re: New Home - Outfit My Home Audio

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Marco Esquandolas

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You're not allowed in this thread

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Tell me what I need to do to attain nirvana...

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All that money spent and can’t throw in some foot rests or recliners???


That’s a legit badass setup though. I’m jealous

Look into the Nuvo system. I have two Nuvo P3100s that power up 6 zones in my house. Everything is controlled through your phone.

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Your turn.

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The key here it is unlikely that anyone will tell you anything you don't already know and it is obvious that your rig is set up primarily for 2 channel audio with surround sound and video being secondary, but I'll bite on the purely HT angle.

The biggest obvious issue (for all audio) is the lack of room treatments. Bare walls at the first reflection points is a red flag. Managing reflection/refraction and bass traps would be the first order of business.

The second issue is the MTM center channel which also out of the vertical plane with the drivers in the LF/RF. So limited horizontal dispersion due to lobing as well as negatively impacting the timbre match across the front soundstage.

An AT screen and black screen wall as well as turning it into a Bat Cave would reduce light bounce and increase the apparent contrast on screen

That said I am sure you know all of this and every choice is made for a reason and it is obvious you lean toward 2 channel audio.


To the person that ask about needing a center channel. I always prefer a center channel if you are using an acoustically transparent screen and have all the front speakers behind it however you can use a phantom center which works well with some L/R speakers and can be convincing. It usually requires speakers that can image really well. Many people use it that have large and or expensive L/R speakers and find the phantom center is more pleasing than using a horizontal center channel with its inherent flaws.

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Room treatments are coming...I am looking at some of the ones that are a bit artsy.

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Are you planning a dead front live rear approach or...?

I build most of my own.

For absorption panels I use a wood frame around 3" OC 703 and cover it with art printed by Spoonflower on their performance knit fabric which has been tested to show very good transparency. They will custom print anything you like and if you need help with it I can direct you to info on it and a guy that will does great work with getting the images files correct. Lots of people do art and movie posters as well as posters with the text stripped out. The artsy acoustic panels you can buy pre-made are so limited in the selection.

Tons of useful DIY and non-DIY info on AVS and Gearslutz.

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I am also considering running Dirac.

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Dirac is extremely good, better than all the rest.

Balancing a single room for 2 channel and HT is tough while a lot of things work well for both the screen, different requirements for bass and light control always lead to compromise.

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I also have to take care of a bass issue in the center of the room (suck out from 43Hz to 70 Hz)

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Room nulls are a bitch. Outside of moving the listening position out of the null there just isn't an easy fix, and that one sux since it sucks the ~50-60hz chest slam out of music. Traps could help but would have to be very large to work down to 43hz. Multiple subs can also help but my guess is the listening position is near the quarter wave and maybe half wave from walls for those frequencies so multiple subs may be just dumping more bass in a black hole. If I couldn't attack the null in other was I would try adding a nearfield sub. Nearfield particle velocity and pressure are out of phase in the nearfield (best results considering nearfield as 1/4 wave) so you can often replace the lack of pressure with particle velocity and help bring up the null. While most tend to use these principles to increase ULF tactile feedback it could possibly work for a null in that range.

Small room acoustics in the bass region is the bane of most 2 channel and HT nuts. When you get below the Schroeder frequency for the space getting even remotely flat FR is quite a chore and for the ULF freaks wanting "flat to DC" at 130+ dB becomes a longterm obsession.

BTW I mentioned I was interested in your Zu center. Particularly the drivers and crossover topology.

I spoke with Sean at Zu last week...he said he loves one-off projects and to let him think about it a couple weeks with what he wants to do with it. I have a pair of Omens that I run with a 14 watt EL84 amp.


The couch is placed 2/3 in the room. The 11" drivers in the Focals are cancelling each other out. I heard it the first hour I set it up, as I have had these for five years in my great room, and the low end from them as nothing but stellar. However, the dimensions of that room totally is different than this room.

I have also seen the fabric sewn custom wall treatments on the AVS forum. I may end up going that route. One of my fellow audio gurus is a graphic designer that owns an imaging company. He is working on some designs for me now (a giant "Steal Your Face" to start with!).

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More in line with the OP, for those of us with in-wall/ceiling/soundbar speakers in a regular ole living room area....what are you doing for a sub?

Is in-ceiling an option? Bookshelf? Around a corner in a closet?

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In wall, on wall and in ceiling subwoofers exist but the price/performance is really poor, the good ones tend to be designed for "lifestyle" systems and carry a significant price tag. Subs generally don't do well in a bookcase in in built-in cabinets but could be a possibility if all else fails. Around the corner is probably a poor idea unless you are talking about using a shared wall to open up for the sub, but then you are talking about what is likely a custom integration solution.

If you just plan to use a soundbar make sure it has a subwoofer out, if so you can use any conventional subwoofer and there are plenty of inexpensive wireless subwoofer solutions so that all you need at the subwoofer is power if running the cable is an issue. Many of the whole house systems have their own proprietary subs like Sonos. The Sonos sub is $700 retail and like most of the whole house solutions have a poor price/performance ratio but you are trading that for convenience. Some offer the option of attaching a conventional sub like Heos.

To really determine what subs will work we would have to know what system you are currently using along with your budget. Room size and how open it is comes into the picture if your budget goes beyond entry level. Most systems with a subwoofer will have a "black box" in an inconspicuous place in the room, usually in a corner. If that won't work for you it requires more creativity/money.

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Obviously with the options I listed, I’m trying to avoid this.

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Budget would be the next important question.

How deep are the bookcases at the bottom? While not ideal if it is like a lot of builtins where the bottom is actually cabinet deep then you can stick a sub in the cabinet at the bottom.

It would be a terrible idea to have a solid wood door on the cabinetry in front of a sub, where I was going is custom AV built ins often are built like this:





While it is not ideal it can work. If the closet shares a wall with the room you could do the same thing there. I would frame it with a 18 x 18 or 24 x 24 vent. It just depends where you prefer the vent to be.

The $500 budget won't get one of the better inwall subs and the standard "box" subs will allow a pretty decent sub for that price. The smaller SVS, HSU et al ID subs as well as the new Monoprice Monolith 10" sub (which is getting excellent reviews and tests very well) would be my choice if you plan to put them in the closet or built in and stays within your budget.

When you decide where you want the sub make sure you have a 120v outlet wired there as well as running RG6 coax between there and where you plan to have the source for the sub (receiver, soundbar etc).

Now if you are willing to go DIY then you certainly could build a sub in the ceiling. If you have the basic woodworking skills and access to a table saw, router and other basic woodworking tools you could easily build a nice sub. It would sit on the joists and have a section to some down and sit flush with the ceiling. I am happy to help you pick a driver and amp along with designing the box. It could be done within your budget as long as you figure your time as free.

Just did some quick modeling on the ceiling DIY approach and it is just one example out of an infinite number of possibilities.

Buy this driver:

10" driver

Duel 2 ohm coil so it would be wired for 4 ohms. It has plenty of Xmax so the loss due to sag in the horizontal configuration would not hurt it much. These are very solid units and the series is used by a huge number of DIYers.

amp

Use this plate amp. While not overly powerful at 250 watts (which is more accurate than a lot of mass market subs will use) it will work well in the configiration I have in mind. Plus it has full DSP so dialing the sub in will be easy.

I suggest a sealed box for a beginner, harder to screw up and fewer worries about bottoming out the driver and getting the high pass filters exact.

I would build a 14.5" x 14.5" x 24 inch box from 3/4" baltic birch. This will give you roughly 2cuft of box space when the driver/bracing volume is removed.

Pick up a 5x5 sheet at a lumber yard and it will be more than enough to do the box. Build your box with PL construction adhesive and rout the holes for the amp and driver. Pop them in with some polyfill in the box and you are basically built. (lots of details beyond this but I'll save those for a later date if you decide to). The add a single parametric EQ @30hz +5.5dB and you get -3dB @26 hz. With room gain it will go lower but keep in mind you have a fairly large cubic foot room so it isn't going to sacrifice small farm animals with sound.

The box should fit right between the joists and I would use two 2x6s connected to the sides of the sub to mount it across 4 joists (so they would be roughly 33.5" long). I have some actual mounting suggestions as well. I would have the bottom of the box level with the drywall or maybe a little proud to allow a tiny piece of moulding to produce a finished look. Then either some decorative metal mesh painted the ceiling color or a wood framed covered with speaker cloth for a grill.

It is a weekend project but as long as you have simple DIY skills and access to the tools (you could even do it with a circular saw instead of a table saw since you won't see the box) it would not be difficult.

I am more than happy to walk you through every step as well as model any other drivers you might consider or more complex box types like ported. You can easily build a fully custom sub for the ceiling that will be better than any of the in-wall versions you can get for near $500. However, you won't be able to beat the SVS et al box subs @ the same price point, but you could beat them DIY if you just built a standard sit on the floor sub.