Need speakers/receiver recommendation to complete my home theater setup

[Dmitriy Afanasyev]

I am looking for help and recommendations to complete my new home theater set up. I've just purchased a tiny media PC (Intel NUC6i7KYK), a whole set of peripherals and a new HD projector. Now I need to upgrade my 12 year old Logitech 5.1 speakers system. Help me pick my sound set up?

1. My house is wired for a 5.1 system, so I'd like to stick with that and I don't need wireless.
2. I don't want a giant (traditionally sized) receiver because it will be larger than my PC and that's just stupid. I need something small.
3. I am not constrained by budget - I just need a good system.
4. My room shape is really funky with asymmetrical walls and a slanted ceiling. So I would prefer to have an auto-calibration capability to balance the speakers.

Thanks in advance!

 

[ien2222]

Where are you located?

As far as an AVR is concerned, nearly all of them run about 17 inches in width, this is mostly so they fit an AV rack nicely, however, there is some variation in height and depth. Probably your best bet is the Marantz NR series which is low profile and not quite as deep as more regular sized AVR's. The NR1506 is 5.2 (which I linked to), however in the 1600 series the new NR1607 just came out replacing the NR1606. Though both are 7.2, the NR1606 will at some point go on clearance and may end up being cheaper than the NR1506 if it matters. All three of those have Audyssey room correction, though it's a more basic version of it.

As for speakers, it depends on where you are located and though you said you are not constrained by a budget, it's easy to spend several thousand USD on speakers. A rough estimate of the budget would help narrow what to look for along with a rough estimate of the size of your room.

 

[Dmitriy Afanasyev]

Thanks. I am in California.

I like the Marantz NR models, they do look slimmer than the majority of what's available. Still, these receivers are going to be larger than the PC they'll be connected and they will be, by far, the largest objects on my media shelf. From this perspective, I've been inclined to consider "gaming" sound systems that don't require a separate receiver, but I found these to be lacking in features and frequently in quality.

As for the speakers and budget, I think of it in terms of ratio of cost of receiver to the cost of speakers, and here I am leaning towards 1:3. So as I am now looking at $500-700 receivers, I'd be considering speakers in the $1,500 - $2,100 range.

 

[ien2222]

Unfortunately ~17.25" is pretty much standard for width, I did run through various brands to see if something new that I didn't know about which would work better was recently released but no such luck. For that matter I tried finding a compact pre-amp (to be used with powered monitors as an alternative route) but it was the same for that. It looks like the NR series is about as small as you can get right now.


As for speakers, I have a couple of questions about your room, first would be how far away is the main listening area from the front speakers? Also, what would be a rough estimate for the volume of the room? That doesn't need to be very precise, more so looking at say under 1000 sqft, 1000-2000, 3000+.

 

[Dmitriy Afanasyev]

Ien2222, apologies for going dark. I am still here, and I still appreciate your help.

I am at peace with the size of the receiver box. I like the Marantz you suggested, but I wouldn't hate something that's 17.25" across either. Also, I thought more about the price. I'd be happy to pay around ~$2000 for the whole system: speakers + receiver, but I'd be ok to go up to $3000, if the benefit was real.

For the speakers, allow me to describe the layout of the room. It's a somewhat strange arrangement with the rear speakers and the listening area being really far from the screen/center speaker (~30-40 ft) and the front speakers are sitting on a ledge facing away from the main listening area. So the front speakers need to bounce off the walls to get to me. Total room size is under 1000 sq ft. It's wonky, but the house came pre-wired with 5.1 to these locations and the wires are good, so I am set on making this work. I drew a rough diagram of the room layout - hope that makes it more clear. See the link below for the picture.
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[americanaudiophile]

That room was wired for 7.1 not 5.1
The "front speakers" that your show in your diagram are really side surround speakers. They are not in the right position or aimed the right way to work right as fronts. I think the plan was to use free standing speakers as fronts. I suggest you add two more speakers at the TV for your fronts. You can chose not to set up for 7.1 and only use the speakers behind you for surround.
You can use in wall. on wall. or free standing speakers as left and right front. There are also in ceiling speakers that are angled into the ceiling so that they are aimed at you rather than down. Whichever type you chose they should match the center speaker.
I would check out the Paradigm brand of speakers. You can mix and match all these types of speakers and get a great result.

 

[Dmitriy Afanasyev]

Mind = blown.

It certainly does make sense for these weirdly placed speakers to be surround-middle. Sounds like I should be getting a 7.1 system then. Marantz NR1607 then? I do like their relatively small form factor....

 

[ien2222]

Hey there,

No worries about being gone, things can come up.

Glad AA cleared up that misunderstanding about speaker placement for you. Usually when people wire for speaker and they have their kit up front without a dedicated AV cabinet they just run the wire on the ground for the front mains...sometimes the center might be wired in-wall if the placement is above the screen though.

I noticed I asked the wrong question in my last post, I meant to asked about cubic ft, not sqft. But with what you provided on the sketch, I'm guessing you're well past 4000. With that in mind, I'm going to suggest that you use the $3000 mark for your budget and the reason is because it's a large room, I want to suggest subs that are in the $1000 price point.

I'm going to have to spend a day or two here looking for speakers. Since you have such a far distance between the front speakers and the listening area I need to find some higher sensitivity speakers given the NR series do not provide that much power. Do you have any size limitations for the front LCR speakers?

 

[Dmitriy Afanasyev]

Alright, let's see what we can land on. Pity on the NR being too weak for me - I was growing on the idea of that box. But my mind is open - let's explore.

I haven't put much thought into LCR speakers. I've been assuming that my front right and front left are up on that weird shelf, so I've ever only had the center to worry about, and I've used a small speaker on top of my media tower in the corner. It was always off-center, sure, but I never really had a properly sized speaker there, so it didn't really matter.

I got a couple considerations on size - I can't agree to floor-standing speakers (got a baby in the house, so nothing expensive on the floor), and, as I am looking at the wall and thinking about it, I probably don't want anything too giant up on the walls either. I need to consider running the wires too, not really sure how that's going to work out yet,

My screen is a projector, not a TV. That front wall of the room has a window on one side and a door on the other. In between I got about 8 feet of white wall. I am using an ultra short throw BenQ projector to create a rather large screen there - all the way from door to window. If I'll be doing LCR, I'll need to either mount them right above where my screen is, or all the way in the corners of the room.

 

[ien2222]

Even with a more robust AVR with that long of a distance I'd still be looking for higher sensitivity speakers. It takes double the power for a +3dB increase and with human hearing it takes roughly +10dB for it to seem twice as loud. So with the NR1607 using all 50watts per channel for the fronts, for even a +6dB increase you'd need something that does 200wpc and we're past using an AVR and are in more in the dedicated realm of separates and a higher price bracket.

Still, having an extra +4-5dB of headroom that an AVR can give you that's ~120wpc for the front mains could be beneficial, it just depends on what you are expecting out of your system. So here's what you need to consider; In open air (think speaker mounted on a pole way way up in the air outside) as you double the listening distance it drops by 6dB, so given that the sensitivity of a speaker is measured at one meter...you're looking at about a -20dB drop in sound level at your distance (roughly 10 meters) than the given spec.

Luckily in-room response doesn't drop as much, how much depends on the room's size and how much sound is dampened. It can be as little as a one dB drop for a very hard surfaced, smaller room with little furniture, or up to a 5dB drop with a large room with thick shag carpet and thick curtains, lots of furniture with fabric and acoustic tile for the ceiling. The average room with carpet is probably around a 3db drop or -10dB at your listening area...maybe a little more since you have a larger room...say 12dB.

So, I bet you're wondering "where does this get us?". Well, THX-reference states that the loudest a channel can play is 105dB (115dB for LFE which is handled by the sub). If we take a speaker with a sensitivity of 89dB (which means it plays at 89dB, one meter from the speaker, at one watt), at your listening distance it's 77db at one watt. To play at reference would require a bit more than 512 watts...assuming the speaker could handle that. One with a 92dB rating would only require half that amount.

Now, 105dB is extremely loud and quite a few people would rather not have it as loud as movies shown at the theater. So here's the consideration, if you don't need it to be as loud as the theater, then the NR1607 may work out for you depending on speaker choice. If you want it to be as close as possible, then another AVR will be a better choice. Right now you'll have roughly a 12dB drop and the NR can give you about +16dB, so the net gain is around +4dB above a speakers sensitivity rating.

The one speaker that you should seriously look at is the Klipsch RP-160m, it has a sensitivity of 96dB. So potentially you can reach about 100dB with the NR. This is pretty much the only speaker in your budget at $440/pair with a high sensitivity. Otherwise you're looking at $800/each for Reaction Audio Axis 15, or over $1000/each for several models from JTR Speakers.

I'm going to keep looking for a little bit more, but I wanted to respond to your post and give you something to think about.

Edited for: Grammar errors.

 

[Dmitriy Afanasyev]

ien2222, thank you for this! It does clear up a lot, and I am glad you brought up loudness. I am not really after loudness. Definitely not looking for anything to be theater-loud. I want clear sound, and I don't need to make the floor shake and the roof fall off. So if the issue is volume, I am happy at a lower tier.

As a point of reference, my existing system is a very old Logitech Z680 and I never get it over 50% of volume. The reason I am looking to upgrade is not because it's not loud enough, but because sounds comes out distorted and when there is voice and sound effects at the same time, the voice gets muffled and is impossible to understand.

 

[ien2222]

In that case, it probably seems like the NR1607 will work for you as long as the sensitivity is above 90dB.

And with that, it looks like the Klipsch is the best bet. If you can, go and listen to them before buying preferably when you can sit down and listen for a good 15-20 minutes and a healthy volume. You'll be looking at the "Reference Premier" (RP) line, specifically it's the RP-160m bookshelves and RP-250C center for your main LCR and the RP150m for the rear if you can though any speaker from that line will give you a good indication.

Looking a bit closer at your sketch of the room, it seems like the shelves for the side speakers are up above in the vaulted area (assuming that is what you were trying to convey)? If that's the case, they won't be very effective as side surrounds and you should limit yourself to 5 channels unless you want to run some wire along the wall (or redo the in-wall wiring) and reposition the side surrounds.

So looking at 5 channels right now:
Marantz NR1607: $700
Klipsch RP-160m: $550
Klipsch RP-250c: $370
Klipsch RP-150m: $420
Total: $2040

The NR1607 is a new model, if you don't mind you can get the previous model the NR1606 for $500. If I remember correctly, there weren't any major changes between the two and depending on when you purchase, looking around you may get it for cheaper. Just remember to make sure it's an authorized dealer. For that matter the speakers also go on sale occasionally if you're willing to wait a little bit and see.

Now, for the sub(s). As said before, you have a rather large space which means you need a capable sub(s). This isn't so much to shake the whole house though certainly that can be a goal, but more so the reason being that you want the lower to mid-bass to be balanced with the rest of your speakers. You'll be using a crossover right around 80Hz between your speakers and sub which means that the sub will be handling quite a bit of content other than that low end rumble that starts about 30Hz and goes down to whatever the lowest the sub can play.

For context, the lowest note of a piano has a frequency of 27.5Hz. The double bass, tuba, bass guitar and harp play down into the 30's, quite a few instruments play under 70Hz. Most pipe organs have a 16Hz pipe (and as a fyi, there is at least one organ that has a 8Hz pipe). So there's more to a sub than just getting some rumble and boom.

So...every bit of that $3000 budget :
Reaction Audio: Echo 15 $999
Rythmik Audio: FVX15 $999
Hsu Research: VTF-3 MK5 HP $799

The comparisons are Echo will have the most output of the three with the Hsu will most likely have a bit more output than the Rythmik, the Rythmik is servo controlled which helps reduce distortion. There's good reasons to go with any of them.

Since you mentioned a baby I'll give another choice. Though there's no way a toddler can tip over or do any real damage to the cabinet for the above subs other than scratches, but they are front firing so there's a chance that accidental damage could happen to the cone/surround. They certainly can take some abuse, but a toddler full sprint and falling into it with a toy could puncture it or do something else. Personally, I wouldn't worry about it, but to give an alternative, you could get 2 VTF-2 MK4s from Hsu. They are $560 each, though most likely you'd get a little discount for a purchase of two. These have downward-firing drivers so virtually no chance of accidental toddler damage. This sub certainly is not in the same class as the others I listed, even having two of them do not match up though it's starting to get close.

However, there would be a benefit going that route. As the frequency gets lower, surfaces have more of an impact with what's going on. So what happens is, even if you play a steady note, as you walk around the room you'll find that it gets louder in some spots and softer in others. Having two or more subs helps even that out.

 

[Dmitriy Afanasyev]

Thank you. Just curious, why didn't you recommend RP-250S for the rears? They caught my eye when I was looking at Klipsch, but I wasn't sure about the two-directional set up.

In the meantime, I'm starting to hunt for deals on the Marantz NR series.

 

[ien2222]

Sorry for the delay, I didn't realize you replied until now. It looks like you posted just before I finished editing my post so it treated this thread as read for me.

As for your question, monopole vs dipole vs bipole and in this case the 240S and 250S are bipole and the 150M that I listed is a monopole. Truthfully, this is a preference issue and there's a lot to write about it, I'll give you a couple of links for you to look at:

http/www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/surround-speaker-dipole-vs-bipole
http/www.avsforum.com/forum/92-community-news-polls/1457894-do-you-prefer-bipole-dipole-monopole-surround-speakers.html

In the end, for me at least, back in the olden days of pro logic where surround information was more for...ambiance, bipoles and dipoles would probably be a better choice since it gives a more diffused and enveloping sound field. But with todays discreet surround channels and mixing, I personally believe monopoles are nearly always a better choice given that surround effects can be very precise now. As an example, someone tosses a wrench towards the viewer and a bit to the left, when it hits a wall instead of hearing it as a sound that's sort behind you and to the left in that general direction with bipoles, instead you have a much more precise direction with monopoles and it sounds like it's roughly 50 degrees behind you to the left.

If it matters any, I think pretty much all sound mixing is done with monopoles for all surround channels. But as you see with that poll I listed, there's a significant portion that uses dipoles and bipoles and as such, if you wanted to try it out I certainly wouldn't advise against it. I would advise to buy them from a place where you could return them (and this goes for all the equipment/speakers) should you decide it's not for you.