Robin said:
Jim,
Welcome to the ML Club!
You have a great Aeon i HT system. I'm glad you purchased the very last Aeon i's made. Aeon i's are wonderful ML speakers.
More space will be good, but your system is marvelous the way it is because it is comfortable and has wonderful ML speakers everywhere for thrilling HT...
What are your current HT room dimensions? And to follow that, what HT room dimensions would you want in your new home?
I see your system is friendly to felines as well. I love cats too.
I have three of my own.
Great ML HT system.
It's great to have you here!
Nice to be here. i've done a couple of subtle tweaks since posting the original pics. moved the Aeons next to the TV set -- still playing with getting the right spacing for the audio sound stage. original position was too wide, new position is too narrow. sigh. I have to make do with a room that's 13x18 with three walls...
i also added (much to the annoyance of my girlfriend) a second fresco to complete the 7.1 setup. speaker position isn't great (above and behind) for these, though i can occasionally hear the rear channels. Eagles Farewell I tour DVD sold me on the idea of adding the second Fresco
. When I move next year, I'm expecting to find a house with a better room for acoustics / placement and will mount the Frescoes on stands instead. it was interesting listening to the Denon autosetup when adding the second Fresco: the new one sounded quite different than the older (partially broken in) one. now i "get it" when it comes to breaking in ML speakers.
third tweak involved subwoofers. i have 1 depth and a pair of dynamos. original layout had the depth in one corner wired to LFE only, while the dynamos were wired to the mosaics to fill out the low end bass on the surround. didn't work out too well. i moved one of the dynamos to the front as a second (daisy chained) LFE speaker and tied the remaining dynamo to the frescoes in the back. sounds much better. next step will be to wire the front subs to the Aeons to get the lower bass effects in music. i'd probably be better off with a second depth in the front, but for now i'll make do with what i have...
next mod was upgrading the denon 3806 to a 4806. this got me full THX sound (which i absolutely *love*) for DVDs and it even works well for some CD music tracks when i don't want to be a purist. the "illusion" of future upgrades -- being able to switch a 1080p video source in the future -- as well as the extra 20W driving the mosaics/frescoes made a significant difference at a somewhat unreasonable cost. i still have the 3806 in the garage -- makes a great pre-amp!
final tweak was to add a panamax power conditioner to the mix. while i don't notice any real difference in audio/video quality, i'm able to monitor voltage input and current output to the whole setup. interesting info for me to have, and allows me to easily power down unneccessary components when the system isn't in use. typical current output at "normal" listening levels is about 3.5 amps with everything on; drops to 0.7 amps when everything but the TiVO is powered down. this also adds a second level of surge protection.
so for now, the audio part of my system is complete. still noodling a TV upgrade for 1080i/p native resolution, but i think i'll wait a year or two until the blu-ray/hd-dvd battle plays out, and more TV/projector units come out that can handle native 1080p.
now if i can find a way to legitimately write this off next year's taxes... it's part of my job to be a "home theatre" expert for my silly-con valley employer, but somehow i don't think the IRS would let me get away with this....
cheers,
Jim Lippert
Fremont CA
System #106
