Building new Home theater, thoughts on my gear selection?

[Cory Raymer]

We bought a new home about a year and a half ago and made sure it would support a future cinema room. I finally started on it 4 weeks ago and am almost done, down to doing trim work, riser platform for rear row seating and then on to installing my gear.

This will be my second media room, but I think I have a better gear selection now. Was hoping to get some feedback on what I can expect to get as far as quality and movies style experience.

The room is 16x24 with an additional media closet that is 5x14.

Projector: Epson Home Cinema 5030UB
Receiver: Denim AVR-X3200W
Front spkrs: Klipsch RP-280F
Center: Klipsch RP-450C
Surround: Klipsch CDT-3650-II In-ceiling
Rear: Emp Tel R55Wi Bipolar speakers
Sub: Rythmik FVX15
Screen: undecided......Carada maybe? Need to keep it under 600 bucks.

Any thoughts? Does my sound system seem like a good pairing? Weak spots?

 

[herbu]

You have already bought all those components?
If so, I think you made excellent choices and will be thrilled w/ your new home theater.

 

[Cory Raymer]

You have already bought all those components?
If so, I think you made excellent choices and will be thrilled w/ your new home theater.

Yes, I have everything at home now, except for a screen, the theater power recliners and a Panamax Power conditioner.

Still stumped on screen, deciding between a Visual Apex 110" for $287 vs a Carada 110" for $587. Wish I knew if I would see a difference.

 

[ack_bak]

The Vapex screens seem to get good reviews, I doubt you would notice much, if any, difference vs Carada. Carada will most like look a little nicer and be a slightly higher build quality.

Please share your thoughts on your speakers once you get everything up and running, I am considering a very similar system for my next house.

 

[Cory Raymer]

The Vapex screens seem to get good reviews, I doubt you would notice much, if any, difference vs Carada. Carada will most like look a little nicer and be a slightly higher build quality.

Please share your thoughts on your speakers once you get everything up and running, I am considering a very similar system for my next house.

Thanks for the reply. I should be finishing all the trim, crown and touch-ups this week and building my riser platform on Saturday. If all goes well, I will be installing my hardware on Sunday. I will let you know how the speaker setup is. I will say picking up the Klipsch 15" sub was more work than I thought. I work near them and got an FVX15 for $800 even, out the door. However, that out the door required loading that SOB in my truck, boxed it is 120lbs.

I think I am going to go with the Carada Criterion 120", I love the tapered design of the border, tapered in towards the screen.

 

[agarwalro]

Surround: Klipsch CDT-3650-II In-ceiling
Rear: Emp Tel R55Wi Bipolar speakers

You need to flip these. I suggest that you not use in-ceiling speakers for surround. In fact, wall mounted bipoles with null facing seats is supposed to give more immersive surround than direct radiating speakers (tower, bookshelf, in-wall, etc.). Outside multi channel music, the rear speakers mostly carry ambient sounds effects. Having in-ceiling speakers for Rears will be tolerable.

 

[Cory Raymer]

You need to flip these. I suggest that you not use in-ceiling speakers for surround. In fact, wall mounted bipoles with null facing seats is supposed to give more immersive surround than direct radiating speakers (tower, bookshelf, in-wall, etc.). Outside multi channel music, the rear speakers mostly carry ambient sounds effects. Having in-ceiling speakers for Rears will be tolerable.

Well,I have not installed any speakers yet, so I want to do whatever is best. You are saying I should mount the Bi-polar speakers on the side walls,one on either said of seating area and put the in ceiling speakers at the rear of the room?

Only reason I was doing as I said was from looking at a diagram of speaker layout and it showed in ceiling speakers above the main seating area.

 

[agarwalro]

Well,I have not installed any speakers yet, so I want to do whatever is best. You are saying I should mount the Bi-polar speakers on the side walls,one on either said of seating area and put the in ceiling speakers at the rear of the room?

Correct. Something like this,

There is flexibility in the placement,

The surrounds should be about 2-3ft. above ear height when seated and the rears about 3-5ft behind the couch/ main seat.

 

[Cory Raymer]

Correct. Something like this,

There is flexibility in the placement,

The surrounds should be about 2-3ft. above ear height when seated and the rears about 3-5ft behind the couch/ main seat.

Thanks a lot. Luckily, I haven't cut holes in ceiling for my speakers yet and while I did install boxes with banana plug connections on the rear wall, I can fix this with a bit of work. I'll simply make my 18 yr old son get in the attic again. Haha he will be so happy!

But seriously, thanks for the heads up

 

[Latent]

you might have got confused about the in ceiling speakers from Dolby Atmos setups. These have ceiling speakers that add height to your sound stage. In fact you could change your layout to support a 5.1.2 setup which I think your amp will support (wont do 7.1.2 or 5.1.4 etc because it is limited to 7 channels I think).

See page 16 of this guide:
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/dolby-atmos/dolby-atmos-home-theater-installation-guidelines.pdf


For this setup you would move your bi-pole speakers back a bit so they are behind you and their diffuse sound fills in the rear sound field. Then your in ceiling can be setup as Top Middle overhead speakers which are active on Dolby Atmos encoded disks or upsampled from non atmos dolby encoded disks. Once DTS:X firmware is released shortly you can get the same for DTS as well.

anyway just an idea to consider.

Edit: made a mistake thinking it was dipole

 

[Cory Raymer]

you might have got confused about the in ceiling speakers from Dolby Atmos setups. These have ceiling speakers that add height to your sound stage. In fact you could change your layout to support a 5.1.2 setup which I think your amp will support (wont do 7.1.2 or 5.1.4 etc because it is limited to 7 channels I think).

See page 16 of this guide:
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/dolby-atmos/dolby-atmos-home-theater-installation-guidelines.pdf


For this setup you would move your bi-pole speakers back a bit so they are behind you and their diffuse sound fills in the rear sound field. Then your in ceiling can be setup as Top Middle overhead speakers which are active on Dolby Atmos encoded disks or upsampled from non atmos dolby encoded disks. Once DTS:X firmware is released shortly you can get the same for DTS as well.

anyway just an idea to consider.

Edit: made a mistake thinking it was dipole

Thanks for that guide, great reading for a newbie like myself. With that said, I have not even opened up my receiver yet and wondering if I should return it and get a 9.2 Receiver?

 

[lsiberian]

I suggest you drop the in-ceiling speakers and simply go with 5.1. Simply use the rears for your surrounds. I suggest direct radiating if you must put them on the back wall. My favorite surrounds are the JBL Cinema 8320. They have high power capabilities and great sensitivity and wide dispersion. Plus they are made for wall mounting. Of course you can go much cheaper and still get great sound for the surrounds. Silver Ticket is supposed to be fantastic for screens and is good for the budget minded. Carada definitely has a good reputation and has been around for a long time too.

 

[Adam Kelly]

For a dedicated home theater with that large of a screen, that many speakers, and those dimensions - I would also consider adding an external amp to better handle the ongoing load while giving you the headroom for demanding moments.

 

[lsiberian]

For a dedicated home theater with that large of a screen, that many speakers, and those dimensions - I would also consider adding an external amp to better handle the ongoing load while giving you the headroom for demanding moments.

I would agree if the OP wasn't using horn loaded speakers. But horns should fill this room fine without external amplification.

 

[Latent]

Thanks for that guide, great reading for a newbie like myself. With that said, I have not even opened up my receiver yet and wondering if I should return it and get a 9.2 Receiver?

hard to answer this question as it depends on if you really want to expand it to these new Atmos/DTS:X formats or not. Your current unit will do 5.1.2 or 7.1 fine and you may be happy with just this.

The AVR-X4200W is a few hundred more but is still 7 amp channel only but it does a full 9.2 channels of processing which means you can use it out of the box the same as your current unit but add a stereo power amp for your mains ( or a cheaper one just for surround speaker use) now or down the track and get 7.2.2 or 5.2.4. Also note you get two independently controlled sub outputs which is handy if you add 2 subs as your current unit has two of the same sub signal outputs only. Edit: forgot to mention a jump from 105W 2ch -> 125W 2ch and also better XT32 room calibration.

The next step up AVR-X6200W is a lot more expensive but it gives you 9 channel out of the box and has 11 channel of processing so once again down the track you can add a stereo power amp for fronts or surrounds and get 7.2.4 or 9.2.2 options.

 

[lsiberian]

For a dedicated home theater with that large of a screen, that many speakers, and those dimensions - I would also consider adding an external amp to better handle the ongoing load while giving you the headroom for demanding moments.

I would agree if the OP wasn't using horn loaded speakers.

 

[agarwalro]

Thanks a lot. Luckily, I haven't cut holes in ceiling for my speakers yet and while I did install boxes with banana plug connections on the rear wall, I can fix this with a bit of work. I'll simply make my 18 yr old son get in the attic again. Haha he will be so happy!

But seriously, thanks for the heads up

No worries. Many people come here after purchasing inadequate gear or incorrectly installing it. In those instances it is harder to remedy the situation.