F

Funnychap

Audiophyte
My living room system pulls duty for "fill the house with music" and more casual/lazy HT viewing, or if I just want to watch something on the QD-OLED instead. It's just gone through a round of up upgrades in the last few weeks as well.

Current Equipment:

Television: 65" Samsung S95C QD-OLED
Receiver: Anthem MRX 540 8k
Power Amp (fronts): Musical Fidelity A308 Integrated (HT passthrough)
Sources: PC, Apple TV 4k Gen 3, Panasonic BD-85 bluray player
Fronts: Paradigm Studio Reference 100 v2
Surrounds: Kanto Yu Passive
Sub: REL s/510

The room is 25' x 13' and open on both sides of the central section where the system is set up. The floors are hardwood with an area rug and stippled ceiling. It is not treated and has a slightly higher RT60 of 350-500. I have been toying with the idea of something like a large 8' x 6' hanging aborber for the center of the ceiling but it probably wouldn't do all that much on it's own for the price it would likely be (I might try DYI though).

Recent changes:

-The MRX 540 8k replaced an Anthem AVM 50v. I wanted something to do centralized 4k 120Hz switching and the Anthem x40s have pretty good digital front ends. Being 15-20 years newer, I didn't think I'd be giving up anything from the 50v and I didn't feel like spending over double for another AVM 70 8k separate. This also gives me ARC Genesis and network control which is much easier and more convenient to tweak and upload than the old serial based ARC on the AVM 50v.

-The REL s/510 replaced an old Energy 12" EPS-150. The Energy was going on 25 years old or more and would occassionally hum for no apparent reason. I put a little REL T/Zero MkIII in my office/bedroom system using a high level connection and I have been enjoying the results up there with that integration. I decided to give a larger REL a shot in this system since sub 20 Hz bass wasn't really a concern in this room. It's running high-level on the mains and LFE input for the surrounds.

-The surrounds were added because the MRX 540 gave me extra channels of amplification and I had the Kanto's in storage already. I picked them up 60% when the modest local shop closed out in the fall. They roll off a lot more than the mains but I'm not noticing any major tonal mismatch so I'm quite happy with the results - expectially for what was essentially a $100 CAD pair of speakers.

The placement of the sub isn't ideal but I don't really like the other options I have considered. There's a fairly nasty drop-out around 25-27 Hz in the room (at the MLP measurment position at least), but the fronts and the sub working together do a pretty good job of filling each others dips in. ARC tames the peaks where the additives go up a bit high and REW reports decent output down to about 17 - 20 Hz (although I only measured at a 75db reference). I'm pretty happy with the bass sound overall. I'm still trying to tweak the LFE side of things but any issues remaining there aren't really apparent while watching so far.

View attachment 65124

View attachment 65125

Things are tuned for an MLP at the center of the couch, but I almost never actually do critical listening from there. It's more of a lay down and enjoy kind of room for me.

Probably not the usual type of set up among users here, but that's the tour.
There should not be any objects between your L and R speakers (or keep those objects low below the height of your mids/tweeters), otherwise you won't get a phantom center vocalist or 3D imaging.
You should also try different speaker distances 1'-3' away from the front wall.
And use a lossless music source like Apple Music, don't cripple your music quality with compressed Spotify.
 
newsletter

  • RBHsound.com
  • BlueJeansCable.com
  • SVS Sound Subwoofers
  • Experience the Martin Logan Montis
Top