Tact room correction?

Antonio, can I take it from this that you're happy with your AV system? If so, could you give some details of what makes your system a winner?

It's is an area which I have had little experience of but, as it's becoming a huge market, I'm starting to become interested.

PS: A magazine called " Home Cinema Choice" has approached me to review the speakers (and sell some ad space). They claim to be a high end publication ideal for my products. Are you familiar with this mag?

 

7V, Dont want to rock the boat, but IMO your speakers havent got the power handling and wont go loud enough for AV use

I suppose if the bass is filtered out from the main speakers they might be more suitable though.

 

Steve,

See here. I'm going to try to be diplomatic about what I say since I know that the owner of AV Forums (the official forums of HCC and a few other AV mags) browses here from time to time. However, HCC is about as "high end" as What HiFi. I seriously doubt that any readers of HCC would have (or want to spend) the fairly large about of money required to buy a 5.1 (5 speakers and a sub) setup consisting of your speakers. How they can claim that the publication would be ideal for your products boggles the mind .

I suggest you go and buy a copy and see for yourself, but IMO you'd be wasting your money on ad space there.

Michael.

 

The Nonsuch 4s will output a maximum of about 109dB at 1 metre - a little more if I filter the bass from the main speakers. They may go louder than you think. My home theatre range is a little different and is designed for wall placement (well, hanging on the wall, actually). This gives an increased SPL in the upper bass which makes them subjectively louder.

Thanks Michael. Do you have any suggestions for good AV magazines at the higher end?

 

Several factors, as usual, help to make my system a winner:

First the "general" hifi rules:

1 - Match the front speakers to the room, including proper placement for stereo music and bass, much easier with smallish speakers/subwoofers...

2 - Get an amplifier that can handle the speakers properly, not easy with some speakers, even with good kit...

3 - Tune for your personal taste with equipment matching + cables/mains/tweaks...

4 - "Treat" the room, I have thick courtains, bookshelves, rugs, pillows, large painting filled with sound insolation, center table made of Rattan because it difracts the sound, carefull furniture distribution, fairly symetrical room, I also had my ceiling treated...

Second surround rules:

1 - All speakers at the same distance from listening position, otherwise time delay may be applied before bass management and you get weird bass from subwoofers, not to mention that surround speakers close to you are a pain, I rather have stereo otherwise...

2 - Match the speakers, the surround have to have identical timbre, everything else is irrelevant, center have to be large, very detailed and a bit less bright than the front, otherwise you will hear two of each singer, also important that the number of ways and xover type be identical, otherwise you will have phase problems...

3 - Cables must have good isolation, there are too many running around, impossible to separate them...

4 - With a good processor use the player as transport only to avoid extra DA and AD conversions...

5 - Rectangular room close to golden ratio, before I had 8m x 4m x 2,7, now 7,3m x 4,4m x 2,7m...

Also:

1 - Two subwoofers close to each front speaker allow for much easier integration...

2 - Lower xover, 60hz or less, also integrates better and sound more coherent than higher frequencies, at least with standard bass management, may be possible to do other way with xover matched to the speakers/subwoofers...

By the way, tomorrow I will have an AV magazine "reviewing my system... :MILD:

 

Merlin, you did give me good advice on some equipment, and I thank for that, you must be the person that has had more different kit over here...

But regarding positioning and room treatment I have to say I have more experience and know-how than you will ever have, I started first, and I know how to get good sound without magic wands... :MILD:

 

Cooooool :MILD: .

Keep us posted on that one .

 

Yeah Antonio but they forgot to tell you that Merlin is their new staffer and yours will be his first assignment.

 

Many thanks Antonio. The specific 'surround' guidelines are particularly useful. Anyone can do it badly; it's doing it well that's the thing.

On the timbre front, all of my speakers will have identical timbre which should be a good thing (except possibly with the centre speaker which you say could be a bit less bright). I'm also not overly concerned with crossover types so that should be another advantage. Phase problems? What are they?

Best of luck with the magazine. Will you let us all know when and where?

 

A bit less bright rather then brighter, same timbre is even better if you can have it, but most centers, even same brand are bright, you know most people want to hear everything they paid for, center, surrounds, subwoofer, and, obviously you should hear just the music, not the speakers, as with stereo...

I will let you know how it goes, hope they give me a file with the review, you can always translate it... :MILD:

 

Excellent. One more question ...

Assume that the AV range are (more or less) wall-hanging flat versions of the Nonsuch range - based on full-range drivers currently under development. We will release a range of products, each with either 1, 2 or 4 drive units.

If the front mains are, say, 2 unit speakers, what would be the best for centre and surround speakers - or would different customers choose different options? In other words could the surrounds and front centres be 1 unit speakers, or should they all be the same as the fronts?

Sorry for my ignorance but I've always kept away from AV up until now.

 

For two unit fronts the surrounds could be one unit only, the center should be four...

There can be up to 80% of the total info in the center channel on DVDs...

 

My center speaker has twice the driver area and cabinet volume of each of my fronts, and the surround woofer is half the area of the front's...

 

Of course "should be" and what people perceive and buy are different matters, so you would probably sell more 2 or even 1 driver centers, but with bad sound, and probably bad image for your product...

 

Thanks for all the info, Antonio. I'll try not to get bad products out there - as if It looks like the minimum would be a 2 unit centre, even with single unit fronts.

One thing though...

From what you've said, if I use 4 unit mains, I'd need 2 unit surrounds and 8 unit centres. I can see dispersion problems with 8 unit speakers - built on my present principles - do you have an idea of the frequency range required for the front centre speaker? Obviously, if I can get away without it handling the higher frequencies, it would make life easier.

When I have some prototypes built, maybe I can drive them down to your neck of the woods and see how they sound in your set up.

 

It's a long drive to Portugal

Michael.

 

Steve,

The center doesnt have to be twice any front speaker you use, imagine the center for the Proac D100...

A 4 unit center will do for any fronts, I am sure, the idea is that it can play at least male voices without any help from the subwoofer, actually I read somewhere that is a good test to determine if your sub is xovered properly, play male voices with the speakers disconnected, if you can hear it from the sub, the xover is too high or the filter slope is too soft...

You can always take a short vacation over here, or send the speakers by Michael... :MILD:

Have you seen this...

"ACE allows the cone to move as freely as it would in a much larger cabinet, generating bass extension out of all proportion to its actual size. This is achieved by introducing granules of activated carbon into the enclosure - a material containing millions of pores ranging in size from visible fissures to holes a few molecules across."

If it is not proprietary it could be interesting for your wallmounts...

 

Sorry but I'd have to disagree here. All satellites should be identical if possible, although you may have difficulty with the dispersion characteristics of the centre.

The other issue will be the driver employed Steve- I presume it is not going to be one of the small bandors, as, in, reality, the satellites should be totally flat to 80hz as a minimum extension for AV acceptance.

Neutrality, speed and dynamics are everything to these boys - hence the number of active studio monitors doing the rounds in AV circles.

 

I was asked my criteria to build my surround system, not what is the ideal, you are right, all units with 4 drivers is probably the ideal setup, but not the only possible, IMHO...

As for the 80hz minimum, I think more 60hz as I said, but you can use 120hz, particullarly with two subs and do fine, actually one of Martin-Logans centers only goes down to 120hz...

 

It probably is proprietary but I'm a little sceptical of the claims made in size reduction. Why don't they use it in all their speakers? But thanks for showing me this. I'll certainly look further.

I wonder if I could use Swiss cheese?

Looking at existing front centre speaker offerings with their 'turned horizontal' alignments, I can see no benefits whatsoever in their dispersion characteristics and can only guess that the first guys were trying to fit these things onto TVs, while the rest are playing copy-cat (as usual). I'm not over worried about dispersion characteristics.

Doreen Jordan and I are working on a new drive unit. I can't say anything about it yet. Wall-mounted, we can hopefully hit flat down to 80Hz.

And your point is?

Two units or four units - I can offer either.

I think I'll struggle with flat to 60Hz but can use two subs.