Surround Sound

[Bob in St. Louis]

Ok cool. Thanks for that.
You know, I checked the >> documentation on my Harman Kardon AVR 645 << and it's not capable of what we're talking about here.
.............. ................ ................

Bob

[rvsixer]

Ok cool. Thanks for that.
You know, I checked the >> documentation on my Harman Kardon AVR 645 << and it's not capable of what we're talking about here.
.............. ................ ................

Bob

An HD HT like yours deserves HD sound . I see you have 5.1 discrete inputs on your HK, but the Sony PS won't support that .

I am not all that familiar with the Playstations, but I seem to recall some of the older ones can be converted to support bitstream output, and the new ones already do (best check to make sure). If that's the case with yours, I purchased a warrantied factory refurbished AVR254 for ~$200 off fleabay that supports 7.1 TrueHD/DTS Master Audio.

A bargain upgrade to my HT . At first I went "wow, its not that big a difference" over DD/DTS. But the more I started watching scenes with footsteps sneaking up on you, or raindrops falling on leaves and such, I realized how much more enveloping the experience was.

PS I finished the test baffles for the used SI's I purchased, and just now listening to them. Very different from my box speakers, but I do like it, must digest over a nice Chardonnay and favorite albums .

[dantheman]

Rvsixer, my sincerest thanks. That's what I was looking for. Now I've got my place to get started. I'll look for that other thread as well Bob. Thank you!

Dan

[willyspuddle]

The way I handle movies now a days is to stream all the content to a media tank from my PC.

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/ ... on=catalog

The a-200 connects to my Denon 1910 and passes all audio uncompressed via HDMI. It will play just about any format know to man including blueray .iso's, .mkv's, .avi, .mp4.

Mine is set to stream with wireless N and it works great for any file 4 gigs or smaller. It stutters with the 8-15gig blueray rips wireless. Need to run a gigaport router with wire for those, or just plug in a usb hardrive to the front port. Pretty nice to have remote control play/pause/fast forward on a file that is on a computer one floor lower. Denon also added the ability to play uncompressed audio via hdmi to there sub 380.00 1610 receiver.

As a bonus it streams pictures and music from the pc as well.

Cheers!

[Bob in St. Louis]

I did the video stuff first in my room. I've been concentrating on the audio for a few years now, with more to go. Kinda sucks I've not even reached "the end" and I have to upgrade the first things I finished.
Oh well. As you said, it'll be obsolete in 10 business days anyway.

There is some great info in this thread. Lots of ideas to spend money. I've been drooling over willys Popcornhour machine since he installed it "way back when". I'm VERY jealous of that!! The capabilities of that are impressive.

Bob

[dantheman]

It seems from the links that having all your speakers the same might be the best way to go about it for more modern formats. Does this correlate with other forum members experiences?

Thanks,

Dan

[Bob in St. Louis]

Absolutely 100%
With tonal characteristics and such, at least the front three should be the same.
You get extra points for having the rears the same as the front though.

Bob

[dantheman]

Thanks Bob!

In your experience, do they ever really receive the amount of juice that the front three do? If so, often?

thanks again. I may be an HT guy yet.

Dan

[Bob in St. Louis]

No, there's not really very much going back there. Not really very often either. Occasionally you'll get some nice tasty helicopter thumping or spaceship coming 'atcha from behind, but not as often as I'd like to see, and to the quantity I'd like to see (hear). Most movies use it for cricket's chirping, wind in the trees, maybe gunshots if you're lucky. I'd love to know of a movie that really takes advantage of the rear channels. I do have a music DVD-A of "The Blue Man Group" "Audio", that has truckloads of rear channel content (highly recommended).
But movies......not as much as I'd like.

Bob

[rvsixer]

All in this layman's humble opinion:

Most movies, by design, take good advantage of the surround channels (when said speakers are properly placed, properly level matched to the mains, and fed HD formats which unlike DD are frequency limited). If you place your ear up against a surround during a movie, it is for the most part giving constant output, and most of it is relevant with whats coming out the front mains.

The main task at hand is to keep the viewers eyes planted on the screen, yet give auditory clues to different things going on in different areas of the screen and give a sense of envelopment. If most of the "sound action" was coming from a certain surround channel, at volumes equal to or exceeding the front mains, the viewers attention would be constantly drawn towards it and away from the screen. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a picture .

A second task at hand is to surprise/stun the viewer. Blast the surrounds first with the sounds of impeding doom or destruction (dinosaur about to step on you, alien spacecraft about to fly over head and vaporize you, helicopter blades about to take off your head), and just before your eyes are drawn from the screen (towards the auditory clues), the impeding doom is on the screen. Very effective .

Still, I find my much smaller surrounds do all this effectively. Psychoacoustics are very powerful in adjusting for mismatched timbre, combing, etc.

[dantheman]

Thanks Gents!

Does this look like the normal placement recommended by all the common 5.1 decodings?

And is this roughly what you and other HT guys use?

Thanks again,

Dan

[willyspuddle]

That is the recommended 5.1 setup. The sub can go anywhere. Try all 4 corners, mid wall of each wall as the sub will react very differently (even moving it 2 or 3 feet). If furniture/fixtures prevent "perfect" placement there is a ton of give with the rears and even the front left/right. Modern HT receivers with there auto calibration mics (even the value models have mic's now) really do allow for some placement flexibility as it calculates distance, eq, level). Center MUST align with the screen.

Cheers!

[dantheman]

Thanks Willy! When you say align with center are you suggesting it goes behind a screen for a projector? I really wasn't looking to get in that deep. I was thinking about a new LED screen, but that may wait a year or 2 until they are more common and cheap. Of course by then they'll be outdated. That would be the next question, is there really any other way to do HT right? I mean the screen. If you go with one of the high def LED/LCD/Plasma, you have to place the center above or below that point. You want the sceen to be at eye height and the speaker at ear height. Somethings got to give.

Any suggestions on that?

Thanks again,

Dan

[Bob in St. Louis]

Dan,
If you wait for technology to lower in price, you'll never buy anything. My strongest recommendation would be to buy "the middle".
For instance,
- LED is the hot new thing, very expensive.
- 780i 60Hz LCD is "old news". Very inexpensive.
- 1080p LCD or plasma are extremely reasonable and have stunning picture quality. That's the one I'd go with (right now).

Five years ago, a 50" plasma was like $5,000. I paid just over a $1,000 a couple months ago.

With LED/LCD/Plasma and a center channel, put the speaker below the TV.

imho

Bob

[willyspuddle]

It may be tough logistically, but the center needs to be below or above the screen. All the dialogue gets routed to that speaker and it seems most unnatural if the CC is located anywhere else. My 50" Sammy Plasma is stand mounted so I made a bracket, mounted it to the unused wall mount points, and put my center channel behind the tv. My CC is a Mirage unit which fires the mids at a 45 degree angle and the tweets fire straight up. Only the bass reflex ports point forward. Also the stand is in a corner so I have some space behind the tv.

Lots of HT speakers come with brackets or have the ability to accept brackets. Currently I am looking at a flyer that has several LCD/Plasma in 46-50" size for under 900.00 Canadian. Of course 240hz, organic led, tech o the day can be multiples of that price.

Cheers!