What's in your home theatre?

[elwoodblues1969]

Since my home theatre set up is in a transitional phase for the purpose of upgrading,it brought up some interesting questions that I thought I would lay on you folks.

First off,what is your movie room comprised of gear-wise and what spawned your choices of speakers,for instance?

As for myself,about 5 years ago,I discovered that self powered monitors & more specifically, bi-amped ones,offered the most space saving sound quality at the best possible price and this is precisely why my entire apartment is laced with studio monitors,as they replaced any conventional stereo equipment that I had.

All that being said,I will now aprise you all of my current debaucle with my home theatre situation;

my living room is 17' X 13' & I have a hard tile floor in an un-treated room(acoustically).

Currently,the Alesis M1 520's I recently purchased along with the Alesis mixer sound wonderful,but they are near field monitors in what is considered to be a mid-field enviroment,due to my living room's size.

The Alesis monitors are placed on either side of my t.v. in the corners of my room on the far end-which is quite a stretch from my couch on the other end of my room.

On either side of my couch in the corners,are my Samson Resolv 40a's-which have a ample amount of bass & clarity,given thier small size & price,but sound quality is almost as important in my home theatre,as it is in my studio.

That being said,ideally,I want to invest in a pair of bi-amped,mid-field monitors that have a wider dispersion pattern to travel the distance across the room,effectively.

That of course,would mean that,once I replace the Samsons,the Alesis monitors would be moved to where the couch is,as they are near-field monitors and the mid-field monitors that I would choose would be placed where my T.V. is.

The corner shelf units that the monitors would rest on,can accomodate speaker cabinets as large as 12" in depth and another important factor with monitors,is that thier color scheme conforms to my living room motif,meaning that my choice of monitors would be restricted to light,neutral tones such as a medium to light shade of gray,and/or a color such as a mild blue.

Also,something that would accentuate my art deco theme,would be ideal!!

Thier are not as many choices in design & color,amongst studio monitors,as thier is regular home entertainment speakers,so this makes my choices slim,especially so,since the most flamboyant looking monitors tend to be the super high end ones.

A good example of this,is the Tannoy Reveal 6D's,which are ideal in every aspect that I am looking for,but they are $1198.00(USD) a pair!!

I can't really justify spending $900 more dollars than what I had paid for the Alesis monitors,just to complete my home theatre.

There are quite a few choices out there,but I always run into a wrinkle with each monitor that I consider adding to my set up.

All that being said,I was wondering what type of audio configurations do any of you guys have going in your home theatres?

Thom

[rharv]

As I mentioned in the other post- I have JBL's for speakers and a Nakamichi amp driving them in 5.1
 The L&R front are three-ways with 8" woofers and titanium tweeters, 4" mid speaker made of the same polymer the woofers are..
 The sub is a 10" Polypropelene with it's own amp that gets fed from the Nakamichi via a specific output that feeds line level signal to a sub.
 The center speaker is a JBL that has 2-4" mids and a tweeter.
 The rears L&R are two-way JBL's set in the upper corners of my living room far left and right of the couch or sofa.
 One thing I think may be under-rated is the actual timing of the surround system.
 My amp allows the timing of the rear speakers to be adjusted in milliseconds according to the distance they are from your 'ideal' viewing spot.  This adjustment is actually very important when using some of the 'mock stage' settings, like Hall, Stadium, Theatre, etc.   Without this timing I don't think the illusion of some of the settings will work well. It also affects the 'realness' of 5.1
 I really like my setup. The amp is 10Hz-50kHz so it has plenty of headroom.  It's 100 watts X 5, so all speakers get a good feed.  Rears have their own timing and volume adjustment. The sub has it's own 100 watt amp to match.  I can tell you some movies sound SO real it's freaky.  I've had my dog start barking at the window (thinking someone pulled up) when it was a car on the movie.  And I've had my wife grab my arm and say 'someone just opened the front door' (again a sound in the movie), explosions and planes, etc. are very intense... and don't get me started on *good* concert DVD's; they are awesome! 
Best investment I've made.  Then again, I really enjoy sound.

I've set up quite a few surround systems. Bose, Yamaha, Sony, etc.  The little speakers just don't do it for me.  It IS an improvement over the TV, for sure, but going the extra bit is well worth it.
 I know you like good sound, Thom, and I hope you check out the difference a true surround amp can make.  Hearing things go whizzing past your head, or across and from front to behind brings a lot of life into the event.  The standard Dolby signature surround-sound orchestra build is actually meant to go around the room...

sorry, my post got so long.
The speaker pic on the 'in-a-spin' site is of my front left speaker..
The end of the little video on yourbestsound shows my monitor and with the L&R speakers on top of  the cabinet that holds the amp, DVD,VHS,XBox,PS2, and disks. Normally these sit beside that cabinet (which I built, by the way, to contain costs) and the center speaker is above the TV just out of site. You can see a good chunk of the main wall below (including the top of Gracie's head).
 32 wires feed that TV thru the wall...what a job that was.  But I'm ready for the future with 3 HDMI...1 DVI-to-HDMI...cable TV...antennae..computer monitor connection..and lots of RCAs!

[elwoodblues1969]

Bob,

I hear what your saying about the advantages of 5.1 & your set up,but I pretty much get the same surround sound effects,because even though I do not have a center channel,the listener still gets that 3-D feeling,because of the panning from left to right between the channels BECAUSE of how far apart my monitors are placed.

They are in all the four corners of my room,which is a fairly large room and my couch is centered along the back wall of my living room,so I am in the sweet spot.

Also,all four of my monitors are at ear level when I am on my couch,so essentially,strategic speaker placement of four speakers will basically give me the same experience with regard to certain sounds that catch you by surprise & make you flinch.

In addition to speaker placement,I really like the idea of having the accuracy,detail and straight forwardness of a good studio monitor,without the coloration of an equalizer and a theatre or stadium effect that is commonly found in consumer entertainment amplifiers.

Don't get me wrong,Nakamichi is a very nice,stout amp in my opinion,but I'm on the whole studio monitor trip and I am really hooked on this concept.

Of course,there are 5.1 surround systems in the professional studio monitor market that I would love to have,but a set of four bi-amped speakers are such a inexpensive way to go in comparison and I am very happy with the sound quality I have now,and it will only get better,once I replace my Samson's with the Tannoys!

The Tannoy Reveal 5A's are the ones I decided to go with and I got a great recommendation from my sales rep,as he has a pair in his studio.

They are a bit steep in price($698.00),but they are built extremely well with very high end components and from what I've been told,along with what I've read on them,they are very powerful,yet compact monitors that deliver a extremely accurate & tight punch and they articulate the high end exceptionally well.

They are also beautiful & perfect for my living room decor!

Thanks for sharing your elaborate details on your set up.

Thom

[kara]

Boy you guys have some setup 'just' to watch television 
Don't get me wrong here, i'm just surprised especialy since, beside the news, i barely watch television

k

[NeoN]

I don't have a Home Theatre.... but I got a good Sound System!
Here's a Photo of one of my Speakers...
I usually watch movies on my PC, I like that.

[rharv]

I usually just use the TV speakers for regular TV, which is about an hour a day to keep up on events.  The 5.1 is used for movies only...occasionally a sports game will be entertaining this way with the crowd noise spread around.

They also make good monitors for checking mixes by turning 5.1 off and just using the front two as a stereo pair, so they get lots of use that way.  The tower-shape of these puts the tweeters at ear level when sitting.. They are about three and a half feet tall.
 There is a significant amount of info encoded to the rear channel that doesn't get seperated out when a stereo setup is used. I was just pointing that out. It does make a difference in the show sometimes.  I'm sure the stereo setup is a drastic improvement to the TV speakers though!  It probably sounds quite good using monitors as you are.

[Martin E]

I don't have a home theatre system and like Kara I don't watch a whole lot of tv. There would be no time left to write songs   
However I have my hi fi system connected to the LCD tv. What I do notice is that the output level on the audio out of the tv is pretty low. I really have to crank up the volume on my amplifier.

[elwoodblues1969]

With reference to t.v. i.e. cable television & such,I never watch,as I do not have a cable service-but rather,I am a big movie buff and that's the only television I watch-period.

When it comes to movies,having a hi-fi system makes watching a movie a much more immersive experience,and it's also a good reason to stay home to watch a movie,rather than wasting money to go to a theatre-I would rather invest my green in expanding my ever-growing movie collection.

I also draw quite  bit of inspiration from movies,so that being said,having a good sound system in my living,is equally as important as having good sound quality in the studio.

Thom