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Since Newegg is running a seemingly pretty decent sale right now I'm thinking about taking the plunge for my first set up. I'm looking for some input however. The receiver I was originally thinking about is no longer in stock, and since it looks like Onkyo has replaced it with "the next greatest thing™", it may not be coming back into stock ever. I'm ok with this this since all the features I wanted the HT-RC260 for are still there with a few extra at only a slightly higher cost. The HT-RC360 however is new, very new apparently, so any reviews or testimonials are completely non-existent. I took a picture of the space I have to work with, and while it will fit on a shelf I do worry some about ventilation and heat issues if this thing is always on. http://fi.somethingawful.com/is/img857/3969/imag0035ai.jpg As for the speakers, the space can really only do a 3.1, which I think will be fine for me. Unless I was to wall mount some very small speakers for the surrounds and run the wires through the floor into the basement and back up. I was looking at getting 2x Polk Monitor 60 Series II floor-standing towers. But then I saw that for a few dollars(after shipping) more they had some open-box Monitor 70 Series II towers. Now I've never bought anything open-box from Newegg before, but this would save me $140 off retail if I wanted the 70s over the 60s. My question here is, would it really be worth it to try the open box 70s? I may or may not get a sub right off the bat, and was planning to run them bi-amped if this makes any difference. I know from the specs that the 70s are supposed to have a better lower end frequency response, but is this something that just looks good on paper? Will I be likely to actually notice the difference enough to take the gamble? (For context, I work in a movie theater and deal with projection equipment constantly. Mostly its the visual side of the equation, but the sound needs fixing from time to time as well, so I do have some ear for it). I am also thinking about getting a CS1 Series II center speaker, mostly since it will also barely fit onto the space. This should be a good match for either the 60, or the 70, yes? One last thing. The 2 available shelves are 7.5"h x 18.5"w x 18"d, and 7.75"h x 18.5"w x 18"d. I haven't tried it yet, but I think I can move the shelf that the blu-ray is on all the way down and get the same space to move the center up a few inches closer to the bottom of the screen. Would that difference really be noticeable? Wow, that was a lot of words I just wrote there, but this would represent a not insignificant monetary investment for me. So comments, advice or other assistance would be greatly appreciated. edit: Well the open box 70s are gone now and the ht-rc360 is now $50 more than it was last night. Maybe I'll just get the ht-rc260 from Amazon instead. Slightly less future proof, but about a hundred bucks cheaper. What really kinda bums me out is that I just found out that Newegg had 70s on sale LAST week new for $169, oh well. I guess my question still stands about the heat & ventilation of the receiver, and the placement of the center. I also found an old sub that came with a PC speaker set that I think I can use. It's NEC brand of all things, but should be ok after the audyssey auto EQ right? DragonKeeper fucked around with this message at 17:36 on May 16, 2011 |
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May 15, 2011 19:19
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Hob_Gadling posted:Helpful stuff Thanks for the input. It turns out the series I 70s are only a little bit more new than the series II 60s right now. Since I don't know anywhere around here I can go and listen to them in person I've been reading a lot of reviews. They look pretty good, I think I may go with them. For the center I thought about the CS2, but it won't fit on the shelf space that I've got available to me. I think for the sub issue I'll use the cheap one I've got for now and get a nicer one down the line. Space is going to be tight for any receiver I get, so I suppose I'll just have to be careful with any choice I end up making. Do you have personal experience with the Denon? How's the heat output on it? Worse comes to worse maybe I'll just mount a fan in the back of the shelf section that it'll sit on. It's only cardboard, shouldn't be hard to manage.
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May 18, 2011 03:33
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Hob_Gadling posted:My Denon AVR-1610 runs cool despite being a tight fit heightwise. You're right. I thought about it some more and decided I shouldn't just buy the things because they're on sale. I just don't know where I can go locally to listen to the speakers/receivers that I was thinking about purchasing. It's not something I've ever done or even thought about doing before, but it is the right thing to do.
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May 19, 2011 19:24
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jonathan posted:Accuracy, punch and it will extend lower. Cheap subs have trouble playing tones into the low 30hz range. Decent subs will go down to the low 20's. The really good ones will go into the teens and make you feel like you're drowning. Slightly off-topic amusing anecdote. After the release of Batman The Dark Knight, a number of IMAX theaters had issues with blown subs(I lost 2 of my 6, those are fun to change). This was not due as they had originally thought to an issue of running the volume too hot per se, but it was in fact due to a mixing... well... fault where frequencies too low to be heard were left in the sub track erroneously. Since IMAX theaters generally tend to run some really nice equipment, it did its best to pump it out anyways and destroyed a lot of drivers in the process. But man did that movie sound (and look -- especially the 15/70 IMAX stuff) good. http://fi.somethingawful.com/is/img28/4471/imaxbehindscreen.jpg Here's a shot I took during the last (and only) screen replacement. To give you an idea for scale, the lower platform has 6 18" subs and is roughly 15 feet off the ground. The top most channel is around 45 feet up by comparison. It is accessible by ladder only. I was up there twice; never again. Back on topic... I made a terrible mockup of the setup I am considering(I am not good at image manipulation). http://fi.somethingawful.com/is/img27/3439/avmockup.jpg That's an Onkyo HT-RC360, 2 Polk Monitor 60 Series II Towers, and 1 Polk CS1 Series II Center. I've got an old generic sub which should hold me over for the time being. All equipment I -- er, added -- is roughly the right scale compared to the equipment in the original image. So even though I would like to get the CS2 center, I do not have the room for it on those shelves.
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Jun 2, 2011 08:57
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Erwin posted:Here's an off-topic question: why is the sound in theaters so god-damned loud? I mean, I like loud, good sounding systems, but some theaters push it to the point of being painful, and I'm positive they're exceeding OSHA limits. Has any theater gotten in trouble for this? All theaters should be running at a reference level of 85db regardless of soundtrack type(DTS, SDDS, Dolby Stereo, PCM Digital, etc) or movie. In theory this is the level that all movies should be mixed at in studio and how it was meant to be watched. The biggest problem I tend to find are that the theaters doesn't care to properly level their auditoriums to fall in line with that base level. Sometimes, I will admit, you will find a movie that is mixed a little hot and needs to be set back a bit. This needs to be done on a per movie basis though and can be kind of a pain at times. When our digital auditoriums were set up, we had a multiple microphone system and EQ'd everything properly at the time of install. Our digital IMAX system, and this is pretty neat, has permanent microphones mounted in the auditorium and actually runs a complete self-test and EQ adjustment program EVERY DAY before the first show runs. If anything is amiss that it can't fix, (blown driver, buzzing amp, etc) it phones home and a tech will come out and fix the issue (supposedly by the next day). Our 35mm film houses (going away soon) tend to drift more than the digitals (nature of the analog beast I guess) and we level those by hand every 3 to 4 months. Of course I can really only speak to what I know, so your mileage can and will vary from chain to chain, theater to theater. The only constant should be the digital IMAX systems which are supposed to be standardized.
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Jun 2, 2011 20:43
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 18:43 |
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Erwin posted:
You only have one set of ears, and who knows if your local theater(s) are set up properly or not. My advice? If it's too loud say something. I realize this does mean getting up during your feature presentation, but often times trailers are mixed louder than the feature, so they aren't usually a good indicator. I know we prefer to err on the side of caution, and if we have to run a decibel or two below reference, so be it. We also try to screen every single movie before it opens to the public so we can catch these things and adjust for them before anyone even has a chance to possibly complain. Edit: The other thing you have to take into consideration is sound format, at least when you are dealing with 35mm. Most of our film houses have some type of digital audio, but not all of them. While films can contain an analog stereo track, a Dolby digital track, an SDDS track, and a DTS sound track, the only one they are technically required to have is the analog stereo. After analog stereo, the Dolby is the most common, followed by DTS and SDDS, in my experience anyways. Most modern theaters will tend to have a Dolby setup before anything else, but if the theater is older you will probably have a bit of a mix like us. The problem being that at the time everyone wanted to be the next big thing, but in the end someone has to come out on top(see vhs, blu-ray, etc). If you get a film print that has say, only an analog track and a Dolby track, and you put it in an auditorium with an SDDS setup, you are going to fall back to analog, and hence it will have terrible range, and will generally just sound muddled. You may even run into theaters where they run mostly analog and reserve the digital for only the biggest (read: newest) releases, and some might not have any digital decoders at all. Again this all depends on where you go, and the vintage of the building as well. If you go in during a slow day and find someone really knowledgeable, be it a projectionist (hard to find downstairs) or a manager, you could pry for some info about what you are actually hearing. Of course this will soon all be moot as Hollywood continues to move toward pure digital distribution. Before that happens, everyone will either need to convert from film to digital, or they will find themselves without any content to exhibit, save for the possible old or indie film. DragonKeeper fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Jun 2, 2011 |
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Jun 2, 2011 22:33
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