Linus's Home theater.

[JCBiggs]

Just watched Linus and crew set up his new svs prime surround.  I have heard those and they are nice speakers but not very sensitive.   they sound good with enough power though.    Each tower is 250 watt rated at 8 ohms. The 8500 avr only has 150 watts per channel. (pretty sure its considerably less with all channels driven)     The primes are bi amp capable though,  so my  suggestion is to bi-amp them with the Denon...or..even better... use the denon preouts and get a class d (crown xls2002 has enough power).    They should sound much cleaner, and with proper power will make music listening very fun.    im thinking that setup is going to have some clipping issues.

 

What kind of gear are others running?  I'm using klipsch 8000s and a crown 1502 (much more senstive than the svs's)  with a denon avr.

[IkeaGnome]

Not to brag, but TCL 65" tv and a sound bar with Bluetooth sub!

[Roswell]

He took his time disclosing it but...

 

Quote

SVS sent these over for us to check out

 

In other words, this is fake, it's just a sponsored ad. Super unlikely that he's keeping them, it's just a glorified infomercial. I wouldn't waste energy worrying about whether or not he's using this stuff correctly.

[crazzp]

35 minutes ago, Roswell said:

In other words, this is fake, it's just a sponsored ad. Super unlikely that he's keeping them, it's just a glorified infomercial. I wouldn't waste energy worrying about whether or not he's using this stuff correctly.

Well look at this chap. Others are trying to discuss about sound gear and this guy just comes in with his superior-morality, holier-than-thou attitude and an irrelevant reply. 
 

On topic: I'm using a KEF LS50 Wireless II cause I don't like wires. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 hour ago, Roswell said:

In other words, this is fake, it's just a sponsored ad. Super unlikely that he's keeping them, it's just a glorified infomercial. I wouldn't waste energy worrying about whether or not he's using this stuff correctly.

Um, it wassnt sponsored by them though.

There is a world of diffrence between sponsor and getting sent somethign to review

 

But its irrelevent anyways

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, Roswell said:

In other words, this is fake, it's just a sponsored ad. Super unlikely that he's keeping them, it's just a glorified infomercial. I wouldn't waste energy worrying about whether or not he's using this stuff correctly.

Highly unlikely they'd be sent back. Not worth the shipping costs.

It's also not fake at all. They didn't sponsor the video. Not sure how you missed that.

 

I don't have a TV currently, but next month I'll be getting some form of Dolby Atmos soundbar and a sub (maybe). I don't need anything fancy for an apartment.

[GDRRiley]

1 hour ago, Roswell said:

In other words, this is fake, it's just a sponsored ad. Super unlikely that he's keeping them, it's just a glorified infomercial. I wouldn't waste energy worrying about whether or not he's using this stuff correctly.

no hes not, he said in the video hes got more follow up planned when the room is built out more

and he had to get the wife to okay, its going to be used, you don't ask the wife to borrow something for video or 2.

[Roswell]

28 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Highly unlikely they'd be sent back. Not worth the shipping costs.

It's also not fake at all. They didn't sponsor the video. Not sure how you missed that.

 

I don't have a TV currently, but next month I'll be getting some form of Dolby Atmos soundbar and a sub (maybe). I don't need anything fancy for an apartment.

If a company foots at least part of the cost for a video, it’s sponsored. That’s what the word means.

 

18 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

no hes not, he said in the video hes got more follow up planned when the room is built out more

and he had to get the wife to okay, its going to be used, you don't ask the wife to borrow something for video or 2.

He’s used his house for countless sponsored videos under the guise that it’s for personal use. Vast majority of the stuff is magically gone the next time he releases another video from home. Welcome to paid ads…

[dizmo]

13 minutes ago, Roswell said:

If a company foots at least part of the cost for a video, it’s sponsored. That’s what the word means.

 

They didn't foot any of the bill. They just sent him the item.

That's not the same. By your definition, every single review is sponsored, and that's not the case in the least.

[GDRRiley]

28 minutes ago, Roswell said:

He’s used his house for countless sponsored videos under the guise that it’s for personal use. Vast majority of the stuff is magically gone the next time he releases another video from home. Welcome to paid ads…

you do realize hes got both a home theater setup and a normal TV living room right?

[JCBiggs]

That escalated quickly

[dilpickle]

43 minutes ago, dizmo said:

They didn't foot any of the bill. They just sent him the item.

That's not the same. By your definition, every single review is sponsored, and that's not the case in the least.

Well they kinda are aren't they? The whole "professional" review system is one big racket.

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, dilpickle said:

Well they kinda are aren't they? The whole "professional" review system is one big racket.

I don't agree with that statement in the least.

[Roswell]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

They didn't foot any of the bill. They just sent him the item.

That's not the same. By your definition, every single review is sponsored, and that's not the case in the least.

They paid for the majority of the video. Without them sending all of it for free, LMG would need to pay what… $10k or so for the equipment that the video features?

 

The video is also clearly not a review. They sent him free stuff in exchange for exposure. You know, that thing most people that aren’t tied up in fanboyism call a “sponsored ad”.

 

 

[JCBiggs]

1 hour ago, Roswell said:

They paid for the majority of the video. Without them sending all of it for free, LMG would need to pay what… $10k or so for the equipment that the video features?

 

The video is also clearly not a review. They sent him free stuff in exchange for exposure. You know, that thing most people that aren’t tied up in fanboyism call a “sponsored ad”.

 

 

Who cares.   Let's get back to the topic at hand.   Ie... how much better those are gonna sound with some powa

[JCBiggs]

2 minutes ago, comander said:

They're 88db at 1meter using 1 watt. 

 

This is decent. 

 

If you're listening at 75db 2-3meters away they'll usually pull around 1-5W. If there's a transient peak at 95db then they'll pull 100x the power. Usually this is infrequent. 

 

 

I have Emotiva B1+ (86ddm efficiency) and usually listen at 60-75dbm from 2m away. For sides and backs I have Elac ow4.2. For heights I'm using Klipsch quintet. Subwoofer is an svs pb-12nsd. 

 

My center, Emotiva C1+, is not connected. Takes too much desk space. 

80 anything is super low imo.  My 2 sets of  klipsch towers are 97 and 98db. Obviously I'm going to pick sound quality first,  but sensitivity seriously pays off when it comes time to buy power.  That's not to say there isn't excellent speakers in the low 80s even... they just don't need to be driven with an avr. Even if it is a $6000 one.

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, JCBiggs said:

im thinking that setup is going to have some clipping issues.

Should be fine since they set the speakers to small so the actual power required will be low. Personally I object to setting speakers to small and just use actually good enough stuff but eh not everyone can or is willing to do that.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, comander said:

-snip-

Need to also mention speaker sensitivity is often done at 1kHz, lower frequency requires more power so you won't be doing 60Hz at 91dB using 1W if the speaker has a sensitivity rating of 91dB at 1W/1m. It's also a non-linear power increase as you go down in frequency.

 

Singular sensitivity rating really is too basic anyway, frequency responsive graph is much superior if you can actually get one. Easily done for the induvial speaker/driver but not the product as a whole.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Home Theater Equipment

[JCBiggs]

9 hours ago, comander said:

If the speakers were 91db/W @ 1 meter then instead of pulling 0.1W they'd be pulling 0.05W. 

 

The efficiency rating only really matters if you're sitting 5+ meters from the speakers or listen at loudness levels high enough that you risk permanent hearing damage. If the room is 6m x 6m (20'x20') then it's not going to matter. The DSP on your AVR will probably suck more power than your speakers. Your TV will suck tens of times more power. 

 

Each time you double the distance you draw 4x the power. Each 6db in efficiency gains corresponds to 1/4th the power draw. Similarly +10db more loudness (sounds about twice as loud) sucks 10x more power and +20db sucks 100x. 

 

It is possible that Linus will want to run at reference level and not -10db from reference. With that said, there's a reason why 85db noise is considered a health hazard. It's loud. It's kind of unpleasant. 

 

For context, I'm visiting a friend. He has an action movie on. My phone's shoddy loudness measurement is showing peaks around 55db in practice. Even if it's missing out on 10db due to measurement error, that's a far cry from regularly hitting 90+ db at the listening position. 

 -----

 

Power draw is roughly exponential in speakers (output characteristics shift a bit at very high or low volumes which shifts you from the theoretical curve). If you're in a huge room obviously my bit about efficiency hardly matters. If you're trying to fill a 20m x 20m movie theater you should be looking at very different speakers than the stuff home theater guys go for. If for some crazy reason Linus wanted to fill a 60'x60' commercial theater at 85db with transient peaks at 105db then he should be looking at speakers that are 10+ db more efficient than what he has. He should also probably be looking at a much more sophisticated set up as well (dozens of speakers, very different bass management etc.) 

Everything you said is correct,  but you're leaving out a few critical pieces of info.  1st,  with all channels driven, that avr is probably doing around 50-70 watts per channel. Maybe less. (Of course take into account that all channels are not going to be using all the power at one time so I'm say that's probably a little average) The majority of that power is likely going to be sent to the large drivers for low frequency  reproduction. At that wattage, with the low tones sucking up most of the juice,  you're going to have to increase volume and that is when you start to approach the dangers of clipping. In  home theater, probably not much of and issue since the peaks are short  but there will be an issue. Underpowered speakers are far more susceptible to damage than over powered ones.  You're really going to see the issue in fast paced, long duration action scenes where all 13 speakers are working hard. The volume will drop off. That's been my experience at least.

The 2nd thing is that the additional power doesn't just affect loudness. It significantly impacts clarity and tone. I used to think, 70db is 70db. It's gonna sound like what it sounds like at 70db.  But that was NOT the case. At least for me. I dont know if it's less voltage drop, more air movement, or just more power available for the peaks, but my hair didnt stand up when the trumpets came in until i put the extra power on them.  As you said, you can rapidly use more power.  it's not that you need to listen at 100db, its that you need the extra 100 watts to give you the punch for that one bass note.  That same power head room is really what you need in a home theater. Especially if you're watching block busters with huge sound...

 

However...all that said, i will concede Linus has a small room and may never notice. 

[JCBiggs]

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

Need to also mention speaker sensitivity is often done at 1kHz, lower frequency requires more power so you won't be doing 60Hz at 91dB using 1W if the speaker has a sensitivity rating of 91dB at 1W/1m. It's also a non-linear power increase as you go down in frequency.

 

Singular sensitivity rating really is too basic anyway, frequency responsive graph is much superior if you can actually get one. Easily done for the induvial speaker/driver but not the product as a whole.

That's exactly right and that's where you really need the power (lower frequencies)  those are the frequencies that you feel and those really demand alot of power.  My 10 inch sub is 200 watt rated continuous.  I have 700 on it.

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, JCBiggs said:

That's exactly right and that's where you really need the power (lower frequencies)  those are the frequencies that you feel and those really demand alot of power.  My 10 inch sub is 200 watt rated continuous.  I have 700 on it.

Personally horn loaded systems are my second favorite behind electrostatics however horn loaded systems like the Klipsch's have quite pronounced rises in frequency response in the higher frequencies and Klipsch uses that for their sensitivity specs (it's why they are so high), down much lower they aren't any higher than basically anything else equivalent (equivalent being a very tricky thing in the audiophile world lol).

 

Horn loaded mid range drivers as even better but you won't be getting those in "regular" house sized speaker system, then again there are electrostatic speakers with similar problems too heh.

 

As for amplifier power you don't need a lot. My home theatre has pair of Martin Logan Aeon I fronts (no center, center disabled so mixed in to L & R) powered by a Plinius 8200P which is only a 175W per channel in to 8 ohms. The Aeon I's are 4 ohm speakers that can drop to as little as 2 ohms so you need something that can drive that, not everything can and very little in the AVR receiver land can. In any case the 8200P has never been short on power. I've actually got a 8200 and a 8200P and use to bi-amp the Aeon I's but went back to a single 8200P for them and power my surrounds/rears with the 8200, those being Bose 301 V.

 

Also have Martin Logan Grotto sub and a custom made 12" sub with a modified control board so it only does ~20Hz fill, falls off sharply above 40Hz. First speaker I had welded itself to death when it overextended and hit the end stops and the bi-amp I made exploded along with it lol. Second speaker did nearly the same thing but I went single amp with that one and was able to send the speaker away for voice coil repair.

 

Really do prefer the sound of a good electrostatic over everything else though, other than professional large horns, as the spatial fill and tonal sound just floats my boat, not everyone likes them. Them also being di-pole probably has a bit to do with that as well as the large driver surface area.

 

Used to have Janszen Z-40's until they got stolen from our house, the Martin Logan Aeon I's were the insurance replacements. Yes the replacement valuation was difficult, we actually took the lesser model than the investigator suggested as the model up was a bit larger in size.

 

Had a pretty good relationship with audio store in town for a long time so I've listened to a heck of a lot of stuff, like a room with 4 B&W 802D's and 2 804's powered by Plinius SA-250's, still fall back to liking the Martin Logans more 

 

Anyway I've only encountered one set of speakers where the sensitivity was an issue and those were some bookshelf speakers, expensive and nice ones but compared to other ones they really were a little low. Not sure what they were but would have been very low 80dB. Anything including and above 87dB you just simply won't have a problem unless the room is exceedingly large, and I mean huge.

[leadeater]

28 minutes ago, comander said:

This is considered a bad practice. The name is a misnomer. Setting speakers to small enables bass management. This by passes low frequencies to the subwoofer (s) which should be able to do it better. If you want more bass then you'd likely be better off EQing your subs or slightly turning up the gain or levels. 

 

 

Even large towers crossed at 30 or 40Hz should have bass management enabled. 

Nope I completely disagree, subs have terrible quality and timbre. If you send your lows to your subs you are destroying all your low frequency audio quality. If you have speakers that can do it let them do it.

 

"Better" is 100% subjective, whatever you might like I've done the listening comparison and I very much prefer not adding in yet another signal processor and pulling out the lower frequencies. I've done that comparison using both the AVR receiver and the inbuilt crossover in the Martin Logan Grotto sub that is literally designed to be paired with the Aeon I's.

 

Setting speakers to small is almost never doing around that 30Hz-40Hz range you mention (other than being almost outright gone by that point), if you have something half decent you can change the frequency of that crossover but they are still designed for around 60Hz to 120Hz and there is still a lot of receivers where you cannot change the crossover frequency and it's fixed at 60Hz. 

 

Bad practice is over generalizing, saying one way is the best way or telling someone that their preference is "wrong" . If you like how something sounds then that's literally good enough, audiophile world is almost entirely snake oil and pissing contests lol.

 

P.S. I don't have an "AVR", I use an Oppo 105D and Plinius power amps and the Oppo does the pre-amp (the pre-amp in the 8200 has been bypassed).

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, comander said:

All bass management does is set up high/low pass filters for the speakers/subs and ensure that each unit plays what it's good at. If 40Hz is the region where your speakers start to roll off (as in sounds output radically drops off and becomes more distorted) there's relatively little reason to try to force the towers to play 0-40Hz signals that could be directed to the subs that will at a minimum do 20-40Hz far better.

That's all well and good but if you are setting your speakers to small and crossing over at ~60Hz you'll be at minus so much dB well before 40Hz, surely you understand that?

 

And it's not "all they do", what they do is take a stereo source that would be played in stereo and push it out to a sub that is mono and is working hard trying to do much lower frequency stuff as well. It's actually not easy to get a sub do 40Hz and below at the same time as doing ~60Hz.

 

Forget all this low frequency stuff, it's not the issue and actually focus on what setting speakers to small in an AVR does which is turn on a crossover and filters out frequencies you can hear and does matter from your fronts to the sub.

 

Not every AVR lets you configure a sufficiently low crossover point, not every AVR lets you even change it, not every AVR has a good DSP. There are just so many pitfalls one can encounter the reference point should always be no frills everything off direct source.

 

As I said this can be a good idea but if you have speakers that can do the full range then let them do the full range and let your sub do only the LFE.

 

Also if the studio has actually done their job correctly there won't be below 40Hz signal in any main channels other than LFE, not that this is done correctly every time.

 

1 hour ago, comander said:

Part of the reason you might like bass management is that you might possibly have double bass enabled - this sends signals to both the subs and the speakers. Not sure what your settings are. More bass is better to some degree. I would still argue that DSP is the smarter approach over brute force. 

Not sure why you bring up volume when my reasoning gave is entirely quality 

 

1 hour ago, comander said:

For very low frequencies timbre matters a lot less, hence why timbre matching isn't considered a thing for subs

Except it is, sure not at 40Hz and below but if you're setting your speakers to small it will be taking frequency range out where it does matter and you can hear the difference. Timbre for subs might not matter but that's not what I said, I said taking signal away from speakers in a frequency range where it does matter.

 

1 hour ago, comander said:

If 40Hz is the region where your speakers start to roll off (as in sounds output radically drops off and becomes more distorted)

Not correct, roll off is not the same thing as distortion. There is so much "it depends" and "situation varies" I wouldn't throw this in as a generally accepted statement, in a way that will matter anyway.

 

1 hour ago, comander said:

SVS says to enable it if you have a sub

Many brands say a lot of crap that is wrong or subjectively sound worse but hey, anyone is free to prefer what they like.

 

1 hour ago, comander said:

So do room/EQ DAC suites (Audyssey, Dirac, etc) for what it's worth I know the guy that leads one of those room EQ software platforms.

Consumer EQ and Audyssey are 100% snake oil, they work and do stuff but ultimately introduce more problems than they are trying to solve. Nothing wrong with the principle and theory behind it but real talk, almost always sounds worse than leaving things alone.

 

In my experience less is better, less equipment, less processing of signals, keep everything to the absolute minimum. Find speakers that sound the best in your room, fix any significant problems in the room if possible and then and only then start looking at using other methods, being very careful to avoid placebo and observational bias which is very hard to actually do. If you make a change you think should improve the sound it's actually difficult to not have a subjective bias and think it's better when it's not.

Edited November 28, 2021 by leadeater

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, comander said:

If you're sufficiently lazy, running the auto calibration does all the work.

 

Good lord please no, never suggest this again ever. This on low end cheap equipment is horrifically bad.