Motion series 7.1 home theater setup

[Iamajks]

Hello All, I do have motion 20’s as my fronts, motion 30 as my center and dynamo 700 sub. I am planning to add motion 40’s as my fronts and move existing 20’s as surrounds and add motion 15’s or motion 4’s as rear surround to complete my 7.1 setup. Thoughts and suggestions please. My media room is 20x20 size.

Thanks!

 

[spkrdctr]

If the sub is not rocking as hard as you want for movies I would suggest the Dynamo 1600 for a 20X20 room. But other than that, it looks like you will have a great sounding system!

 

[Iamajks]

Thanks, how about motion 15’s vs motion 4’s for the rear surround? One of my friend suggested to try motion 20’s for rear surround as well, your thoughts on this please.

 

[spkrdctr]

I think that any of the speakers you are looking at will do the job quite well. They all have similar sensitivity and the same tweeter across the line. The 4's will save some money. Your receiver/preamp will set the rears as "small" anyway so you can save money on the 4's. What volume do you listen at? Do you have a db meter? They are relatively cheap and worth their weight in gold for setting up a system. If you are planning fairly loud listening then the 15's would deliver in spades. But I'm talking quite loud (OK, very loud) if you like your hearing then the 4's will do nicely. For many years I looked down on 4 inch speakers for almost any application. I then did some testing with high quality 4 inchers and took them up to 105 db. If they do not have any bass or mid bass routed to them they will play accurately and very, very loud. I have respect for high quality 4 inchers ever since then. Those 4's should do the job easily.

I don't want to even start on all of the destructive testing I did on speakers. Even the crappy Bose 901 took a good beating, more than I expected. They were tough drivers but just not a "do it all" driver as Bose used it. I burned up many drivers and tweeters. Oh those were the days.......to be young again!

 

[Iamajks]

Thank you, I do not like to hear songs/movies too loud. I actually bought Klipsch speakers for my home theatre and I am returning them as they are too bright for my ears. I am kind of feeling some pain in my ears with those. So I decided to extend my Martin Logan speakers to make it 7.1 from 3.1 as I like the sound from these.

I am using Denon x3300w to power up my existing 3.1 Martin Logan setup, do you think I can use Denon x3300w for 7.1 Martin Logan setup as well or I need to add a preamp or buy receiver with more output?

Thanks for all you help.

 

[mkg3]

Since you are adding speakers to enable 7.1, consider Dolby Atmos/DTS-X setup?

I'm using Denon x4500h to drive 5.1.4 (or can up to 7.2.4) setup in a similar room size. I think new Denon line of x3700 will drive 9 or 11 channels too (newer gen of yours).

I've found that 5.1.4 much superior to 7.1, but it does require a receiver that can decode Atmos/DTS-X. I had originally set the room up as 7.1.2 and switched to 5.1.4.

Good luck.

 

[Iamajks]

Since you are adding speakers to enable 7.1, consider Dolby Atmos/DTS-X setup?

I'm using Denon x4500h to drive 5.1.4 (or can up to 7.2.4) setup in a similar room size. I think new Denon line of x3700 will drive 9 or 11 channels too (newer gen of yours).

I've found that 5.1.4 much superior to 7.1, but it does require a receiver that can decode Atmos/DTS-X. I had originally set the room up as 7.1.2 and switched to 5.1.4.

Good luck.

Which speakers have you used for you 7.1.2 setup?

I am planning to setup 7.1 and also will add 2 atmos speakers in ceiling and will switch between 7.1 and 5.1.2 as per need.

 

[gadgetguy11]

Which speakers have you used for you 7.1.2 setup?

I am planning to setup 7.1 and also will add 2 atmos speakers in ceiling and will switch between 7.1 and 5.1.2 as per need.

I chose 4) Paradigm CI Elite E65-R Speakers for Atmos & flush mounted them on 2' x 2' acoustic ceiling panels. Each pair is powered by a Threshold Sa4e 100W / channel pure Class A amp.

Hint: If you use 4) Atmos speakers, set them up as Front & Center Atmos, not as Center & Rear Atmos. I first set them up as Center & Rear Atmos & discovered there is no output from the rear Atmos. I checked with Anthem & they advised that I needed to program my Anthem AVM60 for Front & Center Atmos. That completely solved the issue.

The sound from Atmos is not a wide frequency range, so the speakers you select are not critical. All other speakers (except for 4) REL front subs & 2) Sunfire rear subs) in my Theatre are ML, including 4) Side Surround, 2) Rear, 2) Center, 2) R & 2) L; these 4) Paradigm CI Elite E65-R Speakers blended well.

 

[spkrdctr]

Your Denon will easily power your 7 channel system with an all ML speaker setup. Denon is one of the companies that put in decent power supplies in their receivers. Most large manufacturers of receivers (Sony, Pioneer etc.) do not put in larger power supplies in their 7 or 9 channel receivers. With Atmos it is not all that important to have high power as the speakers get a limited frequency range that will not put any stress on the power supply. But again if you listen at any reasonable volume level you will only be using around 10 to 20 watts with peaks to 50 watts. This is the total for all 7 speakers and Atmos. Your Denon can easily handle this.

Is your sub delivering the bass slam for your movie watching? That 700 is a great sub for a small room but in a 20X20 I would not think it really delives the slam. But, I haven't heard it in your room to know. I have a 700 also and it is in a medium size room and once I frequency leveled it to the room I could really use a bigger sub. I have thought about the SVS 2000 but right now I have had bills I didn't expect (my 2007 GMC Sierra truck repairs) so I spent my $1000 for my sub on transportation. Oh well. The joys of being retired on a fixed income. LOL!

 

[mkg3]

......I am planning to setup 7.1 and also will add 2 atmos speakers in ceiling and will switch between 7.1 and 5.1.2 as per need.

Let me first say that I am not an audio purist, like many on this forum and ML owners. Just like balanced clean sound and not at all interested in chasing after the ultimate sound quality.

For Atmos, I use Motion 4i speakers mounted on the wall at the ceiling height (9.5' ceiling). Installing ceiling speakers, albeit ideal, was more than I wanted to take on at the time and this was a good compromise, The ribbon tweeter on the 4i are the same size and unit as the rest of Motion series (unlike the 2i) and does pretty good job matching the sounds of EM ESL (mains). Since you have 20s and 30s, it should match exactly, if want to consider the option. The surrounds are Motion FX and SVS-2000 Pro sub. The sub is ported (yeah I know) and provides great LFE for movies. I can plug them for music but I have found that as is works for kinds of music I listen to (mostly jazz).

How do you just plan to switch btwn 7.1 and 5.1.2? I realize you can simply move the connections on the receiver (especially if you have banana plugs easily), but how about the speaker positioning between 5 and 7 surround locations?

Since vast majority of steaming contents are 5.1 or Atmos, the only real practical 7.1 source is via UHD BR disks. That said, most of recent UHD BR are encoded with Atmos or DTS-x so while 7.1 may sound better than 5.1, my sense is that 5.1.2 would add more 3D sounds than 7.1, with little to no compromise for sources without Atmos/DTS-x.

I realize there is a room configuration variable that plays into setting up any sound/speaker setup so my experience is strictly based on the room I have.

Hope this helps.

 

[Iamajks]

Your Denon will easily power your 7 channel system with an all ML speaker setup. Denon is one of the companies that put in decent power supplies in their receivers. Most large manufacturers of receivers (Sony, Pioneer etc.) do not put in larger power supplies in their 7 or 9 channel receivers. With Atmos it is not all that important to have high power as the speakers get a limited frequency range that will not put any stress on the power supply. But again if you listen at any reasonable volume level you will only be using around 10 to 20 watts with peaks to 50 watts. This is the total for all 7 speakers and Atmos. Your Denon can easily handle this.

Is your sub delivering the bass slam for your movie watching? That 700 is a great sub for a small room but in a 20X20 I would not think it really delives the slam. But, I haven't heard it in your room to know. I have a 700 also and it is in a medium size room and once I frequency leveled it to the room I could really use a bigger sub. I have thought about the SVS 2000 but right now I have had bills I didn't expect (my 2007 GMC Sierra truck repairs) so I spent my $1000 for my sub on transportation. Oh well. The joys of being retired on a fixed income. LOL!

Thanks, for now I am planning on using dynamo 700 and later I will add the second sub. Hope my Denon x3300w will power up these speakers good enough.

 

[Iamajks]

Let me first say that I am not an audio purist, like many on this forum and ML owners. Just like balanced clean sound and not at all interested in chasing after the ultimate sound quality.

For Atmos, I use Motion 4i speakers mounted on the wall at the ceiling height (9.5' ceiling). Installing ceiling speakers, albeit ideal, was more than I wanted to take on at the time and this was a good compromise, The ribbon tweeter on the 4i are the same size and unit as the rest of Motion series (unlike the 2i) and does pretty good job matching the sounds of EM ESL (mains). Since you have 20s and 30s, it should match exactly, if want to consider the option. The surrounds are Motion FX and SVS-2000 Pro sub. The sub is ported (yeah I know) and provides great LFE for movies. I can plug them for music but I have found that as is works for kinds of music I listen to (mostly jazz).

How do you just plan to switch btwn 7.1 and 5.1.2? I realize you can simply move the connections on the receiver (especially if you have banana plugs easily), but how about the speaker positioning between 5 and 7 surround locations?

Since vast majority of steaming contents are 5.1 or Atmos, the only real practical 7.1 source is via UHD BR disks. That said, most of recent UHD BR are encoded with Atmos or DTS-x so while 7.1 may sound better than 5.1, my sense is that 5.1.2 would add more 3D sounds than 7.1, with little to no compromise for sources without Atmos/DTS-x.

I realize there is a room configuration variable that plays into setting up any sound/speaker setup so my experience is strictly based on the room I have.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, yes I do have banana plugs and hope I can easily switch them accordingly.

I am not sure if I can use some preset in my Denon receiver to switch between 7.1 and 5.1.2