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My home theater setup is located in a converted, carpeted bedroom that's about 14.5 x 12.5 feet. I have some placement constraints, such as the exit door, a closet door in one corner, windows, and a large radiator in another. I have two questions:
1. I have one 12" sub in the system, which provides more than enough bass, although there are some room modes (around 50 Hz) that keep the response uneven. I have an identical 12" sub that I could put into the room. Would this smooth out the bass response, given the relatively small size of the room? The current sub is located near (but not in) one of the front corners. The other one could go anywhere along the back wall (the listening chairs are a few feet into the room from the back wall.
2. Is this room too small to bother with 2 additional rear channels for 7.1 movies? The current monopole surrounds are located slightly behind the listening area along the side walls, which works fine for multichannel music and movies. I could put two timbre-matched surrounds directly behind the listening area, but they would be fairly close to the listeners' ears so they would have to be operated at a low level and with apppropriate delay.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Follow Ups:
most would probably disagree with me but instead of having 4 surrounds in the back it will sound better with the 2 front channels by the seating area
It would have to be done on preout with another amp. It would be a regular 5.1 with stereo that you can turn on or off.I have this set up plus a lot of others set ups to make it sound different.it depends on how the disc is recorded.on the digital out I get sound out of the side surrounds on all discs.
some discs dont sound that great so I tweak it.most bd discs I play back in analog so It wont play back in more than 5 channels but it sounds better than digital.the recordings seem to be better I like concert discs. lot of my 5.1 dvd concerts are sub par sounding in the rears.
I use 2 subs if I use another amp my room is small.there both by the tv. I dont like a lot of bass so there not turned up loud.
mch dvd-a mch sacd & blu-ray concerts rule.
1. The in-room bass smoothness goes up with the number of bass sources as long as they are spread fairly far apart. This way each sub produces a unique peak-and-dip pattern at any given listening position, and the sum of two or more dissimilar peak-and-dip patterns is smoother than any one alone would have been. So in my opinon adding a second sub (preferably along one of the walls opposite that corner) will improve the in-room bass smoothness. Given that small rooms generally have worse bass problems than large ones, adding a second sub is arguably of greater benefit to a small room than to a large one. This seems counter-intuitive, but the reason for going with multiple subs is bass quality, not bass quantity.
Duke
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
I was speaking of the practicality, not the theory. Just how many people (seating positions) do we have in a *small* room? Anybody sitting near a wall is screwed, the bass/LFE lack of smoothness is the least of their audio problems. And the practicality of placing more sub(s) so somebody isn't sitting almost on top of one in the small room, which is worse for them than "lack of bass smoothness".
Sure, if you can work out the practicalities with regards to space/seating, another sub is theoretically better.
I always say (and feel free to disagree) that there is only ONE optimum listening location in a typical HT room. And that place is MINE. Nobody else has to know, how would they since the only paying customer is always in it. :)
The original poster asked whether adding a second sub would smooth the bass, and that's what I was responding to.
Did I miss something?
Duke
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
Only the practical aspects of in a small room.It's a small *HT* room, with 5.1 speakers already, plus a display. Multiple people (presumably) sitting. Not a stereo music room. Different practicalities, different compromises.
Edits: 03/08/10
He has already determined that a second sub will fit in his room. From the original post:
"The current sub is located near (but not in) one of the front corners. The other one could go anywhere along the back wall..."
Duke
Me being a dealer makes you leery?? It gets worse... I'm a manufacturer too.
1. As was mentioned, more subs can be used to smooth out the room response. It would be hard to justify in a room that size, where I'll guess floor space is already at a premium. Can be tricky to set up too, unless your AVR/etc. has separate sub channels that can be individually adjusted, but both subs being identical helps a lot.2. I wouldn't recommend spending new $$ on it, but if you already have the gear... That said, I do miss it when the two back channels are silent, so I matrix them (PLIIx for Dolby, ES for DTS), they add some sonic fill (they're 8' behind me).
Of my couple hundred BDs, only 7 are 7.1, and 2 are 6.1. You know, even a lot of so-called 5.1 BDs (or DVDs) wouldn't sound much different if they were "3.0": almost all the sound is in the center channel with a bit of stuff such as music in the stereo channels, and no LFE to speak of (so the sub is only handling any redirected bass). One of my 7.1 BDs (a James Bond one) is essentially mono for all practical purposes... edit: some people would insist on listening to the original soundtrack format anyways, if available. They'd deem it as important as watching in the original aspect ratio. I guess they're "correct", but I'm a little more flexible re the audio than re the AR.
Edits: 03/07/10
1. Keep in mind I haven't heard anything in your room, but I doubt you need two subs.
2. You don't need to add more speakers and go from 5.1 to 7.1. Not because your room is too small (it isn't) but because there is simply not enough 7.1 content to justify the expense. Take it from someone who did go 7.1 and has spun almost no 7.1 titles since then.
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We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
I have a BluRay player; do you? If so, is there more 7.1 content there than on DVDs?
I have a BluRay player; do you? If so, is there more 7.1 content there than on DVDs?
Of the 80 BDs I've collected over the past 2+ years, only Oldboy is 7.1. When I added the additional two channels I was under the impression that 7.1 would be a new audio standard similar to how 5.1 was the new standard when DVD was introduced. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), 7.1 just hasn't panned out. The overwhelming majority of audio content on BD is 5.1.
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We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
Edits: 03/07/10
I have yet to run an original 7.1 production that's also available in 5.1 and compare. On the other hand everything produced in 5.1 and matrixed through my 7.1 system sounds, from memory, more enjoyable to me and well worth going 7.1 in any size room.
As far as the two sub question the addition of a second sub in my room was a decisive improvement. I would suggest reading the Larry Greenhill reviews in Stereophile of the JL Audio and Velodyne subs. In those reviews you'll notice the favorable review of the JL products only after they were used in conjunction with a Bryston active crossover for it's high pass filtering, which may not be needed with typical HT receivers bass management, and the spectrum analyzer found in Velodyne's DD sub. It should be noted that while Greenhill has reviewed two dual JL Audio systems he still uses a single Velodyne DD18 for reasons not mentioned.
My understanding is that most original cinema soundtracks are mixed to 5.1 and when a BD or DVD includes a 6.1/7.1 sound track, that track is generated from the original 5.1 soundtrack in a similar way to what your receiver does when it generates 7.1 channels from a 5.1 soundtrack. I haven't heard of any 6.1 or 7.1 soundtracks on BD or DVD that have genuinely been mixed to 6.1/7.1.
David Aiken
1- A second sub should help smooth the low bass room response somewhat but how much will depend on both the room and the sub placement. There's info on the Harmon site about placement of multiple subs which seems to indicate that 2 is better than 1 but 4 is better than 2. If you go the multiple sub route, ideally you also need to be able to adjust the arrival time of the sound from each sub and most receivers tend to have only 1 sub output which makes adjustment of arrival times for each sub impossible. If you can't adjust arrival times independently, then I think you will not get the full benefit achievable from adding the second sub but you may still get some benefit. I think you're going to have to try it and see whether you prefer 2 or 1. I don't think there's any way anyone can give you a clear cut yes or no answer that can be guaranteed.
2- Most soundtracks are only 5.1 and those which are 6.1/7.1 are probably all derived from a 5.1 master than being mixed directly to 6.1/7.1. Add to that the fact that if you do add rear channels you need to sit far enough from the rear speakers in order for the sound from their drivers to integrate properly. It's not just a matter of matching levels and arrival times. Sitting too close to a speaker results in abnormalities in the frequency response because of the differences in radiation pattern from the different drivers in the speaker. If you've got limited space and can't provide sufficient distance between the rear speakers and the rearmost listening position, simply stick with 5.1. You need space for surround sound setups and you need more space for 7.1 than you do for 5.1.
David Aiken
David, thanks for your thoughtful answer. I hadn't considered the delay time disparity if I used two subs. The too-close issue with 2 more surrounds was a concern.
I think I'm better off with my current setup.
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