounting system. In addition, you may need a custom sized enclosure to optimize your "frame-in". That would add cost, with questionable benefit.

In any event, if you do decide to go this route, as you design the "frame in", be sure you make the transition edges as smooth as possible. An in-wall speaker is, by definition, an infinite baffle speaker. It expects to see a flat baffle, and it's radiation pattern is predicated on that. Sound waves propagate along the surface of the baffle wall, which, if smooth, provides a uniform radiation. However, if there is a break-up in the surface, it will distort the wave. I found this short video that depicts the phenomenon:

Bottom lime, the smoother you can make the "surface" transition from the speaker box to the frame, and ultimately to the wall, the better the speakers will sound.

Also, remember that mounting speakers in the wall limits the ability to toe them in. I don't know how important this aspect is to you, but you should be aware of it, and it should factor into your in-wall speaker selection.

Finally, be absolutely certain you know where the speakers should go before you start cutting holes in the walls. It can be very hard/expensive to change things after-the-fact.

Craig