Hi!
I am flipping a house that I'm going to move into, and am going to have my first big boy audio system. Most of the requirements, though, are driven by the pipe organ project that I'm building for the living room. This is a little bit of an essay, so thanks in advance for the help.
To sum up: I'm using Hauptwerk, a software that samples real instruments, plays via some kind of input (midi keyboards, pedals, whatever you want), and then goes through a computer, and then out of the audio from that computer. Most of that doesn't matter a whole lot, except to know that the audio output is made up of potentially hundreds of simultaneous audio files (each representing a single sampled pipe, and an organ can have thousands). Most of my reading from people who have created these projects themselves seems to indicate that many decent speakers and channels is preferable to a small amount of really nice speaker. Part of this is in the reproduction of a real instrument - the pipes are often in many places around the room, and the software can map per-pipe to different audio channels - and part of it is to help with destructive wave cancellations from all of the pipes playing simultaneously. I am not 100% sure what that means, but I get the gist of it, and maybe it's more meaningful to you. For those unfamiliar with pipe organs, the largest pipes (approximately 32 foot pipes) sound at about 16Hz. I have no interest in reproducing anything lower (the next down is 64', at 8Hz, but there are two of those in the world, they haven't been sampled, and I don't care).
So, I know I want/need a few things: A good sub, capable of 16Hz. Several (within reason for the space and design) regular treble speakers.
I'm NOT filling a large space... this is a 28'x20' living room.
The software maps to audio channels per-pipe, not by frequency. This has an interesting impact because the lowest pipes are not like a digitally produced low frequency, but rather are recorded in natural spaces and have a big of overtones and treble sound in them. I don't think I just want a normal sub to map these to, and lose all the treble sound.
The sub needs to be able to sustain these. I don't know how to see if this is or is not true for a certain sub, but it was brought up enough that I need to make sure of it. i.e. it isn't just for low short effects in movies.
I spoke to a home audio shop, but their expertise is focused in standard channeling (dolby, etc), and didn't have a lot of knowledge around manual crossover boxes, or even how I get the digital signal split between my own custom channel count.
The next hurdle: I also want this to be my actual home audio: Phones, TV, etc. also need to connect to these speakers. Can I just fork an analog cable from the "standard" home audio box, and from my organ "box" to the same speakers? Can I just use the same organ decoder box for all of it?
Here's what I have been able to learn so far, please correct what I have wrong:
- For the bass:
- The ideal situation would be a Definitive Technology tower with integrated sub and loudspeaker. I plug in one analog line (the organ software says "I'm sending everything from the low register to this speaker") and the speaker handles the crossover between sub and treble. The con: I'm spending $3k if I want one that hits 16Hz.
- I do the crossover myself. I really like the SVS PB-3000 (unless that's overkill for the room and I can get away with the -2000? I do have neighbors, after all), and then I get some decent surround speaker, and a crossover box.
- Should this be an active or passive crossover? I've seen these words, but to be honest I don't know enough to know what I need.
- Does this even work as I'm expecting? I intend to basically diy my own version of the DT tower, and I'm not concerned with the asthetics of two speakers vs the one pretty tower.
- For the treble:
- I don't know, I guess a bunch of ~$250 surround speakers? This should fill the room evenly, so I don't think I want monitors. Imagine an occasional audience.
- For the interface:
- I'm making assumptions here, but what I think happens is that the software connects with the audio interface 'box', and then I'm able to map to the available channels. So, I probably have an HDMI coming out of the computer, into this interface/decoder/channel box, which has a bunch of analog cables coming out of it. I don't really know what I'm looking for here, and I don't know too well what to search for. How does this interact with the home audio box?
- Other things, most of which I don't understand
- How does this interact with preamps? (What actually are preamps, pretend you're talking to a fifth grader)
- Do I get speakers with their own amps? Or run a single amplifier?
- What else don't I know?
The overall functionality is that I press a key on a keyboard, and based on the drawn stops, many related "pipes" play - each pipe being and individual audio file. Each of these "pipes" is routed to only one speaker, always, except in the case of the crossover-driven sub/speaker, where there is a single analog channel and the crossover handles splitting frequencies to the speakers.
What ranges should I be aiming at the sub vs the treble speaker? For example, do I put all the 32 foot ranks (lowest 16Hz) and the bottom section of the 16 foot ranks (32Hz) on the sub?
Will two subs make a noticeable difference given my room size and use case? I'm upgrading from what is probably a $75 6:1 set, for comparison.
As far as orders of magnitude on price, I'd love something like $3k rather than something like $6k, if possible. Again, it's a small space, so other than the money on a good sub to hit 16hz, I'm not sure that it'll be thousands of dollars for the other speakers.
