Theater tweaks (1 Viewer)

[nystad]

I'm hoping to get some advice on tweaking a theater we have in a new home. Room is 25x15 feet with 103'' projector and 3 levels. It was the part of home I splurged on when we built last year. So wish I had been more involved in the process of choosing specifics for the equipment vs letting the builder's audio guy decide. We ended up w/ pinnacle for everything with 7 surround sound system. I added two svs 12 cylinder subs which I have really liked as an upgrade of sorts to the whimpy small pinnacles. Anyway, my question relates to upgrading the center channel speaker. I don't know the model specifically but I think its a lower end and just doesn't fill the room real well. For this size of a room, do you guys have a recommended center channel speaker that packs a punch for under $800 type range. I am guessing the model now is around $300 or so.

The receiver is Denon In-Comman AVR-3313CI. One other item is that I hardly ever hear much from the 2 side and 2 rear speakers and I feel like its not optimal in terms of getting that real theater feel where strong contributions from side and rear can be heard. Mostly all is just heard from the front. I have played with all the settings, was initially setup using the audyssey built in to the Denon. I have tried all the theater options in terms of Dolby, DTS, Dolby music, etc. and aside from 7 channel stereo, there is only minimal ever heard from the side, rear. Anyway to simply increase the contribution of the back speakers to get a better surround feel?

Disappointing when you feel like the system is just not quite there but had I spent a little more initially, it may have been.

thanks so much

 

[nystad]

I'm hoping to get some advice on tweaking a theater we have in a new home. Room is 25x15 feet with 103'' projector and 3 levels. It was the part of home I splurged on when we built last year. So wish I had been more involved in the process of choosing specifics for the equipment vs letting the builder's audio guy decide. We ended up w/ pinnacle for everything with 7 surround sound system. I added two svs 12 cylinder subs(NSD) which I have really liked as an upgrade of sorts to the whimpy small pinnacle subs I had. Anyway, my question relates to upgrading the center channel speaker. I don't know the model specifically but I think its a lower end and just doesn't fill the room real well. For this size of a room, do you guys have a recommended center channel speaker that packs a punch for under $800 type range. I am guessing the model now is around $300 or so.
The receiver is Denon In-Comman AVR-3313CI. One other item is that I hardly ever hear much from the 2 side and 2 rear speakers and I feel like its not optimal in terms of getting that real theater feel where strong contributions from side and rear can be heard. Mostly all is just heard from the front. I have played with all the settings, was initially setup using the audyssey built in to the Denon. I have tried all the theater options in terms of Dolby, DTS, Dolby music, etc. and aside from 7 channel stereo, there is only minimal ever heard from the side, rear. Anyway to simply increase the contribution of the back speakers to get a better surround feel? I was told by my audio guy that one could not specifically increase the output from the side and rear. This seems doubtful but maybe I'm wrong. Just feels like its all up front.
Disappointing when you feel like the system is just not quite there but had I spent a little more initially, it may have been.
thanks so much

 

[schan1269]

Buy a bigger Pinnacle.

Which Pinnacle do you even have?

K6?
K8?
K50?
K60?
K80?

 

[Gerald LaFrance]

Hi Nystad,

I am thinking your Systme may not be calibrated properly.. You may ask how do you do this well that is simple with a SPL Meter, Mic Stand and your Receivers Test tones..

Or you may have Audyssey in your Amp have you ran that.. Also it usually set the Bass managment wrong and make sure all your Speakers are set to samll and your sub is on..

if you want to do it with a test tone you need to set your SPL meter near the Listening position at Ear level and set your Reciver to 0 then set the front main test tone and adjust till the SPL meter reads 75db on the SPL meter.. then set all your Levels to 75DB with the Speaker line adjuster NOT the Volume level.. Also you may want your sub a 10-15db hotter or at 75db you may need to adjust this to your liking as well I tend to run 15db hotter..

But All the rest of the speakers set at 75db with this method I am thinking your Audio guy never did this..

Or if you have the audyssey which I think you do hook up the supplied mic it should have came with your Reciever and let it do its thing just make some after adjusments as usually it sets the front mains to large.. and unless you have FULL range speakers you will NOT want o do that..

Well hope that helps

 

[nystad]

Schan,Looks like the center channel pinnacle is the BD 300 Series II (or probably last year's equivalent model). I see the BD 600 Series II would be an upgrade, larger, nearly double the price. I wonder how noticeable the upgrade would be. I also see they have several other options though. Any thoughts or experience w/ these other options up from the BD 300? thanks in advance...Gerald,I will look into the calibration. I know we calibrated the room w/ SPL meter for the two sofas in the room/6 listening spots. Just wish I could keep everything as is, but simply up the contribution to the side and rear of the 7.2 system for a better, more theater like surround experience. One other thought I had was that maybe lowering the speakers themselves to ear level could also help a little. They are up about 3 feet above sofa listening level. Would require some wall cutting and patching...but possibly worthwhile? The tweater portion does allow for angling which I set down but didn't seem to make noticeable difference. I was told that most movies were designed from audio standpoint, to keep most sound up front but I don't buy the explanation since I have heard the same movie in a real theater as well as in other home theaters w/ 7.2 that the side and rear experience is much more noticeable.

 

[nystad]

Nothing I can do about it now...aside from spend more I guess, but I would love to get others opinion, especially you guys who do this for a living, as to how this system measures up to other options I could have gone with. For just the equipment, installation, the total was $7K. Here is what went in:

receiver: Denon in command AVR-331 3CI
center channel: pinnacle BD300
front L and R: pinnacle WAFR CT 525
rears/side: Waft flush 606 (4 total) (these are built into wall about 4' above sitting level)
subs: Pinnacle Sub compact 6
Mitsubishi projector w/ 103'' screen

I later added two SVS nsd cylinder subs in front and kept the pre-existing subcompact which are hidden in the wall and vented with a grill. So have total of 4 subs although the SVS pretty much drown out the pinnacles most of the time.

Room setup is a 25x15' theater room with 8" ceiling but 3 levels total, each level 6'' stepup. (I do think the design could have been optimized to help w/ the acoustics. I am pretty sure I should have made the theater room smaller which would have helped the acoustics of the room a lot. stupid!) Room build under the concrete garage floor.

Of course doesn't sound bad, but I always wonder if I had spend a few grand more in speaker quality, receiver upgrade.....would I be happier. I'm no expert but I feel like the rear channels are rarely heard, the front L and R are rarely heard and most all is through center. Calibrated twice and supposedly optimized. I guess at some point I will have to just be happy and live w/ it but I'm always wondering if I upgraded.....spend a little more....swaped out...would or could I easily improve upon this setup?

 

[schan1269]

Your surround, in-wall, speakers are mounted 4'(as in you really mean FEET???) above ear level...

And you are complaining that you can't hear them...

Absolutely lousy installation. Try again.

 

[schan1269]

By the way, where did they put your front speakers? Are those also 4' too high? or did they manage to put those where they should have?

All 7 of your speakers are supposed to be ear height. Which is imperitive since you bought non-adjustable tweeter in-walls.

99% of your problem is likely lousy speaker placement.

Edit:
The 606 and 525 have adjustable tweeters. Are the tweeters aimed toward the seats, or are they aimed over your head?

Editii:
The WAFR Pinnacle are one of the best in-wall speakers made. But they are still in-wall. Meaning you have to live with the fact you chose in-wall.

In-wall/ceiling speakers will never, and can never, sound as good as a proper, in a box, speaker.

Also. Did they use any Dynil, En-Wall or Dynamat?

http://www.dynamat.com/products_architectural_dynil.html
http://www.dynamat.com/products_architectural_en_wall.html
http://www.dynamatstore.com/index.php?l=product_list&c=25

 

[schan1269]

And, since I've finally looked at the specs of all your 7.0...

The BD300 is a 93db efficient speakers. The rest of your 6.0 hovers around 86db.

That means your center probably needs to be reduced -9 to compensate for, I'm going to guess, being 3 feet closer than your right/left(factoring in how far "out" the L/R are...and the fact they are in-wall where the center is not...).

Is the center set, at least, -9db?

So...more information from you on speaker location...if the tweeters in your in-walls are even pointed the right way...sound reinforcement(the DyNil/Mat/En-Wall)...and "distance from sweet spot"...

We can help you figure out what is wrong. Hopefully what is wrong can be corrected.

 

[schan1269]

By thew way, merged all your threads to not have to track down and answer all three threads.

 

[nystad]

First, I appreciate all the feedback! Here are a few responses:

1. The front, side, rears all do have capability to angle the tweeters. I have them all angled down to ear level.
2. The front speakers are positioned about 3 feet lateral to the outer edge of each soft and about 5 feet lateral (to perimeter) w/ respect to the center of the soft. Seems to me that ideally, these would have been placed a little more to center although this may have been tough w/ the screen size.
3. The side speakers (which have angled tweeters) are actually positioned about 2.5 feet above listening level for the front soft and about 2 feet above ear level for the rear sofa. This also puts the side speakers about 3 feet in front of the rear soft.
4. The rear speakers are only about 2 feet above ear level for the lower soft and about 1.5 feet above ear level for the rear sofa (due to the bump up in the floor).
5. I'm not sure about the dynamat, En-wall question. I will ask.
6. Not sure about the center channel being set at least -9db. Everything was just calibrated via the Denon built in Audyssey. We didn't really tweak or adjust after that aside from me manually increasing the one option that increases the spoken words/verbal, etc. in movies. (makes dialogue a little louder). Aside from that it was just done through Audyssey setup. I'm pretty sure the setting for large, small, etc. is all correct.
7. Makes me think, but the SVS subs were just set according to recommended setting via their excellent customer service people. I didn't get any special calibration, etc. on the subs. The pinnacle box subs in the wall are set as well as they can be but these are pretty weak for the room although they do often add just a titch of "boominess" which I like vs the svs which, probably more accurately, kick in when needed or intended by the movie makers. I contemplated adding a third svs for the rear of the room some day, running directly from one of the front subs and dropping a pinnacle. probably not worth the hassle/$ though.
8. The center channel speaker is sitting about 6 inches- a foot below eye level for first row and about 1.5 feet below second level. Distance to first sofa row is about 15 feet.
9. With the seemingly pretty good quality of wall speakers in place, would it make sense to replace the 6 speakers with in box speakers? I don't really care about the aesthetics anyway. Or would the gain by fairly minimal given the existing setup? (I guess this would assume reasonable expenditure vs. shelling out ridiculous cash). I had also wondered that if we had not put in flush in wall speakers and had put in mounted box speakers in front (or a standing setup) would this have been better in that you could angle the whole unit to the center slightly. I'm guessing that in box would have been the way to go if aesthetics were thrown out and you simply wanted best sound for the $?
10. I am guessing the Denon receiver is not the limiting factor here.
11. After measuring, I'm also guessing the side, rear levels in terms of where they were mounted, isn't horrible.

I appreciate all the help. Hopefully this will raise few questions for others planning theaters setups.

 

[schan1269]

First...

Never rely on Audyssey as "the last word". Take a picture and post it of its results. Crossovers, distances and levels.

Second...

The efficiency of your speakers plays out like this...
Since your 6 are 86 db and your center is 93...what your center does on 1 watt, your other 6 need 4.5(ish). What your center is doing on 2, your other 6 need 9(ish).

So your center speaker needs roughly 1/3rd the power of your other 6. Hence the -9(ish). 3db equals double the power. In essence, for your 86db speakers to "catch up" to the center...they need almost 3 times the power.

Third...

Since the room is 15 wide and 25 long...I would have gone bigger than 103"(I would have gone 130-140). I also would have bought an Acoustically Transparent(known as AT) screen. Then your speakers on the front could have been placed correctly...instead of "outside" the screen.

 

[nystad]

Well I was able to correct the issues simply by manual adjusting the speaker levels.I admit, I'm a little slow here...
By increasing power to rear and side speakers to about +2.5 it now has the surround feel I was looking for and
now am able to hear as much as I would want from the back speakers. No adjusting needed.

Couple last questions if you don't mind: 1. I put the center at 120hz and the rest at 100hz for the frequency crossover. With the
pinnacle models listed above, is this what's recommended or is there more to it. Any better combo for the frequency crossovers w/
these speakers or is this always done by ear or done with the audyssey calibration? Is sounds good to my ear. I also have the center
channel at +5 and the front two speakers at +3 (for the levels) but this is based on my uneducated ears and I'm guessing this is not
what's intended?

I also noticed the bass is set to main + LFE (i think that's it). Is that right? (I have no idea what that means). I notice I don't hardly hear any base if I ever watch television, only movies
but SVS rep told me that's pretty normal as there is not much bass on tv, football games, etc. That was the one thing I did not love is that I lost all the
"boominess" in terms of my bass w/ the SVS subs which in general was fine for the movies but I miss hearing bass on tv. Maybe just need to turn
up the bass for tv?

Sorry for the smattering of questions!

nystad

 

[schan1269]

You should have the crossover set at 80hz(the 525 makes it to 60).

All speakers should be "small" and LFE+main choice would be removed.

 

[nystad]

Thanks. I will set all the speakers to small (I thought they were already but will check). I will also set all the speakers to 80hz then. thanks!