Home Theater Setup (pre installed)

[stevekubac]

Hi guys,

Happy to join to forums. Looks like a ton of great information here. Just recently moved into a new place with a built-in home theater ready to go and since settling in I've been trying to learn as much as possible. It looks like the previous owner never even calibrated the receiver (Onkyo TX-676) as the mic was still inside the bag unopened...unless he used a different mic.
The setup is a little unusual as it has 5 ceiling speakers to work with. I'm not sure the best way to have it set...that is a 7.1 vs a 5.1.2. Or maybe another setup I am overlooking. I was wondering if using the side left/right ceiling speakers for Atmos would be a better option. Or would just keeping something like this a standard 7.1 be the best? Have provided a quick diagram to give an idea of what I'm working with. Thank you!

 

[lovinthehd]

Hard to do Atmos with your surrounds and center in the ceiling. Can you accommodate speakers for center and surrounds at ear level either in-wall or speakers on the floor/stands? Bed layer of the 5.1 or 7.1 part should be closer to ear level, with Atmos separated by height differences. How does it sound as-is? The autosetup in an Onkyo is limited to begin with plus the combo of ear height and in ceiling may not work well with its capabilities. Previous guy may have just setup distance/delays with use of an spl meter or similar....

 

[stevekubac]

Yea that’s what I thought. A little difficult to do atoms considering 5 of the 7 channels are in ceiling. The theater is actually in a basement / townhouse so mounting speakers on the side ( right side) isn’t possible as it’s a concrete slab. He actually put up red mahogany paneling throughout the entire basement. It is possible to move the center channel underneath the screen. I can provide some pictures when I get back home. I see within the Onkyo setup I can set the height of the speakers + distances apart. But considering the unusual audio setup I just wanted to see what kind of recommendations you guys might have.

 

[stevekubac]

So it seems there really is no big change in sound when I change it from a 7.1 to a 5.1.2. Probably since most of the sound is coming from the ceiling.
One thing I've noticed is that at high volume higher frequency sounds are a little overbearing. The guy prior to me didn't really use the room and I know it wasn't optimized because his RCA connector wasn't even making a proper connection to the sub and cutting in/out. Had to strip and put a new connector on.
I tried the receivers auto calibration with the mic a few times but it kept giving back crazy settings which I can't even remember. I did use an SPL meter (after setting correct speaker distances) and got each speaker to around 75db at the listening point. I think my crossover settings are what's causing the issue and need some more adjustments, but I'm not sure where to set. Below are the speakers and my current crossover settings. Any recommendations?

Fronts (T301, 80Hz - 30kHz) - 90HZ Crossover
Center (Protege C606, 45Hz – 20kHz) - 80HZ Crossover
Top L/R (Protege C606, 45Hz – 20kHz) - 80HZ Crossover
Rear Top L/R (Protege C651, 45Hz – 20kHz) - 60HZ Crossover
Subwoofer ( KEF C4, 29Hz - 140Hz ) - 80HZ Crossover
Low pass knob set to highest and using receiver crossover settings

 

[lovinthehd]

Crossovers are that between speaker and sub, generally referenced against each speaker. Not sure what you're calling a crossover for the sub, many confuse that with the LPF of LFE (only affects recordings with the .1 channel, normal setting is 120 hz), especially as you confirm you've set the low pass filter on the sub to the highest setting (that's another point of confusion often). I'd say most of the issues are generally just speaker location oriented, tho I'm not sure what the issue particularly is you're referring to. If you've already played with eliminating the atmos aspect that's one thing I'd try, as well as perhaps higher crossover on your fronts and the rear tops.....

 

[stevekubac]

Crossovers are that between speaker and sub, generally referenced against each speaker. Not sure what you're calling a crossover for the sub, many confuse that with the LPF of LFE (only affects recordings with the .1 channel, normal setting is 120 hz), especially as you confirm you've set the low pass filter on the sub to the highest setting (that's another point of confusion often). I'd say most of the issues are generally just speaker location oriented, tho I'm not sure what the issue particularly is you're referring to. If you've already played with eliminating the atmos aspect that's one uthing I'd try, as well as perhaps higher crossover on your fronts and the rear tops.....

Yea set the LPF to 80HZ on the sub via the receiver. was copying and pasting so just thought “crossover” was easier to use. Considering my setup would you recommended trying a higher LPF such as 120Hz? I felt like the sub was kind of localized so I turned it down to 80. maybe try 100 and increase the speaker crossovers ? will experiment some more tonight , thanks

 

[lovinthehd]

Yea set the LPF to 80HZ on the sub via the receiver. was copying and pasting so just thought “crossover” was easier to use. Considering my setup would you recommended trying a higher LPF such as 120Hz? I felt like the sub was kind of localized so I turned it down to 80. maybe try 100 and increase the speaker crossovers ? will experiment some more tonight , thanks

Were you testing it with LFE content particularly? It doesn't affect normal bass management. I always keep all my avrs at 120 for the LPF of LFE, but have had no issues at that setting.

 

[BMXTRIX]

The biggest change I would make is to dump that in-ceiling center speaker completely and get a matching center to your main left/right speakers. Having people talk at you from the ceiling half the time, and from the floor the other half of the time would drive me crazy. Just completely dump that in-ceiling speaker. Pull it out, throw it away. What a silly idea that was.

 

[stevekubac]

Yea it's definitely a strange setup. Why I've been struggling to get the settings right. Unfortunately work ran late yesterday and I wasn't able to get around to messing with it more.

Were you testing it with LFE content particularly? It doesn't affect normal bass management. I always keep all my avrs at 120 for the LPF of LFE, but have had no issues at that setting.

If I were to increase the LPF to 120 for the sub would you recommend raising the crossover for most of the other speakers to about 90-100?

 

[lovinthehd]

Yea it's definitely a strange setup. Why I've been struggling to get the settings right. Unfortunately work ran late yesterday and I wasn't able to get around to messing with it more.



If I were to increase the LPF to 120 for the sub would you recommend raising the crossover for most of the other speakers to about 90-100?

They're not really related. Having the LFE channel having a limit of 120hz is one thing, crossovers another. A higher crossover may/may not help but I'd try it.

 

[Eppie]

Yea it's definitely a strange setup. Why I've been struggling to get the settings right. Unfortunately work ran late yesterday and I wasn't able to get around to messing with it more.

If I were to increase the LPF to 120 for the sub would you recommend raising the crossover for most of the other speakers to about 90-100?

This often comes up. There are usually two settings in the AVR. The LFE setting is for the .1 effects channel and then the crossover setting for bass management for the other speakers. The LFE channel is strictly low frequency effects and only goes to the sub, so that is set to 120 Hz so that the sub gets all effects. The crossover setting sets the point at which bass is filtered from the other channels and fed to the sub. That is typically set at 80Hz but can be adjusted up and down to suite, between 10 and 20 Hz. Setting the crossover setting too high will make the sub sound localized, hence the usual 80 - 90 Hz setting. Since the receiver is doing the bass management, the sub itself needs to have its crossover cranked all the way up (120 Hz) otherwise if the sub crossover freq. is lower than what the AVR is set at, you'll end up with a notch filtered out.

 

[Eppie]

I'll second the recommendation for taking out that single ceiling speaker and getting a proper centre speaker mounted either above or below the screen. You'll notice a huge difference in the dialogue. The other ceiling speakers can be set as side and rear surrounds.

If you find bass uneven or boomy in locations, consider adding a second matching sub and trying different sub locations, but that center should definitely be top priority. Try and match the center to your existing front KEFs so that they have the same timbre. You want dialogue to sound the same as it pans from L to C to R.