PA Speaker for Home Theater?

Vin_G · 02-11-2008, 10:22 PM

I was in IMAX theaters yesterday watching movie and they do a preview of all of the speakers in the sound setup. They are all huge PA systems of course, but this got me to wondering. Can I use PA speakers for home theater? You can buy them pretty affordable and I'm sure they are way more powerful.

What do you guys think? Has anyone actually tested this?

SethH · 02-12-2008, 04:55 PM

A couple things. There is a difference between PA speakers and commercial cinema speakers. Sure, you could use any of the above for home theater, but you're going to have mixed results.

Also, one important thing to consider is that the subwoofers for PA systems are generally designed to play at very high levels above 30Hz. Good home theater subs dig down to <20Hz.

Third, PA speakers usually only shine when you really drive them hard. Most people do not have a room large enough to really be able to push 5 (or 7) PA speakers. The other thing that comes up occasionally around here is using studio monitors for HT. Most HTs would work much better with studio monitors rather than PA speaker, IMO -- largely because of room size.

Finally, PA speakers are just ugly and large. Most people wouldn't be able to use them for space concerns and then lots of other people could not use them due to WAF. Now, if you can afford commercial cinema speakers from a company like JBL or EAW and WAF is not a concern for you then I'm sure it would make for a fantastic setup.

Scooter · 02-12-2008, 10:08 PM

I have this fantasy that I buy a new house in Wyoming with a HUGE barn of outbuilding to convert to a theater and I use Voice of The Theater speakers all the way around.

I miss the warmth of tome these cabinets provided.

chuckg · 02-13-2008, 01:19 PM

I doubt that Imax would use PA speakers...PA technically means "public address" and those systems are designed to make the human voice loud and intelligible. They usually don't bother with low frequency, and don't get overly concerned with the upper highs.

Most movie theaters use large commercial speakers that are of very good quality, high efficiency, and fairly inexpensive construction. Inexpensive does not mean inferiror, it means they just paint the cabinets black instead of putting on wood veneer.

I have been in several theaters that use JBL systems that are the equal of most or many home systems. I maintain two theaters like this. James B. Lansing, and Voice of the Theater are all essentially JBL. Most of them use some mighty large horns for ~500 Hz on up. Subs can be horns or just multiple very large cabinets with very large drivers. The low mids are usually just big ported cabinets.

Using speakers like this would be fine, as long as you have enough room! Imagine each speaker location having a twin-15 cabinet that is about 2' by 2' by 4' topped with a horn 2.5 feet long and a mouth about 2' by 2' staring at you! The price would not be less than very good quality cabinets of more manageable size.

JeremyErwin · 02-13-2008, 02:01 PM

A lot of the JBL cinema speakers are rolled off at the top end. They're quite sensitive, though.

**HTF Ads**

chuckg · 02-14-2008, 09:28 AM

Most of the JBL cabinets with mid and high drivers have HF rolloff attenuators. Those cabinets are intentionally bright to compensate for HF loss when the speakers are behind the screen, the attenuator is included to reduce the HF output of the cabinet when the speaker is not behind a screen.

So that's kinda the opposite of what you said?

The head-end gear in most movie theaters includes EQ to boost the highs for screen compensation.

JeremyErwin · 02-14-2008, 09:44 AM

Well, take the 4632 for example.

Quote:

Frequency Range: 30 Hz to 20 kHz (-10 dB)
Frequency Response: 40 Hz to 16 kHz (± 3 dB)

As I said, the highs are rolled off.

MotoGeek · 02-14-2008, 10:58 AM

I'll be using some "small" EAW cinema speakers for my theater. It’s probably not the best sounding solution for my room, but it’s hard to deny the “wow” factor. One of the benefits of pro cinema components is that there isn’t a large market for used equipment. When you can find the stuff, you can pick it up for next to nothing. That’s how I ended up with this setup.

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Vin_G · 02-14-2008, 12:12 PM

I love that setup you have Moto!

Where did you buy them, how much did you spend and what model of speakers did you buy? It looks like you have some funky full range speakers sitting on subs.

MotoGeek · 02-14-2008, 04:49 PM

Yeah the picture is a little misleading. The big cabinets are the low frequency portion of the 3 full range main speakers. These can be configured two ways. Either with the high frequency box (shown below the horn) or with the horn, but they’re not designed to be used together as the picture implies. They are run through an active crossover, then biamped.

The cardboard boxes on the sides are the surrounds. The set included 6, so I guess I’ll have a couple spares unless 9.1 systems suddenly become popular. They each have a 12 in woofer with a coax mounted tweeter. They are THX certified for theater use, but that probably doesn’t mean much for a home theater.

Here’s the parts list. Sorry for the pdf links. Most of these are old, discontinued products buried deep on the manufactures websites.

Mains:
Qty 3: EAW CB153 or CB152 depending on configuration
http://www.eaw.com/info/EAW/Loudspea..._datasheet.pdf
http://www.eaw.com/info/EAW/Loudspea..._datasheet.pdf
Qty 1: EAW CX300 active crossover
http://www.eaw.com/Info/EAW/Processo..._datasheet.pdf
Qty 4: Mackie M2600 amps (1 per main, + 1 extra for future subwoofer use)
Mackie - m2600

Surrounds:
Qty 6: EAW CR82 (will only use 4)
http://www.eaw.com/info/EAW/Loudspea..._datasheet.pdf
Qty 2: Mackie M1400 amps (1/2 per surround)
Mackie - m1400

I found the setup for $3500 on craigslist. Definitely not pocket change, but probably a small fraction of what the stuff cost new. I’m sure you could build a more conservative system that sounds just as good for the same money; but personally I’m finding the pro audio stuff to be more fun. There’s something appealing about large components built for a single purpose, with no regard to aesthetics, and with minimal marketing hype/lies surrounding it. Of course, I also still find toilet humor extremely entertaining, so my opinion probably shouldn’t be regarded highly.