Challenging room for 2.1 stereo..need help

[Leaky Waders]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am soliciting your advice and opinion to help me spend my money wisely.

Recently, I moved into a new home and set up my home theater in the upstairs game room. I have 20 year old Adcom seperates, a Denon surround receiver, Definitive Technology speakers and a Velodyne sub. I like to listen to music while cooking, etc around the house but when I play music on the the upstairs equipment it just echos downstairs.

I am interested in a 2.1 stereo system to be set up in my downstairs livingroom. The livingroom presents several challengs due to the size and shape of the room as well as the way the living room opens into the rest of the house. The measurement of the room is 19' x 16'. I have attached photos of the room.

At this point I am not certain that the challenges with the house justifies investing in expensive equipment as I'm not sure that I will be able to produce quality music considering the limitations of the room.

My taste in music includes blues, rock, alternative rock, and jam bands.

The source of my music will include digital music stored on an external hard drive, mostly .mp3 files and internet sites like MOG. The bit rate of the average file will be 192 kbps. I currently have an Arcam rDAC connected to my desktop PC.

The only pieces of equipment that I have given serious consideration to are a pair of Salk Song Tower floorstanding speakers with the dome tweeters and a REL T9 base system. I have looked at a used pair of class "A" monoblock hybrid amps but have not purchased them.

If I knew I could produce quality music that would sound really good in my home I am willing to invest up to $7000.00. I'm just not convinced that the room will cooperate, so to speak. I would hate to spend the money only to find out that a $7000.00 system sounds no better than a $2000.00 system.

Please take a look at the photos and the floor plan and feel free to comment.
http://s1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd372/MercierPRM/Living%20Room/

Thanks.
Paul

 

[its phillip]

I'm sure the songtowers would do nicely for you, but there are much better options out there than REL for subwoofers - rythmik, funky waves, svs, hsu, etc. When you are willing to spend that much money you should try to audition some equipment, although that will be difficult with most ID brands unless you are willing to spend money shipping back and forth. There are some brands out there that have great trial periods like aperion audio who pay for shipping both ways. You can try to find owners near you who are willing to let you listen to their speakers, but they will probably sound much different in their homes than they will in your own.

Anyway, you really need to do something about the files you listen to. Why spend thousands on a system just to listen to 192kbps mp3? If you're going to be using mp3, get v0 or 320.

 

[Leaky Waders]

Phillip,
Thanks for the input. I will look into different subwoofers. I may have succumbed to the REL marketing.

As for the mp3, I have a friend who gave me roughly 600 mb of mp3 music. I gave him an external hard drive and he downloaded his music to my drive. I had no control over the compression settings. Had it been a lossless copy I would be in better shape. Beggars cant be choosers as they say.
Paul

 

[GranteedEV]

Rather than 2.1, I think if going with monopoles you will get the best bass going 2.3

Now I don't know how important bass is to you. Maybe midrange resolution and neutrality is the most important thing. In this case maybe even 2.0 will work best.

Now gradient type speakers are an option. They load the room differently from monopoles, and you should get much better bass (all the way up to the 300+hz) by going with a gradient rather than a monopole. speakers with dipole radiation are also less prone to strong early reflections, so you're less room dependant, period. The only caveat is that you want the front of the speaker to be a good four feet or so from the wall behind it.

Unfortunately not many commercial dynamic gradients do exist that don't cost an arm and leg.

Then what do I recommend with a 7k ( ) budget?

DIY

Build two of these for a cardioid 2.0 :

http://www.musicanddesign.com/NaO_NoteDetails.html

The above is an active hybrid speaker. A separate amp for woofers and the rest of the passband is necessary. For a pre-amp, anything with plenty of pre-out voltage and a low noise floor will work. The Emotiva USP-1 is an option, or you can go with a surround receiver like the Marantz SR5004 available on accesories4less. Since separates amps are necessary, there's no point in getting an ultra high power receiver.

For separates amps, I recommend the two channel ATI 2002 paired with the two channel ATI 3002.

And then, live with them for a while. If that's not enough deep output, then you will need not one, but three subs. I would recommend three or four equalized exodus tempest-X's or something, spaced throughout the room.

 

[GranteedEV]

Phillip,
Thanks for the input. I will look into different subwoofers. I may have succumbed to the REL marketing.

Rel subs are for british people. IN britain, homes are small and close together and subs aren't supposed to make bass that would bother neighbors.

But if you just want the best sound quality you need

1) Low distortion (so that you're only hearing the fundamental, nothing extra)
2) High output (so that dynamics aren't suffocated)

the best way to get the above two is to go with large, low distortion, high excursion drivers, like the TC Sounds LMS 5400 or CSS SDX15 mk II. Funkywaves uses the TC driver in their 18.0 subwoofer.

The tradeoff for going sealed is low end sensitivity. You need to add some boost in the form of a linkwitz transform to get flat in-room response down to 20hz. Adding boost needs you need a lot of amplification. How much amplification you need depends on your max SPL needs, but it probably wouldn't hurt to have around 3000 watts

The best way to get this kind of amplification is with pro-amps, which are normally fan-cooled so they need to be in a different room to keep noise floor high. They're as good as any hi fi amp, but the fans are the issue.

Instead of sealed, Passive Radiators or transmission lines may be a better idea to get deep extension. PMC makes transmission line speakers, but they're so uber over priced i would stay well away. Funkywaves uses passive radiators in the FW 18.3.

But like i said, if I were you, I'd get just the Nao Note first and live with it for a while. It's a DIY speaker, but you can get much of the work done for you (flat pack enclosure kit, plus pre-assembled crossover). This should only run you around 3-3.5k for everything, so it's still half of your original final budget.