Home Theater advice please... (1 Viewer)

[DanielC]

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me. Construction will be done on my new home in March and I have some questions regarding HT. The room it will be in is huge 17 x 16 with vaulted ceilings. I have a new Denon 2802 (still in box) as the start for my system. An engineering buddy of mine is building my sub. I was planning (and have already prewired) three JBL in-wall speakers and three JBL in-ceiling speakers. I now realize floor standing speakers sound much better, but I want the JBL's to just handle the Highs and the sub to handle the lows. I dont listen to music very often so this is mainly for HT. Does this sound like it would work for this large a room? The room is all tile, will that improve the sound or weaken it?

In addition what amp would you suggest to power a cubed sub with a 15" driver. Is power everything? Would a low cost High power amp like Pyle work fine. I'm also interested in a Crown CE 1000 but it has some wierd (speakeron??) post. Interested in possibly Crest Audio and Samson amps as well. I guess the question is, for a sub does the sound quality coming form the amp matter or is it just power levels? All advice is very welcome and appreciated.

The only Item I have currently is the Denon 2802 AVR. Thanks

 

[Neil Joseph]

Hi Daniel, welcome to the HTF. I am moving your post to a dedicated area that discusses the building of home theatres. You should find the answers to your questions here.

 

[Clinton McClure]

I don't have all the answers, Daniel, but I'll try to answer a few questions.
First, we'll address the tile. This could have a very bad acoustic effect on your HT. The sound will reflect off the tile and make your listening environment very bright and will most likely give you unwanted echo. Most dedicated HT rooms use acoustical wall and ceiling treatments and sometimes have rugs across hardwood and tile floors to help dampen the sound and bring the echo back under control.
The vaulted ceilings caould pose a problem, but I don't know much about that aspect.
As far as a separate amp for your sub, I think a lot of people here use Sampson amps. (My Paradigm sub has an onboard amp.) What kind of driver is being used in the sub? What is its power rating and impedance?
When you get all your speakers, you will want to set the speaker size to small in your receiver's set-up menu and set the bass/LFE out to sub only. This will make sure your speakers receive only frequencies above about 80Hz (or wherever your receiver's internal crossover is set)and everything below that goes to your sub. If your sub has a crossover built in, turn it to it's highest setting or disable it completely.
With a tile floor and a vaulted ceiling, you may wish to invest in a parametric equalizer for your sub such as a Berhinger Feedback Destroyer. This will allow you to detail the sound coming from your sub and make it sound better. It evens out the sound. Instead of being quiet at 65Hz but being really loud at 30Hz, it will help the sub have the same volume at all frequency levels.
Like I said, I do not have all the answers, but there are many here who know more about this than I do.

 

[DanielC]

Thanks for the response Clinton. I was afraid of the Tile factor...:frowning:
My better half has already purchased three very large area rugs hopefully this will help. The room is not a dedicated HT room. Its the living room/ great room. Its actually like a big hall with open air walls seperating the kitchen.
The TV will either be a large HD Hitachi/Pioneer/Mitsu or a wall hanging Plasma (kinda scared as to the reliability of the plasma's though) havent researched them enough yet to decide. All of the equipment will be hidden in a closet adjacent to the room with remote access.
I've read good things about the Samson amps and thats prob the route I'll take but the Crowns look very nice as well.
Thanks

 

[Max Knight]

Hi Daniel,

You will definitely want to cover up that tile with something soft to cut down on slap reflections (this is when the sound wave smacks into a hard surface, you can hear this effect if you go into an unfinished room with lots of hard surfaces and clap your hands loudly).

As for the rest of the room, it sounds pretty big if it is more like a hall than a room as you indicated. A sub might have trouble filling all that cubic footage. It might be a good idea to isolate the home theater section with some heavy drapery that you can drop down to make "walls". This could be pulled back out of the way during normal use.

-Max