First HT

alxlwson

You Know Where I Live
Joined
Aug 25, 2013
Messages
9,372
My first HT.
Nothing too special.
Sub is an old KSW15 that's served my family well since 2000. Pair of Heresy II's circa 2003, and an RP-450C that I just picked up on sale at Crutchfield. Budget AVR until all the HDMI2.1 pass through stuff ia figured out, so went with the Yamaha RX-V4A. I have no plans on rear surround, and likely no plans for elevation. Wife loves it, so mission accomplished.
20211027_195424.jpg
 
Congratulations, you have officially started the journey down the rabbit hole.

Before you know it you will have surround and height speakers installed.

You probably are right about the elevation speakers. I can easily mount those on the ceiling and pull the wife for them through the walls. However, back behind the couch is open area and less than ideal for surround. Three active blue healers will destroy all speaker cables lol.
 
RP-450C is going back to Crutchfield. Women's voices sound amazing, but men's voices sound like they are coming from a shoebox.
The Heresy II's... well, I thought the speakers were a gift from dad, but when he found out I made over $17k this month, today he asked me to pay him for them. I told the wife about it today, and she told me to order some speakers and drop the Heresy's off at his house.
So I ordered a pair of SVS Prime Towers and a SVS Prime Center.
So on Wednesday, I'll have those, plus 2x SVS PB-1000 Pro subs for a pretty wicked 3.1(2) system.
 
but when he found out I made over $17k this month, today he asked me to pay him for them.

LOL what.

Anyway, nice setup. I don't think you're missing much not having surrounds imo. They're nice but while watching a movie I feel they barely get used. Not worth the clutter. Gaming on the other hand is a different story..
 
LOL what.

Anyway, nice setup. I don't think you're missing much not having surrounds imo. They're nice but while watching a movie I feel they barely get used. Not worth the clutter. Gaming on the other hand is a different story..

I'm technical sales in material handling. Sometimes it's filet, sometimes it's bologna

No gaming in the living room except the occasional Switch game. Wife plays her games on her laptop and I play on the PC.
 
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Copied over from my post on AVS.

Bought some new speakers. Prime Towers to replace a pair of Heresy II's from '04 and the Prime Center to replace a RP-450C that I just bought.
I hated the sound of the 450C pretty much right from the very go. Even the wife commented that it sounded like everyone was talking out of a shoebox.
My old Heresy II's need new crossovers and I felt I wanted to give a full range speaker a shot.
The center...it's still lacking a little something, but it's a huge improvement over the rp-450c. Debating sending it back to Crutchfield for the Ultra. I got the Center for a massive deal though, $289, scratch and dent, but was still factory sealed, just box was really beat up, no damage. I can absolutely live with it for $289. Maybe I'll send it to Danny at GR Research and let him do his magic on it. Perhaps it's my budget receiver, Yamaha RX-V4A.

The Prime Towers are fantastic. They look so much better in the living room, and they sound so much better as well. Everything is filled out so much better. Not a huge surprise there considering the limitations of the Heresy II's. I wasn't expecting how much more bass there was going to be. I think I may have to do some adjustments to the PB-1000 Pro.
I have a UMIK-1 on the way from HK. We'll see how everything looks after that.
Overall, I'm very pleased. More importantly, so is the wife.
 
Copied over from my post on AVS.

Bought some new speakers. Prime Towers to replace a pair of Heresy II's from '04 and the Prime Center to replace a RP-450C that I just bought.
I hated the sound of the 450C pretty much right from the very go. Even the wife commented that it sounded like everyone was talking out of a shoebox.
My old Heresy II's need new crossovers and I felt I wanted to give a full range speaker a shot.
The center...it's still lacking a little something, but it's a huge improvement over the rp-450c. Debating sending it back to Crutchfield for the Ultra. I got the Center for a massive deal though, $289, scratch and dent, but was still factory sealed, just box was really beat up, no damage. I can absolutely live with it for $289. Maybe I'll send it to Danny at GR Research and let him do his magic on it. Perhaps it's my budget receiver, Yamaha RX-V4A.

The Prime Towers are fantastic. They look so much better in the living room, and they sound so much better as well. Everything is filled out so much better. Not a huge surprise there considering the limitations of the Heresy II's. I wasn't expecting how much more bass there was going to be. I think I may have to do some adjustments to the PB-1000 Pro.
I have a UMIK-1 on the way from HK. We'll see how everything looks after that.
Overall, I'm very pleased. More importantly, so is the wife.
I have the baby Klipsch Reference center speaker and it sounds clean, crisp, and full. I bought this one from someone that upgraded to the one you have.
Maybe it's faulty or possibly the settings in the AVR,

IMG_0392.JPEG
 
I have the baby Klipsch Reference center speaker and it sounds clean, crisp, and full. I bought this one from someone that upgraded to the one you have.
Maybe it's faulty or possibly the settings in the AVR,

View attachment 415927

I do need to dig into the AVR settings more. I have the Yamaha RX-V4A. It doesn't offer much as far as settings go, pretty basic. I wish I would have spent more, but such is the HT game.
 
I have the baby Klipsch Reference center speaker and it sounds clean, crisp, and full. I bought this one from someone that upgraded to the one you have.
Maybe it's faulty or possibly the settings in the AVR,

View attachment 415927
Nice JBL S38 fronts you have there...I'm a JBL fan (well, of certain ones).

OP, I would check your settings also. Doesn't Yamaha have a "calibration" for speaker settings? If so did you re-run it after changing/adding new speaker?
 
Nice JBL S38 fronts you have there...I'm a JBL fan (well, of certain ones).

OP, I would check your settings also. Doesn't Yamaha have a "calibration" for speaker settings? If so did you re-run it after changing/adding new speaker?

I have not rerun it. I actually didn't like the way YPAO calibration made everything sound, so I made adjustments myself. My L/R are exactly the same distance and angle from each other, the Center, and MLP, so I have them with a 0dB offset. I have the Center with +3dB and the sub +3dB(-10db in the sub's EQ app as SVS recommends). LCR all set to small, and per THX, crossover at 80Hz.
 
Not sure what else it could be other than a speaker issue and it is possibly faulty as Zepher said. Can always hook it up as a front and just play some 2 ch music to see what difference it makes in sound. That may help determine if it the speaker or setting.

Also, good that you have all speakers set to small but I would set LFE crossover to 120 Hz otherwise you maybe be missing LFE from 80-120 being sent to sub where it belongs. Just learned that the hard way after finally getting subs myself (2x SVS SB-2000 Pro).
 
Not sure what else it could be other than a speaker issue and it is possibly faulty as Zepher said. Can always hook it up as a front and just play some 2 ch music to see what difference it makes in sound. That may help determine if it the speaker or setting.

Also, good that you have all speakers set to small but I would set LFE crossover to 120 Hz otherwise you maybe be missing LFE from 80-120 being sent to sub where it belongs. Just learned that the hard way after finally getting subs myself (2x SVS SB-2000 Pro

I'm jelly on the duallies! I have another pb1000pro sitting in the garage. After these new Prime Towers, I don't think I need it lol. I have a minidsp mic arriving on Friday, so that will determine if I pull it out or send it back.
 
Nice JBL S38 fronts you have there...I'm a JBL fan (well, of certain ones).

OP, I would check your settings also. Doesn't Yamaha have a "calibration" for speaker settings? If so did you re-run it after changing/adding new speaker?
Thanks. I got them and the Pioneer AVR for $40 a few years ago. I did have to replace the right speaker earlier this year since the woofer would distort with certain frequencies.
Went on eBay to find a woofer and saw a seller had a complete right speaker for sale for just a little more than a woofer so I bought that, works perfect.
These S38's sound a lot larger than they are and it also sounds like I have a subwoofer attached to my system. pretty amazed by them.
 
I'm jelly on the duallies! I have another pb1000pro sitting in the garage. After these new Prime Towers, I don't think I need it lol. I have a minidsp mic arriving on Friday, so that will determine if I pull it out or send it back.

Swap that PB-1000 Pro in for for KSW15 !

I have big JBL S312II fronts that will go well into the 30s and didn't think I would be getting much benefit for music if I got a sub. I knew I would for movies though. Different sound now, but definitely much more lower range. And also my AVR doesn't need to work so hard now that my subs are taken care of everything below 120Hz.

Curious as to what you find out the issue is.
 
Swap that PB-1000 Pro in for for KSW15 !

I have big JBL S312II fronts that will go well into the 30s and didn't think I would be getting much benefit for music if I got a sub. I knew I would for movies though. Different sound now, but definitely much more lower range. And also my AVR doesn't need to work so hard now that my subs are taken care of everything below 120Hz.

Curious as to what you find out the issue is.

Lol. The KSW-15 is garbage. It's going to the curb on Monday.

Gonna keep the LPF set at 80Hz per THX. If I had duallies, I might do the 120Hz, but my room is already on the small side and sometimes the gets directional.

BTW, try out their isolation feet. I put them on, didn't say a word to the wife, she asked what I did, said the sub sounded "more angry" lol. Took them off while she was in the shower, she asked if something broke. Huge difference. I'm on a crawlspace so YMMV. But for whatever reason, swapping out from the little spikes to the isolation feet makes big differences. Gonna measure it when the calibration mic gets here on Friday.
 
Got the isolation feet on both subs :)

Read up on the 120 Hz cutoff. It also helps keep the sub from going back into standby. And the LFE channel has content above 80 Hz too. Try it!

 
Got the isolation feet on both subs :)

Read up on the 120 Hz cutoff. It also helps keep the sub from going back into standby. And the LFE channel has content above 80 Hz too. Try it!

I have read quite a bit on the LFE setting. Everything that I've read has said that if you have a solo sub, to leave it at 80Hz due to directionallity concerns. THX also states this. I've also read that there is very little actual LFE up in 120Hz. Then again, I've only been reading at AVS. Do you have some alternate reading? Single source is never the best way to go.
 
AVS is a really good source of information and knowledgeable people. It just depends if the people giving the advice are biased or not.

Single or dual sub has nothing to do with LFE cutoff either.
 
AVS is a really good source of information and knowledgeable people. It just depends if the people giving the advice are biased or not.

Single or dual sub has nothing to do with LFE cutoff either.

No, but directionality does, and dual subs solves that problem.
 
We're not confusing LFP for LFEand crossover are we? Speaker crossovers at 80 Hz is probably just fine. But the sub mode should be set to LFE and 120 Hz.

I think we're on the same page just sating it differently :)

Also, you can post your setup here and SVS will help you configure it optimally I guess...
https://www.svsound.com/blogs/subwo...he-proper-crossover-frequency-for-a-subwoofer

Sub mode is at LFE and 120Hz :)
I thought you were saying to set speaker crossover to 120Hz. Lol
 
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