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| Re: Pete's Home Theater Build [message #76960 is a reply to message #76959] |
Thu, 06 June 2013 01:28   |
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Wayne Parham
Messages: 18796
Registered: January 2001
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Illuminati (33rd Degree) |
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Excellent, Pete. Thanks for posting the pics here.
Just for curiosity's sake, what is your room layout? Where are your speakers going?
I ask because I found an odd but neat trick for my side surrounds. I wanted to place them beside and slightly above and behind the listeners, much like they are in theaters. But my room layout didn't really support that - The best place to put the side surround speakers was behind the listeners.
So I tried aiming them at the side walls, where the angle of reflection directed their sound into the listening area, approximately towards the same place where the forward axes of the L/R front mains cross. Turned out excellent! It's spooky good that way. People are always looking around, thinking stuff is happening outside or off in the other room and then realize it's in the movie soundtrack. 
I'm wondering if that might not work well for your too. You can always mount the side surrounds on the side walls facing inward, but maybe try them in this reflected mode and see how you like it too. If you like how it sounds, then the sides and the rears can be put in the same place, but the sides directed at the side walls while the rears are directed straight forward.
If you try that, report back and let me know what you think. Maybe live with it for a few movies each way to see.
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| Re: Pete's Home Theater Build [message #76981 is a reply to message #76980] |
Fri, 07 June 2013 15:04 |
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Wayne Parham
Messages: 18796
Registered: January 2001
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Illuminati (33rd Degree) |
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That's an excellent question, one that has been posed here many times. I think that the method you propose will work well, and there are plenty that have done it that way. In fact, if I did not have experience with the sound of a three or four π center combined with six or seven π cornerhorns as mains, I would probably think the midhorn proposal you make for the center channel would be the right way to go. And it isn't like that's the wrong way to go, so you can certainly do it if you want to.
But the thing is the spectral balance is similar with each of these speakers, so they do sound matched. I would probably use a DI-matched two-way even if my left and right mains were constant directivity cornerhorns. Mostly that's because I know the speakers are already vetted out, tested and optimized. No surprises that way.
The biggest difference is in the room/speaker interface, to tell the truth. The constant directivity cornerhorns having no self-interference, the wavefront launch from the corners and the truly constant directivity throughout the band are things you cannot match with any other configuration. So even if you put a midhorn in the center channel, it's still different than the cornerhorns.
Still, don't let me discourage you. You can do exactly what you've described and it sounds very good, matched and clean. Lots of people here have built four π cabinets as bass bins and put midhorns and waveguides on top, just like you've described. The midhorn and tweeter need to be attenuated about 3dB when done this way. Basically, you use the woofer circuit from the constant directivity cornerhorn schematic, but the tweeter circuit uses R1/R2 values shown for the corresponding DI-matched two-way. And the midhorn resistors must be changed from R4=4Ω and R5=8Ω to R4=5Ω and R5=4Ω.
Either way - center channel being a DI-matched two-way speaker or a hybrid with midhorn - the sound is very good. It sounds natural when things pan across the front channels, through the center. The illusion is maintained, largely because the speakers are all voiced the same.
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