I see some guys using some pretty hefty speakers for their home theatre. I have not paid much attention to home theatre for over a decade. Did I miss something? I actually liked the early hi fi sound of surround sound systems. Have they improved so much that it actually makes sense for me to keep my CLS 1 as a rear channel and and purchase a ML center channel speaker. Maybe I should get a a surround processor as a preamp with an outboard phone preamp. Then I could get an overhead projector. By the time I finish I'll be ready for retirement.
Then maybe I should get a five channel amp.
The fact remains that very few people can pull out record after record until its 2 o'clock in the morning. You guys know what I mean. When the stereo is sounding so good you don't want to turn it off.
The average person needs video.
What brought this on? I stopped at a Bose Audio Outlet Store over the weekend and auditoned a home theatre system. Most intriguing was its automatic equalization. They put a three sided box over the center speaker. The system them automatically adjusted itself to sound the same as it did before the box was placed over it. Open 180degrees away from the listeners.
gregadd
Hi Greg,
As the local HT pimp, I can opine on this one
I set out to build a system that would sound excellent on all types of sources be it stereo music, surround music or movies.
Making a system that works well for surround is a LOT more difficult than just 2ch. But if you are willing to work at it, it can be very rewarding.
First off is getting the right space and applying the right amount of room treatments.
Second, is the right speaker setup. This is a big variable, and if using large units like CLX / CLS, then your room will need to be sized and treated appropriately, or the results could be very disappointing.
The center speaker is critical, but then you might not want to listen to me on that topic
Third, the right preamp will make a world of difference. This being the year 2009, digital front-ends have come a long, long way. The top end units all have some form of auto-setup and room correction.
The best room correction (IMHO) at this point, is the Audyssey system.
One of the best implementations of a high-end surround sound processor with room correction is the Denon AVP-A1HDci. Yes a Denon, get over it. With dual-differential balanced signal paths throughout, top quality parts, four independent power subsystems, etc. It’s super-clean on the audio front.
When an Audyssey Pro room calibration is applied, this preamp will transform a good system into an amazing system. Time coherence is the first thing one notices, then it’s the loss of room (and speaker) resonances and frequency aberrations.
Features like Audyssey Dynamic EQ are just icing on the cake, as one can listen to music at lower volumes with the correct frequency balance. It’s now a feature I can’t live without.
Being a Denon, it supports DenonLink, a unique digital streaming interface between universal players and preamp that provides a totally jitter-free transmission of SACD, DVD-Audio, CD and DVD-V audio streams.
On the video front, it’s no slouch. Full HQV Realta T2 scaler, six HDMI switcher, and great upscaling features.
Internal streaming support means jitter-free playback of lossless rips from your server.
More ways to control it than you can dream off with network, serial and IR interfaces.
I could go on, but I suggest reading the
reviews and getting a good demo for yourself.
BTW- this preamp is at the heart of my current setup, and its awesome.
So yes, creating an HT setup is possible, and quite rewarding, but it’s not the simplest thing to do.
