After moving to the coast I sold almost all my kit, and was looking forward to rebuilding as we always do and experiencing some new sounds.
I sold all the nice stuff (Nad 208, Nad M51, Martin logans, and more)
and was left with some old kit that just seems like its almost worthless in money terms so decided to hook it up whilst I decided what the new upgrade would look like as an interim solution for me and the kids to watch movies. (To create and idea of my frame of reference over the past 20 years for AV has been everything from Polk RTI A7 to B&W CM10, Velodyne SPL 1200 subs etc. and everything in between. so I thought I have dabbed in a reasonable mid market that was always sufficient for me.
So some of the left over speakers were:
Polk Monitor 40 2 way 125W
Polk CSI A4 Centre 2 way 180W
2 x pairs of Polk RTI A4 Dipole's, 2 way 125W
Polk audio PSW 12 100W RMS 12" sub
Rel Q200e 200W rms 10" sub
Denon 4400H being the engine behind everything
So I took some time to set all speakers up exactly the same distance from the primary listening position and all speakers/ tweeters at ear level.
For a change I have a room with great acoustics, so I started everything up and did some basic set up as I always do to suite my listening preference and connected our first Blu-ray movie with a very low expectation of what the system would deliver.
Well after watching "ready player one" on 4k with Atmos I was blown away with what this little set up produced and have decided not to upgrade for the foreseeable future as it is by far the best HT sound I have had in my home.
Question then is why is it delivering so well?????
My conclusions are as follows:
The system has a great balance because all the speakers are roughly the same size, probably use the same tweeters and midbase units and were actually designed to work together from the start.
The amplifier produces 130W RMS into speakers that like to handle approximately that number at their maximum so the speakers are driven well and probably performing close to their best and with a lot of control
The two subs are not strained and operating at about 50%-60% and therefore never booming and always in control.
The room acoustics play such a massive role, I know nobody wants to spend on this but wow it makes a difference.
A reasonable set up, where the speakers go, and how high they are makes a big difference
My view (and im sure ill get some back lash here) Large front speakers drown out the smaller other speakers in your set up often creating a huge imbalance and removing details from the surrounding sounds that take place and add a lot of involvement to the experience.
I guess there is a lot to be said for setting up a system with equal amplification, distance to speaker and identical speakers everywhere (I know this is ideal and almost never possible) because this would reproduce sounds equally around you like it would in the real world. a gunshot is not louder coming out the gun when the gun is in front of you (large floor standing speaker) and softer when it is behind you (small surround speaker)
So my new mantra for AV is balance and "headroom" over size. rather go smaller but optimize the speakers and at the same time have a balanced system.
I am no expert but thought I would share this experience because on this forum you could probably put together a similar speaker package for almost R10k and after 25 years of enjoying HT I'm not sure I will need anything bigger.............
Lets be clear that does not mean I wont be changing them at some point just for the sake of change :O0: :O0: :groovy: :groovy: :Whoohoo: :Whoohoo:
Love to hear some thoughts
I sold all the nice stuff (Nad 208, Nad M51, Martin logans, and more)
and was left with some old kit that just seems like its almost worthless in money terms so decided to hook it up whilst I decided what the new upgrade would look like as an interim solution for me and the kids to watch movies. (To create and idea of my frame of reference over the past 20 years for AV has been everything from Polk RTI A7 to B&W CM10, Velodyne SPL 1200 subs etc. and everything in between. so I thought I have dabbed in a reasonable mid market that was always sufficient for me.
So some of the left over speakers were:
Polk Monitor 40 2 way 125W
Polk CSI A4 Centre 2 way 180W
2 x pairs of Polk RTI A4 Dipole's, 2 way 125W
Polk audio PSW 12 100W RMS 12" sub
Rel Q200e 200W rms 10" sub
Denon 4400H being the engine behind everything
So I took some time to set all speakers up exactly the same distance from the primary listening position and all speakers/ tweeters at ear level.
For a change I have a room with great acoustics, so I started everything up and did some basic set up as I always do to suite my listening preference and connected our first Blu-ray movie with a very low expectation of what the system would deliver.
Well after watching "ready player one" on 4k with Atmos I was blown away with what this little set up produced and have decided not to upgrade for the foreseeable future as it is by far the best HT sound I have had in my home.
Question then is why is it delivering so well?????
My conclusions are as follows:
The system has a great balance because all the speakers are roughly the same size, probably use the same tweeters and midbase units and were actually designed to work together from the start.
The amplifier produces 130W RMS into speakers that like to handle approximately that number at their maximum so the speakers are driven well and probably performing close to their best and with a lot of control
The two subs are not strained and operating at about 50%-60% and therefore never booming and always in control.
The room acoustics play such a massive role, I know nobody wants to spend on this but wow it makes a difference.
A reasonable set up, where the speakers go, and how high they are makes a big difference
My view (and im sure ill get some back lash here) Large front speakers drown out the smaller other speakers in your set up often creating a huge imbalance and removing details from the surrounding sounds that take place and add a lot of involvement to the experience.
I guess there is a lot to be said for setting up a system with equal amplification, distance to speaker and identical speakers everywhere (I know this is ideal and almost never possible) because this would reproduce sounds equally around you like it would in the real world. a gunshot is not louder coming out the gun when the gun is in front of you (large floor standing speaker) and softer when it is behind you (small surround speaker)
So my new mantra for AV is balance and "headroom" over size. rather go smaller but optimize the speakers and at the same time have a balanced system.
I am no expert but thought I would share this experience because on this forum you could probably put together a similar speaker package for almost R10k and after 25 years of enjoying HT I'm not sure I will need anything bigger.............
Lets be clear that does not mean I wont be changing them at some point just for the sake of change :O0: :O0: :groovy: :groovy: :Whoohoo: :Whoohoo:
Love to hear some thoughts
