New Home Theater needs speakers



Thanks to everyone who has replied so far.  I was hoping to get away with being lazy and not posting pictures, but I'm going to the house today so I'll take some and put them up so people get an idea.

 

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Originally Posted by dannybenz  /t/1517732/new-home-theater-needs-speakers#post_24355594


You can obtain better speakers than Paradigm SA and still stay within budget. To start, would you prefer LOUD, dynamic and clean or accuracy and neutrality with the pontential to get it moderately loud? Are behind the screen speakers an option? If not, do aesthetics of the speaker matter?

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This room/setup is going to be 95-99% movies/TV, including streaming stuff like netflix so I'd say for that I personally would rather have Loud and dynamic.  If I listen to music to really appreciate accuracy I'd listen to something with good headphones.

 

I will show you pictures later, but my screen is porous and the previous speakers were behind the screen so I was thinking I would keep that setup.

 

In my opinion, higher end technology is it's own aesthetic and looks good wherever you find it, but no I want the best sounding speakers no matter what they look like.

 

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by charmerci  /t/1517732/new-home-theater-needs-speakers#post_24355523


You're going to get a bit of advice from here so I'll just start you off.


First, most subs have their own power amps - no worries. Those large woofers need a lot of power and that's much less strain on the receiver. No worries.


For that budget, you can do much better - and you'll get suggestions so. I'd personally get Salk speakers. www.salksound.com Call Jim and he can get into contact with someone near you who owns some that you can listen to.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/939744/the-official-salk-sound-owners-and-discussion-thread

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Thanks for the recommendation, from the discussion thread people obviously love the finished product and they are gorgeous to look at.  I didn't spend hours, but I didn't see any that looked in wall.  Also it seems like the wait can be long and I want the theater up and running.

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Other questions from the responses.  I was noticing that the sensitivity of the JTR's that were recommended was much higher than some of the other speakers.  All this means is that given the same amount of Wattage coming from the amplifier, the speaker will sound louder correct?  This has nothing else to do with sound quality.  Assuming I decide to go with more power (that Emotiva XPR-5 really is a sexy beast), does this have any real consequence?

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   Finally I think in the 2:30 am haze of hours of online reviewing I mentally miscalculated my budget.  Probably more in the realm of $15-16,000.

 

   Pictures to come later tonight.  Thanks again for all the advice so far!


OK, I have some pictures, although I have to say they turned out terribly, maybe because of the wall lights.

 



 

So this is the best view I could get of most of the room.  8 seats, you can see the 3 in wall LCR speaker holes that were behind the screen.  The room is 15 feet across, and 21 feet long.  It's basically a rectangle although the area where the door is at cuts in at an angle and that affects the placement of the rear wall surrounds.

 



 

Here is a shot of the wall where the screen is.  You can also see the connector for one sub in the far right corner, there is another one in the left corner.

 



 

This is the angle of the door, you can see how the left rear surround is moved towards the center of the room, and the spot for the left front surround.

 



 

The back wall with placement of the rear surrounds and the projector cables hanging down from the ceiling.

 

 

So there is the set up.  As you can see, the fronts I do want in-wall, and the screen already allows sound pass through.  The surrounds don't have to be in-wall, but will have to be on-wall at least.

 

Last question.  How important is impedance matching the speakers to the output of the amp?

 

Thanks again for everyone's help.

You got a beautiful room with lots of space.


If was you, I patch the wall, get some towers on the L/R of the screen, place a center dead in the middle (angle-up as needed).

The previous poster had some very good rerecomandation for alternative for speakers.

I personaltly use Aperion Verus Grand.


My point is , with such a nice space you should try to sepatete your left and right to give yourself and your guess the most and not every thing in the center


Keep posting of progress.


Ray


So I think I'm getting very confused about what is truly going to give me the "best" sound (I know there is some sense of "the eye of the beholder" here).

 

I was operating under the assumption that having the 3 in wall speakers were going to give me the best sense of movie sound, as the sound is coming right from the movie image itself, and such a large amount of the sound stage, especially dialogue volume, comes from the center, and the front in general.  From these posts I'm getting the impression that people think having floor standing fronts and center are going to be a better sound option.  I'm curious how much better if this is true, because as I look at the room again, I much prefer the in-wall behind the screen look where you can just focus on the big screen.  I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I searched in-wall speakers and spent about 2 hours looking at the results and I didn't find any real discussion of why one would be better than another.  For that matter, just based on reading reviews, it's hard to understand which manufacturer is any better than another at this price level.  For those people who made specific recommendations could they tell me why they feel that way objectively?  I did actually like the JTR recommendations, they look like really great speakers, but why is this so much better than say Triads, which also seem to have a great reputation here.  Also for subs, what makes one sub so much better than another besides pure power output?

 

For the surrounds, it is fine if these are wall mounted, or in wall, I don't mind either way.  I just want them to interact well with whatever I chose to be the front 3.  Is it OK not to get all the same manufacturer?  I've read that sometimes same manufacturer speakers are all "voiced" together.  Can you buy anything of comparable quality and just expect them all to function the same?

 

Finally, I'm really considering the power/pre-amp vs just one AV amp setup.  Assuming I wanted that Emotiva XPR-5, it only has 5 outs.  Which speakers do I give the power boost to, and which don't I?  Or is it only the front 3 that need the power?  I'm assuming that the subs will be powered in themselves.  For the other 2 or 4 speakers, I obviously need a true power AV receiver and not just an unpowered pre-processor.  What does that mean that some speakers are getting such a power boost and others are not?  Also, what is the purpose of having 400 watts per channel amplification for a speaker that can only accept 150-250 Watts of total power as it's upper limit?  Finally, some speakers are 8ohm, and other are 4ohm, I know I can put an 8 ohm amplifier out into either, but how much better would it be to impedance match, or does it not matter at all?

 

Lots of questions.  This is kind of hard, but still pretty fun.  I'm just wondering if all of this is really just about the ears and personal preference?  If so, then maybe I should just get the triad silver/6's and be done with it and save myself a lot of time and grief.  Maybe any well-revewed system at this price range will sound amazing and I'll never really even be aware of the incrementally "better" sounding speakers.  How do people use "evidence" to make suggestions or decide on the products they buy?

 

Like I said in my first post... Help!?!



Quote:
Originally Posted by shadyJ  /t/1517732/new-home-theater-needs-speakers#post_24362923


I don't think its terribly important to have the surrounds match the front stage. You just don't want them to be drastically different. The ideal is to use identical speakers for ever channel, but you would be spending an inordinate amount on the surrounds in that case, so the idea requires the ideal budget.

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That makes sense.  So let me ask you, what made you pick those JBL's besides the obvious price restriction that I placed?  It's obvious from your answer that you have a certain way of calculating value as quality/price (which most people do of course), so given price, why are JBL's the best quality?

 

This is what I'm trying to learn.

 

Thanks for answering.

JBL tends to a flat response plus high dynamic range. Here is the spec sheet for the 8320s . They have a fairly neutral response, so, as surrounds, they should blend in well with whatever front stage you decide on, as long as that front stage is somewhat neutral in response (all of the choices you are entertaining will be something like neutral). They are THX certified speakers that are $500 a pair, their impedance stays above 8 ohms for the entire frequency range, and they are 91 dB sensitive, so any AVR can drive them to blazing loudness levels with ease. You won't need separate amps for those JBLs. On top of all that they are easy to mount! Nothing else comes close to that kind of value for surrounds. All of these other companies will charge you an arm and a leg for surrounds which likely won't perform as well. Take the money saved from buying the JBL 8320s and add that to your subwoofer budget. The returns on subwoofer spending do not begin to diminish nearly as early as surround speakers.

So it's been quite a while ago, but the theater room is done. I thought I'd at least tell everyone what I did.

I found an amazing guy in the Cleveland area to help me with this project and I went with a lot of his recommendations that was also hopefully saving me some money as well. Like I said before, it's unfortunate but there is just no way to test higher end gear if you aren't in the trade so you have to rely on people who might have some experience. If you are in the Cleveland area and want a recommendation for someone just ask me, I can't recommend him highly enough.

In the end, here's what we did:

Marantz SR7008
Episode speakers - 3 ES-HT950-IW-7 fronts (in-wall)
4 ES-HT950-IWSURR-6 dipole surrounds (in-wall)
2 ES-SUB-EV012-300 (12 inch 300Watt powered subs)

URC MRX-IOS remote control Kit with URC MRF A600M lighting control - was somewhat costly, but awesome in the end

Sony VPL-HW55ES projector

We also got 2 outdoor speakers (there is a huge deck and pool outside) that is controlled with the universal remote package - as is 2 speakers in another room in the basement.

Parasound ZAMP Quattro 4X50 power amp
ES-AW-6-WHT Episode outdoor loudspeakers with 6.5" woofers

I think the whole thing looks and sounds amazing. Not to mention it's all controlled on hand-held devices (iPad mini or iPod touch) including the lighting and the outdoor speakers from anywhere. Obviously in the end I can never know if the triads, or JTR or AT, or any of that other stuff may have been better or worse. I couldn't find a lot of information about Episode speakers, but most people seemed very happy with them. For only 300 watt, the subs are pretty strong, although in my mind's imagination sometimes I think the bass they give isn't as rich as I think it should be, but on the other hand, they aren't turned up all the way because it's too much base if we do. The comparison I was given was that these Episodes had the sound quality of Triad golds, but that was someone's opinion so take with a grain of salt. I've never compared the 2 side by side.

A final few words: Upstairs in family room I went with my gut and got a Hsu bookshelf system and I freaking love it. We got the Rosewood and it is beautiful with the VTF-3 MK4 sub which is a beast. Also got the Bravia 65 XBR 4K Ultra HD for family room and I can't say enough for this TV, especially for things like Netflix that really uses the 4K. Sometimes we forget we can be watching the same stuff on theater size screen because it's so beautiful, especially scenes with high black/white contrast.

Anyways, thanks for all the advice above. I think a lot of those recommendations would have made for killer systems as well, but mine turned out pretty fantastic as well.