AV Rant #570: Freeflowing Bass
Our Listeners of the Week are Tyson for his donation, as well as our 39 Patreon Patrons, including Bari, Karl, and Weldon. We also want to thank Greg for mentioning us to Accessories4Less when he bought a pair of Focal Super Bird speakers, and Tyson for letting HSU know we recommended them.
In the news, Patreon announced major changes to their fees, but UPDATE: after we had recorded this episode, Patreon decided not to implement those changes after the backlash they received. Playstation VR bundles are $100 off until Dec. 24. AppleTV 4K uses a new Match Content setting for HDR and frame rate, but getting everything to look right is highly unintuitive. And Disney might buy 21st Century Fox.
Terry G. recommends the movie Lucy for testing whether you’re able to pressurize your theater with deep bass. And Karl R.’s wife corrects us about architectural planning for ducts, pipes, and wires, and she explains why modifications to original plans are the reason for unwanted exposures or bulkheads.
Brian B. is building a dedicated theater, so he asks us to confirm his speaker placement and projector placement. We recommend an APC J25B battery backup UPS. We talk about acoustic panel placement, and suggest Focal Super Bird on-wall, or Aperion Audio or RBH in-wall speakers, along with dual SVS PC-2000 or HSU VTF-2 MK5 subwoofers. And we touch upon his subwoofer wiring, AV Receiver choices, screen size options, and the difference between a standard distribution amplifier and a matrix distribution amplifier. And Nick B. saw measurements of Emotiva’s Gen3 amplifiers in Stereophile that indicated high distortion at the highest frequencies. Those measurements don’t line up with the ones found in Secrets of Home Theater’s Emotiva Gen3 review, nor Emotiva’s own measurements, and the whole thing sparks a rant from Rob.
Chris T. is finalizing plans for his friend’s theater. We’d normally recommend an Elite Screens Saker Tab-Tensioned motorized screen for acoustically transparent material and screen size options, but to save money, the Elite Spectrum Series makes sense. We recommend HSU HIW-1 Horn in-wall speakers and describe making rear enclosures or using RBH retrofit or Dynamat En-Wall and DynaBox options. Andy M. gets some clarification about what display we think he should use for casual viewing, and how to construct his basement ceiling for soundproofing. And Tyson H. gets our thoughts on how he should utilize four KEF Q100 bookshelf speakers in his room.
RAID5 from our AVRant.com comments section rightly suggests using an AV Receiver’s Zone 2 capabilities when it doesn’t have 7.1 analogue inputs, but you want to use it to power more than two speakers just as a dumb amplifier. Bill W. asks about Atmos speaker orientation, turning a box subwoofer sideways, having a “window” from his theater into his equipment room to access disc players, and we stress the installation of conduit for future proofing. And Bari W. has an L-shaped basement with an unfortunate soffit covering a pipe that gets us talking about his Atmos speaker placement options, our thoughts on his desire for a false wall, and our suggestion to possibly reorient his entire basement layout.
Steven T. isn’t satisfied with his current KEF subwoofers in his dedicated theater, and we think a pair of SVS PB12-NSD are the perfect balance of output and price for his room size. Bobby K. in Canada gets our thoughts on EluneVision’s Reference screens vs. their much less expensive Titan Tab-Tensioned screens. And Daniel M. wants to improve his Atmos effects, and we make several suggestions for repositioning his existing speakers before purchasing anything new.
Shane T. wants some advice regarding what brand of insulation to use when building DIY absorption panels and bass traps. John M. gets an oversimplified explanation of how multiple subwoofers work to make bass response more uniform throughout a room from us, and a far more detailed explanation from Harman. And Keith M. is deciding between a 65-inch OLED and a 75-inch LCD, but we still end up talking about projectors.
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