System #45 (Monolith IIIx, SL3XC, Sequel II)

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Wow, more than year without updates. But then again, nothing has changed in the system at all during that time. Just been enjoying music and movies here when I can. 20+ years of tweaking and changes finally plateaued for a bit.

But I do have something related to this system, and that is an Atmos headphone processor that I received in the summer of 2020, having backed it on KickStarter waaaay back in 2016.

The Smyth Realizer A16 is an amazing piece of kit, as it can render the ‘sound’ of a room in full 3D, as it includes head-tracking. So if I look left, the sound remains anchored to the same location as when I look forward, just as if I were listening to real speakers. And it does full Atmos 3D audio rendering in up to 16 Channels. It is amazingly effective at that over a pair of headphones.

The real bonus is its ability to map an actual existing room and the actual Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF) of the person doing the recording. They call this a Personalized Room Impulse Response (PRIR), a term only an engineer could love. These guys are geniuses, but marketing is not their forte.

My goal for this unit is to be able to watch content in my other media room, with that awesome OLED screen, yet still enjoy Atmos content (quietly), and even better if it sounds like I’m listening to the big rig in the HT.

So, I set aside a morning to go map the XStatic Theater and create my own PRIR and one for my wife as well, so she had to sit through the process for 15 minutes.

I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say, the process is daunting and requires hours of study to learn how to do the first one. But once one has accomplished that, the process takes about 15 minutes per PRIR to record. I wrote some documentation on that if anyone winds up with an A16.

I pulled the main listening row seats out and put in a swivel office chair so I could better map the room, and to allow for swiveling to certain look-angles during the process.

In this shot, we see the A16 sitting on a stand to the left of the chair. I’ve yet to plug in the in-ear mics, and the blue cord is a grounding wrist strap to null the body’s own ‘hum’ from impacting the recording.

A16_Front.jpg


I sit in the chair, with mics stuck in my ears, and the system plays a series of tones, and instructs me where to look for the next set of tones. When it’s done, I have a customized map of my room that matches my head and ears. With 7.1 channels, that is a lot of tones to sit through 3 times.

This is what it looks like from the front of the room

A16_Rear.jpg


The results are pretty amazing. I sit in my small media room, listening to Atmos movies & music, and it sounds as if I was in the HT. The quality of the sound is not as good as the real thing, as the dynamic headphones I use are not ESLs for sure. And when I turn my head, dialog stays anchored to the screen, reinforcing the ‘I’m listening to speakers in this nice room’ sense. During a movie, about half-way through I completely forgot I was wearing headphones, the effect is that good.
 
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Reminds me of the audio we get using the HTC Vive for VR on the pc. The best thing about the 3d audio on it is that the sound adjusts when you move your head, so its realistic. It tracks your head movement. Works awesome for room scale VR, where you walk around the room. The sound is accurate when you move about the room. I use a pair of Sennheiser headphones.
 
Again, more than a year without any significant changes. I just updated the two first posts to reflect the removed items, such as the DirecTV DVR and a couple of others that are no longer connected. A few, such as the HD-DVD player, are still connected but rarely see use.

The system continues to perform admirably, but the projector is lagging, and the image is just not as good as the OLED in the media room, so most content watching seems to happen on the OLED. I plan to remedy that with an update to a JVC NZ8 laser projector sometime in 2023.

Once I do that, I'll tweak a few other things, like maybe getting a larger screen since we'll have the lumens for that. I'll go with a 150" diagonal 2.35 aspect-ratio Stewart StudioTek G4 AT 1.0 screen, as it will be both tall enough (58") to cover the 50" tall center and wide enough (138") to cover the left/right Monoliths. At nearly 12' wide, that's a BIG screen for a 15Wx27Lx10H room. It will be used in 16:9 mode for most content, but for movies shot in >2 aspect ratio, it will be quite the cinematic experience.

I expect this to be one of the last posts on this thread, as, after 17 years, it has evolved a good bit, even if still in the same room (for 22 years). So when the new PJ and screen go in, I'll start a fresh system thread.
 
why do you have such a nice sound system but still a 1990s 4:3 screen (or is that an ancient pic) with an outdated crt projector? Don't you think it's time to upgrade to a nice JVC 4k projector and new screen at least?
 
I kinda agree. Its just as important, I think a bit more important, as the picture. To me its strange how some households have a nice big screen and just use the tv speakers.

My listening room doesn't even have a screen of any description - alluded to by the name I use for it.

But really, I'm just being facetious - I know many of us are into theatre/movies. Just not me.
 
why do you have such a nice sound system but still a 1990s 4:3 screen (or is that an ancient pic) with an outdated crt projector? Don't you think it's time to upgrade to a nice JVC 4k projector and new screen at least?
Hum, because I mentioned why in the post just before yours:

The system continues to perform admirably, but the projector is lagging, and the image is just not as good as the OLED in the media room, so most content watching seems to happen on the OLED. I plan to remedy that with an update to a JVC NZ8 laser projector sometime in 2023.

Once I do that, I'll tweak a few other things, like maybe getting a larger screen since we'll have the lumens for that. I'll go with a 150" diagonal 2.35 aspect-ratio Stewart StudioTek G4 AT 1.0 screen, as it will be both tall enough (58") to cover the 50" tall center and wide enough (138") to cover the left/right Monoliths. At nearly 12' wide, that's a BIG screen for a 15Wx27Lx10H room. It will be used in 16:9 mode for most content, but for movies shot in >2 aspect ratio, it will be quite the cinematic experience.

So I do have a 4K JVC since 2013; it shoots onto the existing 22-year-old screen because, well, it's there, covering the center channel. With the lights out, one does not notice anything; the room is pitch black except for the illuminated portion of the screen.

This year (2023), I'll likely get a JVC NZ8 and a new screen.

I guess this is why, once I do that, time to retire this thread. ;)
 
Because sound is the only thing that is important :)

heh, yes, I use this system for movies that are soundtrack driven, they are watched here, not on the OLED in the media room.
So action movies like Top Gun Maverick was first screened here, even though the visuals looked better on the OLED. But the sound, boy was that a ride.
And ALL Atmos / 5.1 music is listened to here. The center channel is 'da bomb.
 
Hum, because I mentioned why in the post just before yours:



So I do have a 4K JVC since 2013; it shoots onto the existing 22-year-old screen because, well, it's there, covering the center channel. With the lights out, one does not notice anything; the room is pitch black except for the illuminated portion of the screen.

This year (2023), I'll likely get a JVC NZ8 and a new screen.

I guess this is why, once I do that, time to retire this thread. ;)
oops sorry I must have missed that part! That sounds like a great plan though!
 
This year (2023), I'll likely get a JVC NZ8 and a new screen.
I got the 3100/NZ8 projector a month ago, and man, is it great. Plenty bright, and on my small screen, had to dial down the 'high' laser power to '78' (firmware 3.x allows discreet power levels now).
A new screen will wait until I can redo the front channels, as there is not enough width to do what I originally wanted.

It's a big unit!

Projector NZ8.jpg
 
When a system is this well-developed, changes happen slowly at this stage. But there is always room for improvement, so I purchased a Sanders Sound Systems ESL MK II amplifier to drive the Monolith panels and move my existing Sanders ESL amp to power my custom Center channel, the SL3XC.

I had forgotten how heavy these things are (54#) when unpacking and installing it. worked up a sweat. But it's a solid piece of equipment I hope to enjoy for decades.

Here, it is just unboxed but still wrapped.

SandersESL_MKII_Amp.jpg
 
Because the cabling to the center was from 25 years ago, I updated that as well with a pair of 15-foot Blue Jeans Cable speaker wires.
A Belden 5000UE twelve gauge (lower capacitance) for the panel and a beefier ten gauge Belden 5T00UP for the woofer line array.

I put on banana plugs and color-coded shrink-wrapped them to ensure no mix-ups at either end. It turns out I am missing another set of locking banana plugs, so I used an old one until my order arrives this week.

I love the quality of this wire; it's what I use for all my speakers now, except the Infinite Baffle, I need to update that one soon, before the old stuff celebrates its 20th installation anniversary. But working in a crawl space is no fun.

NewCables.jpg
 
So, how do these changes sound?

Well, it is not much different than before, but the extra headroom for the center panel is welcome when playing movies or cranking the latest Steven Wilson masterpiece (The Harmony Codex in Atmos for this round).
In general, having identical amps on the L/C/R is recommended practice, and now we are there.

I had been busy with other stuff the past few months, so I had not had as many listening sessions as I wanted. Listening closely to this system has been a treat, but I keep getting lost in the music.

TheHarmonyCodex.jpg
 
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