Making "future-proof" purchases

[jared555]

Exit: in response to eventually being in a different environment: that is why i would much rather have something that is overkill for the room size rather than something that is 'just perfect'

Also.... I am sure I am going to be murdered for asking this question.... but is it better to buy speakers that are almost perfectly flat/technically 'flawless' and then adjust them by room adjustments/equalizers to make them sound the way you want, or to buy ones based on personal opinion entirely?

My thought was when using the equalizer, etc. if you buy the speakers, love the sound, and them move into a different room you can just adjust things to the new room, rather than trying to 'replicate' the old room....

And I know I am not explaining things very well.... I should have said "future-resistant" purchases, for example .... Basically I am wanting to make the purchases on components where technology doesn't change massively and where the components will last long term without maintenance first... (yes I would love a projector, but they are constantly changing and you have to replace the lamp fairly often)

 

[Exit]

There are a number of factors controlled by the designer besides frequency response that go into making a good sounding speaker, such as distortion. I think you want to buy speakers that sound good to your ear, because that is in the long run what you want to listen to. If speakers don’t sound good to begin with, the equalization probably will not help. If you hear the speakers sound good in the store, then you know they have the potential to be good in your house if you can achieve a similar acoustic environment. The automatic equalizer’s job is to compensate for room acoustics differences and give you a flatter frequency response. Sometimes you might want to get into room acoustic treatments for specific sound problems (different forum) in conjunction with the equalizer. If the room has too much echo, for example, then that would probably be a candidate for room treatment. I think some might feel that every room requires room acoustic treatments. I have not gotten into room acoustic treatments yet and I am just reading the forums for now.

 

[avaserfi]

Ideally one would want to by a technically superior speaker and then use equalization to dial in the ideal response. It is important to realize though that there are a variety of factors that determine a speakers techinical performance as it correlates to human perception. Simply having an extremely linear on-axis response is a positive, yes, but also, factors such as off-axis response (both horizontal and vertical), SPL vs THD, cabinet resonance, sensitivity, driver decay, impedance etc...

One can use credible third party measurements and the available perceptual research in an effort to correlate all of these given measurements to perceived sound quality.

If this is done one would realize, for example, that a perfectly linear speaker will often times be considered harsh due in part to how humans hear and current recording techniques, but integrating a quality equalizer with these speakers will allow for virtually any frequency response to be attained due to their linearity, this would likely not be possible with a loudspeaker containing various artifacts within its response.

 

[Exit]

I would agree that reading independent reviews with performance data is a good place to start. If you are relatively new to the hobby and do not realize the significance of the performance graphs and measurements, there is also usually a listening test where you can gain information on the sound quality of the speakers. You can also ask the forum for recommendations for speakers in your price range.

As far as equalization goes, the type the automatic calibration used is parametric. That means it seeks out the high points in the frequency response and sets a center frequency, width and height of each peak to be cut. I am guessing it can do about six or seven cuts. The other manual equalization is by fixed interval frequency response cuts. These cut points are fixed and are not necessarily where the cut needs to be applied. Thus they are less accurate in achieving a flat frequency response.

So the idea of using manual equalization, presumably with a sound disk and a sound pressure level meter, is much more problematic. In fact many automatic equalizers in receivers don’t cover the bass region. In these cases a number of people use manual parametric equalizers just for their subwoofers and in fact some subwoofers incorporate these parametric equalizers.

 

[cbraver]

As far as sources...

In the thread where you asked about some pro-audio amps, you mentioned you wanted to build a rack-mount PC. Building a multimedia PC allows for good upgradability and decreases source costs considerably. Instead of buying a CD player, DVD player and such, you could build a rack mount PC with a good sound card and get a Blu-Ray DVD drive for it. Whirlwind makes a breakout box called pcDI that is designed for maching you're PC to professional balanced, low impedance gear, should you decide to go the pro route:

http://www.whirlwindusa.com/dirbox.html#pcdi

I'd go with a simple, robust system. Tyan makes great motherboards for this type of thing. A nice sound card with RCA outs to that Whirlwind box, and a good video card to run to you're TV.

Blu-ray player, you're music player of choice (iTunes, etc.), you could store HD movies on the harddrive, etc. RAID would be a nice addition as well.

The Whirlwind box is just two channel, but, with some research you might be able to find a DI box for 7.1 decoding and such. I haven't really looked into it yet. I just figured I'd post the Whirlwind box to show you some options. At the very least, it would work for playing stereo souces off a PC.

 

[jared555]

Yeah, RAID I have covered my home server currently has 3.5TB of storage (6x 500GB drives in RAID 5 with 1 hot spare, 3x 500GB hard drives in RAID5, and 3x 250GB drives in RAID 5)

Edit:
Would putting both computers and av equipment in the same rack be a bad idea? (other than the massive weight involved)

 

[cbraver]

Would putting both computers and av equipment in the same rack be a bad idea? (other than the massive weight involved)

No. Just be aware of heat, especially using consumer equipment. Pro-amps and rack-mount computers are generally cooled front to back, because they are meant to be stackable. But, throwing a consumer amplifier with conduction cooling inbetween a computer and a DVD player would be a bad idea. Follow manufacturer recommendations for rack-mounting and cooling requirements. You can also buy 2U fan inserts for most racks. Weight should be a non-issue unless you get a really poorly built rack. Add up the spaces you need and add extra for cooling and upgrades.

If you feel heat is an issue, grab one of those LCD temperature modules and connect some thermocouples to them and place them around the rack. Then you can monitor temperatures.

 

[jared555]

My onkyo receiver says there should be 9-10 inches open above the receiver, etc. etc.....

If I use fan(s) in the rack does it really matter how much of a gap there is as long as there is proper airflow?

 

[cbraver]

My onkyo receiver says there should be 9-10 inches open above the receiver, etc. etc.....

If I use fan(s) in the rack does it really matter how much of a gap there is as long as there is proper airflow?

There will need to be some space because you're Onkyo is cooled through slots on the top. As long as the rack is in a properly ventilated area, I'd probably put a 2U fan plate above it (which is only 3.5in) and see. From you're computer stuff you've probably got a pretty good idea how to cool electronics. Basically, you just have to make sure the fans aren't just blowing hot air and that there is a place for the hot air to escape. Toss a thermocouple in there and you'll never have to guess the temperature, or even use it to control fan speed. Lotsa options. If you're just going to be using the Onkyo as a pre-amp, it will produce a lot less heat as well. You kinda just have to see.

 

[Exit]

I remember a funny Audioholic’s thread a while back were I think it was Clint trying to sell off his home theater PC where he outlined some of the difficulties with the project. I think home theater PCs may not have really arrived yet, and if they have it is probably subject to earlier obsolescence than other parts of the A/V system, just like PCs in general get obsolete. If not it would be interesting if those that have pulled off a PC centered HT start a thread and describe what works

 

[jared555]

Well with the high end sound cards, including some that support dolby digital/dts encoding it would probably work. Also, there are the pro audio devices which would work for inputs.

 

[cbraver]

I think home theater PCs may not have really arrived yet, and if they have it is probably subject to earlier obsolescence than other parts of the A/V system, just like PCs in general get obsolete.

What would get obsolete? My five year old dual AMD 1.4GHz 3GB RAM server is even overkill for what I do. The difference is I'm running Linux rather than Microsoft's hog of operating systems, but even running Microsoft garbage a reasonable PC would be fine for years to come serving as a multimedia PC. It's not going to be running Photoshop, SolidWorks, ProE, and stuff like that. It should be a barebones computer, and ideally have a low-overhead operating system.

I'm a two channel guy (not by choice, but by space ), and I use my a computer to watch regular DVDs, HD movies, play locally hosted music, play streaming music, manage my iPod, among other things. I used to use it as a DVR also, until Comcast started including it with their digital cable. Truthfully, I prefer the DVR functionality of my computer rather than to the cable box, I might switch back to running my cable through my computer again rather than the box. Memory is so cheap now days you can load you're entire DVD collection to a computer, even HD/Blu-Rays and use a RAID card for backup, or burn backups. My PC is connected to my LCD TV, which doubles as my second monitor. I run Ubuntu Linux Studio: http://ubuntustudio.org/ ... and use all open-source software, so, my software costs are ZERO.

Granted, it's not for everyone, and audio/video purists would probably think it would introduce all kinds of problems, but, it's certainly a pretty future-proof solution I've found.

I mentioned it is because jared mentioned his computer stuff in another thread, so, I figured a project like that might peak his interest and would be worth checking out.

 

[wire]

Receivers and A/V electronics can become obsolete almost as quickly as computers. Just ask the 1 million people who bought an HD-DVD player.

A good set of speakers or a nice (outbord) amp, however, should work well for several years to come.

I agree with this statement .
Power Amps have not changed very much over the last 20 years and speakers will last alongtime if looked after .