Optical Digital from TV to RCA on the amp

[madmatt30]

I'm UK ;-)

I tried 2 subs on my Sony , took a few hours to get them phased perfectly .
Christ - the bass !!!!!! ;-)

Back to a single now though , the dog & the Mrs were having none of it.

I managed without a sub for a few years & relied on my crystal floorstanders which went down to insanely low frequencies .
I was always fairly happy but downsized to a 7.1 set of Boston acoustics se satellites.

Those things are mental for what I paid & the size of them

For 2 months I kept the wharfdales in the living room just to stand them on - people did not believe the sound was coming from speakers the size of cooking apples.

 

[jb2sea]

I've got good center channels in both my systems at home. It definitely makes a difference. I also have a center channel with the Monitor 7's I just bought. The guy gave me the center he was using, along with what he was using for surrounds. However the center is a small Polk that I suspect sucks for a center, along with what I think are actually a OK set of deck speakers. No idea if those would suffice for surrounds or not. I had figured I would use them for deck speakers. But since I'll be getting the Denon AVR, maybe I should try them as surrounds and see what they can do. Or maybe wireless so I don't have to run cables and drill holes. Any suggestions there?

I do have a Blu-Ray player I'll plug into the Denon via HDMI. It will be interesting to listen to the difference in sound vs Blueooth. If I sell the Emotiva amp, I do believe a sub will be in my future. Maybe the BIC Acoustech. It's supposed to be very good for the money.

I assumed the two sub outputs were intended for two different systems. A Zone 1 and Zone 2 sub. But I guess plenty of people run 2 subs. I've always been happy with just one.

Before I bought the Polks, I found a pair of Wharfdale's at a great price, but by the time I got down to measure to see if they would fit the space, they were sold. Hate I missed those, but they were very close on the fit anyway.

 

[robert600]

I would at least 'try out' that Denon with the 5 speakers you have. Blu-ray to Denon via HDMI is ideal. Without a sub, I would set the fronts (the polks) to 'large' and the other 3 to 'small'. Put the speakers where you want them, then run the set up with that 'calibration mic' and the Denon will balance it all up for you. If and when you add a sub ... change the front setting from 'large' to small and run the calibration program again.

I did on odd thing with my sub. I have a room dedicated to home theater. To maximize seating capacity I built a raised floor for the back (main) seating area so you can see over anyone sitting in the front (secondary) seating area. Anyway, since I had the sub before building the raised floor, I cafefully removed the sub components from the speaker box and strategically put everything in the raised floor so ... the entire raised floor (~8' X 5') is the speaker box! I don't know how smart that was acoustically but ... it sounds very good to me and I can feel the bass in my feet lol.

Let us know how you like that Denon. Oh ... you mentioned Zone1 and 2 ... looking at the back of that Denon ... I don't think it has that feature.

 

[jb2sea]

Just as update...

I have the Denon hooked up with just the mains and the center channel. The mains were pretty much what I expected. Nothing like my home speakers, but acceptable and good for large bookshelf size speakers. I'll go with them. The center, nope. As I suspected, it is just too small. On top of that, I ran the calibration and of course it's sending much of the sound to that center channel speaker. Not good. Is there a way to manually set it up so more of the sound goes to the mains?

Guess I'll be buying a better center channel at some point. But I'll live with it for now.

 

[jb2sea]

Oh, also, I have the BluRay running to the TV via HDMI. What advantage is there to connect it direct to the Denon!

 

[madmatt30]

Oh, also, I have the BluRay running to the TV via HDMI. What advantage is there to connect it direct to the Denon!

Option to control the bluray with the denon remote,also itll split the main & centre channels properly.
Very rare that new tv sets do proper dolby passthrough nowadays.

You can absolutely set the speakers up manually,that is something youre going to have to delve into though mate yourself.
I had to do the same with my sony ,auto mic calibration was awful.

The dts neo setting on mine pushes less audio through the centre than standard (AFC) setting.

I have a sneaky feeling your centre may be set to 'large' if youre finding that there is too much audio coming through.
It 100% needs to be set to small ,so anything below a certain frequency is pushed through the polk mains.