Advice on 7.1 setup

fully · 03-18-2008, 11:31 AM

Ok so first I have purchased 4 floor standing speakers, one center channel and a sub. The floor standing speakers are all exactly the same. I went with that because it cost only $100 more to buy another pair of floors instead of bookshelf speakers for the rear.

An installer is coming out soon to do an inspection to determine whether we can go 7.1. The room is missing two walls, the back just has a pillar, which is drywalled and could have wire pulled through I believe. On one side, half the wall is open because there is a staircase descending from that side.

So my question is should I get bipole/dipole speakers or should I get another set of floors or monopole bookshelf speakers? I assume from my limited understanding that bipole/dipole speakers would not work well due to there being no walls to bounce off of.

The other small question is should I get two subs? I thought it was excessive but some people I see have them.

Thanks for your help in this very confusing market.

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Robert_J · 03-18-2008, 02:02 PM

I can't answer your dipole speaker question. You may get more answers if this question were posed in the Speaker section.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fully

The other small question is should I get two subs? I thought it was excessive but some people I see have them.

It depends on a few things. How large is your room? Sealed or open to other rooms? What is the total air space you are trying to pressurize? What are your goals? Spl, extension or both? What type of movies do you watch? What type of sub do you have now? Are you planning on getting a second or a pair of different ones?

I know that is a lot of questions but if you have an open floor plan, want to run a pair of subs with 8" drivers and accurately reproduce explosions in action movies then you are SOL. 8" drivers can't move enough air. If you have a smaller, sealed listening area and you want to run a pair of Epik Conquests then that is not only overkill but truely insane. I like the idea.

-Robert

fully · 03-18-2008, 02:51 PM

Hi Robert, thanks for the quick reply. The room is open to another very large room. The room being focused on for the system is about 18ft long by 14ft wide. The seating area will be pushed about 3ft from the back pillar. The ceilings are 8ft high. We watch all kinds of movies black and white to action.

Now the technical jargon. The terms spl and extension I am not familiar with, so I had to look them up. If I understood correctly extension is the ability to produce low frequency sounds, and sound pressure level is more or less the volume that the sub could produce? The loudness of the sub is not as important as the extension to me.

The sub I purchased is an Energy sub 10" (S10.3). Now I have purchased home theatre equipment two days ago, so this is not an upgrade. I am wondering whether I should add the extra two identical speakers (making 6 identical floor speakers) for 7.1 and maybe the extra identical sub for 7.2. The installation will be done weeks from now so I can completely change my mind if I want.

Yes I was wondering whether I should post this in the speaker section or not. I am basically wondering if it will hurt my system to go with 6 identical floor speakers. The price difference is marginal. The six floors could be Energy C-500, and the amp is HK AVR-347. Thanks again.

Robert_J · 03-18-2008, 04:26 PM

6 identical speakers is the best setup you can possibly have. Most don't have space or money to do that. I'm building 6 identical speakers as well as a center channel that uses the same drivers but the crossover is optimized for the horizontal orientation of the speaker.

My opinion is that a single 10" sub will not provide the low bass you are looking for. But that is just my opinion. My dual 15's don't go deep enough for me and I can easily reproduce 16hz tones. After installing my quad 18's, I should have extension into the single digits.

Finally, why aren't you installing this yourself? Physical or time limitations? You have to read the directions to use a screwdriver? Even if it takes a little while to install it yourself, you will have learned how the system works and you can troubleshoot problems that come up. And problems will happen. I've blown my sub amp recently. My cat bumped a wire behind my receiver and disconnected a surround sound speaker. Not only can I diagnose what has happened, I can fix the issue in minutes because the system is 100% installed by me. I'd hate to wait on an installer and hate it even more having to pay for service calls.

-Robert

fully · 03-18-2008, 05:07 PM

Thank you very much for your help Robert, I shall do the 6 floors and 2 subs.

The installation is not just setting up the speakers and receiver. I am putting in an entertainment wall. We are trying to make a clean look by hiding all the wires and having built in shelves for the receiver etc. Ill post pictures when its all finished. Plus we need to pull speaker wire through the walls and ceiling, and that I am not comfortable doing. They will also mount the TV and if they screw it up and it falls then its on them. I could put together the system myself if it was just a TV stand and hooking up the speakers etc.

Again thanks for your help.

Wayne A. Pflughaupt · 03-19-2008, 11:33 AM

Welcome to the Forum, Paresh!

I’ll leave it to your installer to determine if you need a 7.1 system or not. Personally I’ve been perfectly content with a 5.1. I honestly don’t think there are many home installations that truly need 7.1.

Quote:

Now the technical jargon. The terms spl and extension I am not familiar with, so I had to look them up. If I understood correctly extension is the ability to produce low frequency sounds, and sound pressure level is more or less the volume that the sub could produce? The loudness of the sub is not as important as the extension to me.

Your homework yielded the correct answers.

If you care about extension over SPL, then I strongly suggest you ditch that 10” sub. A second identical sub will get you more SPL of whatever it puts out, not lower extension. For what you’re going to spend for a pair of those Energys, you can get any number of Hsu or SVS subs that will get below 20 Hz, such as the PB12 Plus/2, PB12 Plus or PB12 NSD. I had a chance to check out the NSD a while back, which is least of those, and it had no problem getting down to 18 Hz in my cavernous 9000 cu. ft. room.

Regards.
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

fully · 03-19-2008, 05:48 PM

Thanks for the welcome. Yes I'll have to see what he says. Im deciding to go 7.1 as some Blu-rays are coming out at 7.1 and I'm thinking that more and more of them will do so. The Energy specs say that it goes to 21Hz, which is the lowest I can get from the store I am purchasing it from. Sadly I don't have a large selection of subs to choose from due to cost and availability in my area. I should look at ordering from the US but Im not sure what it'll cost, with shipping and possible tarrifs.

Thanks for the excellent tips though Wayne, I shall give more consideration to the issue, hopefully the installer will come soon



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