I've been mulling over the option of building a center channel for my home theater or just buying one. Is anyone behind a particular speaker brand or product that they'd like to recommend or is the general consensus kind of "don't waste your money on anything under $500" ? Once the center is taken care of I will move to either back surrounds or L/R surrounds. I don't think I'm ready, financially, to make the 7.1 investment so I'll need to take it piece by piece
you can talk to jeb, I know he's big into this and just help his brother set up a really, really nice system. My opinion would be to buy, since mine is under my TV and in plain sight. It's magnetically shielded so it doesn't distort the TV (the old CRT, do LCD's even distort?), looks really clean, is a 3-channel setup and sounds really good for my needs (smaller living room, maybe 5-600 sqft). I do remember, though, I paid more for my center than anything else (more than my towers combined, they're in the same set). They're infinity, fwiw. The only piece I built was my sub, and I'm glad I did. I think I spent less than $1k on all the pieces and components, and it hits harder than most any subs I've ever seen at Best Buy or where ever.
my dad has a decent HTIB/ setup. Onkyo 7.1 1000w setup, but he still uses his old harmon/kardon center channel. it needs to be upgraded IMO. but its all personal opinion. i have sold top of the line audio equipment that people return, because they don't like the way it looked/fit/sounded. everyone's ears are different
Couldn't agree more on that one. You used to pay for quality, but now POS units are marked up due to their name. And that was why I asked if anyone was loyal to a specific brand for this specific application. I'm willing to pay more not just because I perceive the audio quality to be higher, but also because the build quality is higher. Both the Usher and the AviaTrix MTM look like fun projects. The bonus on the Usher is that it was designed to take advantage of one of Dayton's nicer looking pre-built cabinets. http://www.parts-express.com/projectshowcase/indexn.cfm?project=USHERs http://www.parts-express.com/projectshowcase/indexn.cfm?project=AviaTrix
well when i was at best buy, i was definitely a fan of the Klipsch offerings at the time. you could get some GREAT sounding speakers at a very reasonable price, and their shielding was pretty good too. on that note: drew, shielding is still important. you dont want big powerful magnets close to ANY electronics, including LCD's. shielding is more for protection against electronic distortion though. its also for sound distortion. try running shitty HDMI cables past shitty shielded speakers then look at better shielded HDMI cables and/or better shielded speakers on the same picture. its definitely noticeable
whatever you decide to build for the center, make sure someone that is smarter than all of us designed the L/R. you want them to match my vote (and the project I'm working on) is the statements http://speakerdesignworks.com/index_page_2.html pick any of the statements beacause they are matched to the statement center channel. if you had to buy comparable speakers, it would cost you upwards of $5,000-$10,000. just check the response curves
Ah, I remember these! I would be building a center to match the Kirksaeter Silverlines that I use for L/R. And I posted one of Curt's designs -- the AviaTrix.
A magnetic field is not going to disrupt the transmission of data through a cable. The shielding on the cables is for RFI noise and has nothing to do with magnetic fields. The magnetic fields will still penetrate the shielding that is on the cables. It is even in the link Nicad posted above. Many companies have stopped making shielded speakers because tube TV's are no longer produced. The magnetic shielding on speakers were only there for tube TV's. Just a FYI - it has been proven over and over that a $5 HDMI cable and a $125 HDMI cable from Monster produced the exact same image and sound.
Agreed. The biggest thing that I'm after with cabling is something built from cable stock that's made here in the US. BJC seems to be one of the only ones, and they're using Belden's wire stock. AFAIK there is not a single company in the US that is producing HDMI cables, despite what they may be claiming. Even Blue Jeans Cable is going to China to have their cables, built from US cable stock, crimped. And the biggest thing with paying for proper HDMI is distance runs. If you're running under say 15 feet, there's little impact. That changes once you cross into 50ft and becomes ever-so-important once you hit that 100ft threshold. Right now I am leaning towards 6ft or so of the Tartan (BJC) multi-colored (one black, white, red, green, yellow, etc) 28awg cl2 HDMI cables so I can actually see which cables go where from the back of the receiver :rofl: The Tartans are 100% made in China but they're a bit cheaper than the Belden-based ones. The BJC Belden based ones are pretty rockin' though and definitely worth the look. I may go that route and throw on color-coded dots or heatshrink to the jackets so that I can keep up.
the only thing you could be worried about is a collapsing/expanding magnetic field with a conductor nearby. this could induce current and noise into a cable this is also how generators work. rotating magnetic flux lines being cut by a conductor (the stator windings in a generator)
i agree there is little difference. and i know that monster's aren't any better than the next. however. i do believe shielding wire thickness does make a difference. from someone who sold HDTVs, we would hook up thousands of different variations and note the differences. i wouldnt TOUCH an insignia cable if you have a 120hz+ tv. otherwise, rocketfish is just as good as a monster. and as far as shielding goes on speakers, i'm not sure what they have advanced to since i've sold them. as we speak im watching GT lose (i freaking picked them to win) on directv HD with rocketfish cables on a brand new 1080p sharp tv with earlier said, onkyo speakers relatively close (~4") to those rocketfish HDMI cables. and it looks amazing
I use to sell ultra high end home and car audio and was in the industry for, I dunno, 10+ years. A properly shielded $5 cable is just as good as a properly shielded $50 cable. I dont care what brand it is. i use to drink the esoteric kool aid until i had a very long talk with David Navone. His personal testing concluded the above. Nicad, I completely agree with you but a magnetic field from a center channel would not cause what you mentioned.
I would lean toward buying a center channel because its seen so much. I just installed one of these and it sounds great for the price to me. You can look up reviews of it on AVR forums. Many recommend it for systems that have a sub 7500(MSRP) build goals http://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-Ce...ZR16/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293516500&sr=8-1 Also if you're in the market for a sub right now this is a sick deal.... http://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-Mi...?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1293516569&sr=1-14 I couldn't believe how much sound this thing could create for its size. With the rest of your system I'd see what you can hunt out used or build your own. New speakers are so expensive for what you get most of the time.
Ooh...ooh I have an opinion. For cables look no furthur than monoprice.com. There are some differences in HDMI. Get one that is rated for 3D usage (higher bandwidth) and you will be guaranteed plenty of backwards compatible bandwidth. There are threads on AVSForum where some cheap HDMI cables are problematic. A center channel with different L/R channels is "less than ideal". There are tonal qualities that just don't match. For a car inspired analogy, you could put Konis on the left side of your car and Tokicos on the right. You might be able to get them to feel similar after a bunch of fiddling, but it still wouldn't be quite right... For speakers, I am a fan of Danny Ritchie's stuff- GR Research. He is a super nice guy who I have chatted up and he is happy to talk to a complete newb. Yet he hangs out at conventions where people sit in listening rooms $30K-$100K speakers. He has been involved in designs of some of the worlds most acclaimed designs. www.gr-research.com I built a sub from one of his old designs that is flat at 90db to 18Hz out of a 12" woofer (and 12" Passive Radiator) I also built a pair of AV1-RS rear surrounds. If I were looking to get into a DIY setup, you owe yourself a read on this thread... http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=84989.0 The X-LS are really nice speakers that break some paradigms at their price point. Danny designed them for Mark Schifter of AV123. Mark Schifter was a smart business man but also ended up being a crook. OOPS. The fact remains they are very well designed speakers. Danny ended up buying a lot the components stock when the companies involved were dissolved (woofers/tweeters and crossovers). It's a sad story and sad thread, but you can get a taste of a DIY speaker for dirt cheap. You basically just need to build the boxes. You'd need a decent table saw and a router with a Jasper jig. I'm think of picking up a set for my second TV because they are so damn cheap for what they are. All you have to do is build the boxes. Possibly may be able to use the Parts Express 0.5cf if you are not wanting to make MDF dust. I already have PDFs of the box designs for the X-LS (left and right) and for the X-CS (center). PM me your email if you want to see them. They are not difficult boxes to make- a beginner wood worker could make them.
Just for kicks.... feel free to watch as much as you want as it gets into real technical aspects as it progresses... [youtube]BYTlN6wjcvQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] I have a Klipsch (pre Best Buy era) center channel you can borrow till you figure out what you want to do. It's sitting on a shelf collecting dust.
^^ Thanks. I am not changing my left Or right speaker out. They're a matching pair. So I'm not sure where the idea that they were mismatched came from in this thread...unless what you're meaning to say mismatching the center to the left & right.
Alex, I recently bought an Onkyo, http://www.onkyousa.com/model.cfm?m=TX-NR808&class=Receiver&p=i and have it connected to some piece of shit L/R because I need to save up for some Klipsch fronts. I have Quintet2 for center, side and back with a Klipsch 8" sub. For a small living room it's decent. But I definitely need to change those fronts. If you want to see what that receiver is like, come on by sometime.
This is something that I never have understood that "speaker snobs" routinely say. The center channel and the L/R speakers never play the same signal in any sort of surround movie or music track and unless you're spending ridiculous amounts of money or have inhumanly perfect ears you money and effort is better spent elsewhere in terms of your overall enjoyment.
Not that I'm suggesting to go this direction; but it is a killer deal on a great setup. https://www.madisound.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=9010
I like it a lot thus far. I haven't even touched any of the internet functions or radio, or updating firmware, etc. I have it setup with my Harmony remote for TV, Gaming, and DVD watching so far. The TV interface is very intuitive and easy to navigate, and I have everything from the receiver going tot he TV using 1 HDMI cable. The receiver does a great job of converting all input to go through the HDMI, Cable box is hooked up using Component cables, PS3 via HDMI. You won't have a any issues with the 1008.
i fell in love with compression horns from Klipsch... I see BIC is also a compression horn company, i'd like to sample their speakers.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1-update1; en-us; SCH-I500 Build/ECLAIR) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17) I'm loving my 1120k. Streaming radio is waay more useful than I thought.
Same driver as used here..... so it ain't just "Ryan" on this one- Linkwitz designed a whole system around that little wonder. Turnkey systems from $3000-$5500. Now that includes discrete amplifiers and a full EQ system, but 80/20 rule in effect here- these things do sound fantastic. http://www.linkwitzlab.com/Wood Artistry LL-home.htm http://www.linkwitzlab.com/pluto-wa_2.htm
hmm this might be an option for my bedroom. i have heard nothing but good stuff about their products, problem is i haven't heard their products. does it come with beer? mmmm