Much needed advice, asap

Velocitydreamer

So, to make this clear, I am new to the Home Audio scene and need some advice on a setup I am constructing. I have some base knowledge, but that?s it? I blindly charged into building it? and? well, I suddenly had the urge to? build it right LoL! I?ll start with the fact that I have a Harman Kardon avr247 as a receiver. I don?t really plan to change the receiver anytime soon? the system will be used for music and blu ray. As for speakers, I currently have a set of Monitor 70s, Rti 70s, and a Bose center I picked up real check and am flipping, and I have the opportunity to pick up a pair of rt2000p?s :cheesygrin: so? I hear I should stick with the same series for? the front 3? Or all? And if so, should I jump on the rt2000p?s or stick with my monitors for fronts? if I got the 2000p?s, should I shift monitors to the sides, or just flip them? I?m very confused as to what I should do from here, and have come here for guidance lol? is it ok to mix the series speakers? And if so, to what extent can I mix them? I seem to be wanting to stick to series around those levels: monitor/rti/rt due to price range, but unfortunately, have no hierarchy chart to just plainly tell me? these are better for you.. and I know some of these series are much older than others? All voluminous, as long as it?s accurate, advice is welcome, but please make it soon, as I have to make a decision on the 2000p?s by tomorrow. Thanks a ton guys/girls!

sageleo

I am far from a pro, but I would keep the front 3 from the same line at least. I have owned a set of the rt2000p's and I did like them, thought they sounded great. Due to the size of them the WAF was very low and ended up selling. I would certainly check the condition of the drivers and tweeters as they are a little older of a speaker and might make difficult to replace parts if needed. If you decide to stay with the monitor line I do have some monitor 30's for sale cheap in the flea market. Hopefully I was a little help.

pyrocyborg

Wow, what the hell with those ? everywhere! Anyways, I could tell that, if I understand well, you should never put a monitor on it's side to use it as a center channel: the tweeter dispersion won't be in the good angle, meaning only people in the center spot will have good sound.

As for the front, as sage said, for homogeneity purpose, it's preferable to have everything in the front end from the same series. Failure do to so can lead to have different timbre when dialogue comes from the sides or the center, which isn't great. So, stick with the same series for the front and use a lower profile dedicated center channel if you can't use a bookshelf speaker in is vertical position.

Velocitydreamer

So... I've found a matching center for the RT's... should I use the Monitor 70s for sides and Rti70s for rears? Or look for different speakers for any of it? I'm a bachelor and have free reign, so no WAF involved Think i may stay single for the rest of my life for this purpose alone lol... My place can look like a warehouse for all I care, I want theater / musical performance out of these and bass... well... I have thick walls Not sure what I should do for the rest, other than the front three... it's a 7.1 as mentioned, and I can do all towers if it matters. I'm just not tooooo familiar with this stuff. I'm not sure I'd be able to get ahold of any more RT speakers, and I know they're getting older which leads me to hesitate somewhat... should I get a matching center to the RTs or go with a newer one, as I know with most technology, things improve with time... I just seen the two powered subs per cab and my eyes lit up lol. I love a good rumble in a movie, and richer, fuller sound. I am considering a Klipsch Sub-12 for the sub, lol... I aim to go as overboard as I can within my budget... but this can be a long term project as well. So ultimately, what do I do with my other two sets of towers? And go with matching center for the older RTs? making them my fronts I assume is the best idea?

Velocitydreamer

No no no lol when I say side, I mean in a surround sound 7.1 setup Side(Speaker) just as you have fronts, and rears, center, and sub. Guess you could say I referring to the speaker channels, the side speakers which leads me back to my original questions

pyrocyborg

Well, I should say that "all towers" is a waste in most situations as the rear channel do not really carry a lot of information (certainly not a lot of bass going to these!). You can end up with good bookshelf and do the same job for less, but anyways...

Also, keep in consideration that most towers carry bass drivers (woofers) which takes a lot of power to really shine, and this power isn't generally what a receiver can give them(think between 150 and 500 watts per channel, depending on your listening level and the speaker itself). Driving one pair off a receiver is fine, driving 3 pairs will probably slowly kill most receiver, except higher-end ones (1500$+). That's why people considering to drive two large towers up front or a lot of towers prefer to go for an external amp which can achieve this kind of power without breaking a sweat.

I do not want to say that going all tower is bad, as it depends on your listening habits, but if I were you, I would buy some bookshelf speakers for the sides and rear. With the money saved, I would get a new amp for the front speakers (towers): You would end up with a much richer and powerful front end, which is what is important IMO. Not to say that rear and side speakers are useless; they're just not as important as your front end.

However, those speakers with included powered subwoofer do not need that much amplification and can do well with a receiver.

As for the series gradation:

Monitor is an entry level when compared to the RTi series. RTi is, IMO, better for Home theater than the monitor line.

The RT series is another game completely as they are older speakers. The RTi line is supposed to be their successor, but they do not share the same sound characteristics (as for example, when you're comparing the RTi line to the RTiA line, which is kinda mostly a cosmetic upgrade).

Velocitydreamer

Awesome, this answers many of my questions! I really appreciate your help Pyro

pyrocyborg

Do not take my answer for gold, as there is many opinions on that particular matter (well, there is opinions about almost everything in audio), but in many movies for example, the rear channel carry between 10 and 20% of the soundtrack, so that leaves almost 80-90% of the rest to the front (kinda make some sense... as it is where the picture is). Some movies offer a way better "surround" experience, but there is never more than 40% sent to the rear, it would make no sense!

While it may be interesting to have 4 or 6 towers for SACD and multi-channel music, this is less interesting IMO for movies as most bass is carried through the sub... and bass is kinda the main benefit of a tower over a good bookshelf or dedicated surround speaker. As you don't let your towers get real low with a receiver (or else it becomes power hungry), there is almost no point in getting a tower as a surround, except if you have a very large room... and if you have a large room, you better get yourself an external amp or your receiver might struggle to fill it...

So it all comes down to your needs and budget. Even with unlimited budget, I'm not sure I would get towers as rear.... but I'm a stand mount guy with a small room, so I'm kinda biased towards bookshelf/monitor speakers.

BlueFox

pyrocyborg wrote: »

Wow, what the hell with those ? everywhere!

It is a bug in the forum software. If you make a document in, for example, MS Word, or something else, the forum software turns various characters such as " or ' into question marks when it gets posted. It really is a pain, especially when somebody does a cut and paste of an interesting article.

gp4jesus

Yo P'borg.
RT: Reference Theatre
RTi: Reference Theatre improved.
The RTi A series sexy cabinets offer more than looks. Less internal reflected waves & panel resonence due to shape. Subtle differences in XO components too.

Shalom tony

pyrocyborg

Most probably gp4jesus (about the RTi/RTiA difference), but to me, it sounded the same. People kept on telling that bass was tighter and that they tamed the harshness, but to me, it sounded like the same speaker at low-medium level. Maybe there were a difference in the order of 1-5%, which is quite hard to hear, but I did not do any A/B testing, it was all from "memory" so I can go wrong. Anyways, RTiA3 didn't really surprised me as it was more like a lateral move from the RTi6 than a real upgrade.

Thanks for the clarification about the "i" by the way, didn't know what it meant.

But for the look itself, it was probably worthy. :P

@bluefox thanks!

gp4jesus

The RTi A series, while having similar driver layout** to RTi series, according to a review* I read while I was shopping for my system about 4 years ago did sound more transparent*, uses slightly different XO components in addition to not-so-different cabinets.
** the "A" series owes its lineage to the RTi series. From the front *it's no *accident the RTi A7 & RTi 10 could pass for fraternal twins

Velocitydreamer

Ok, so I decided to pick up the set of RT2000p speakers, is there any page that would show me all the speakers that were available in the RT lineup? Also, since the RT2000p speakers have powered subs and only a 6.5" woofer and tweeter, the speakerwire that goes from the receiver to the pair, does it only power the 6.5 and tweeter or? the reason I ask is, as has been explained to me, the problem with using towers for pretty much all the channels minus the center and sub was overstressing the receiver's power. Would this, being that the subs are self powered, be a solution to overstressing a receiver and using towers for the 6 L/R channels on my receiver? Just curious, either way, I'd also like to know, as I've been told it's good to keep the front three matching (still trying to figure out what the matching center channels are called) is it important at all to match the rest of the sides? I really appreciate everyone's help, I love learn this stuff, but am unfortunately, learning as I go as well exciting!

pyrocyborg

Well, you're guessing right: having a powered subwoofer (or 7''/8'' woofer) in the towers is like having an external powered sub: the only difference is it's placement is dependant of your speakers placement (well... as it's built-in, you know what I mean :P). However, being a large tower, it still requires a good amount of power to sound best (around 200-250), but it can work well with as less as 100w, as long as you don't drive them at very loud level.

That way, the wires from your receiver powers the 6.5 woofer and the tweeter and leave the rest to the amp built in your towers: these amp must be connected to a nearby electrical socket using the supplied power cord.

Overall, It's like driving a pair of "250W" smaller towers (like a RTi8/RTiA5) from your receiver, but with the full sound of larger passive "500W" towers (like the RTi12/RTiA9). Is it better than running 6 large towers from your receiver? Sure, way better. Is it optimal? I don't know, as a receiver rarelly send more than 70w to each channel, but it will work as good as if you were using small towers, but with a bigger sound.

pyrocyborg

By the way, I'm not the kind of guy who would drive a "mid" efficiency (87-88 dB) pair of towers from a receiver, period... but depending on your use, listening level and room size, it may be adequate. Most of the time, you won't be using even 1/5 of the mentionned power, but having an external amp would give you the necessary headroom "just in case".

As I always say, bigger isn't always better and towers speakers are a good example: It all depends of your listening habbits (high volume, moderate, etc.), listening distance and room size. 1) For smaller rooms, towers might be overwhelming (and so are larger bookshelf). 2) If you sit closer to your speakers (e.g. 8 feet from your speakers), it might be overwhelming too and you'll have to drop the volume, thus losing detail or punch you could achieve if you sat farther away. 3) At high volume, they require tremendeous amount of power that no receiver can give them.

As you can see, it is hypothetical and can be easily corrected : For issue #1, you can go with bookshelf speakers instead of towers. For issue #2, you increase your listening distance, or you buy a pair of good bookshelf. Issue #3: You buy an external amp. So... if you don't mind the car analogy, powering a pair of towers off a receiver is like having a pick-up equipped with a V6. It might do it's job, but it would struggle less for heavy duty with a V8. If you rarely carry anything, V6 is probably the way to go for fuel efficiency and YOUR usage.

As for the timbre matching (matching speakers), it is not as important when you're talking about rear and side speakers... What is really important is the front 3 speakers because they carry the voice, and that's the kind of sound that would "sound" weird if it wasn't matched (e.g. the left speaker would send a clear voice, while the center could send a warmer voice... thus resulting in a "not that coherent frontstage"). For most sound effects, it's not that important.

Velocitydreamer

Just a quick reply as I'm about to turn in for the night lol, what would be a decent amp I could buy, let's say, if i wanted to adequately power a set of 4 mid level rti towers, the 2000p fronts, and (lookin at a cs400i center, good match?)? I'll probably buy the amp used... Im very new to the idea of an external amp, and... Pre outs?

devani

I currrently use LSi15 tower with ext amp (90W at 4ohm) but distance is only 3-4 feet from the speakers....you might have different needs and need bigger amp than me....everyone has different needs and so many variations like pyro mentioned....

pyrocyborg

Yep, as you can see, devani uses a good power amp, but it's nothing beastly if you compare it to 300w+ amps. As he sit closer than most people will, he do not need a lot of power, expecially if his room is smaller than most. In his case, going overkill would only either wastes a lot of money due to unused wattage (why buy a 300w amp if you're never going to use even 50?) or cause him hearing impairment... :cheesygrin:

Also, you need to take into consideration that speakers with 88 dB makes 88 dB at 1 meter with only 1w of power (generally at 2.8 volt input, which is more than what we give... but anyway); while it is in no way a correct way to translate this is real word performance, you could generally say that to fill a small to medium room (12'x16') with a 80 dB sound (which is the loudness of a screaming child), you need 1w, maybe 2. But most manufacturers do not include all their data when advertising their speaker's sensitivity, even when they did push 2w instead of 1 for the measurements.

If I was to use that same example with a 88 dB resulting in a 80dB "in real life" with 1w, you could say that you could obtain those numbers (each time you double the watts, you add 3 dB)

1w = 80 dB (busy street, dial tone, typical stereo level; anything higher for prolonged time can cause hearing impairment)
2w = 83 dB
4w = 86 dB
8w = 89 dB
16w = 92 dB (lawnmower, motorcycle)
32w = 95 dB
64w = 98 dB
and so on...

Even if you say that there is a bigger loss than expected, and that you removed 5 dB from my chart, it would still be easy to get 90dB with less than 32w. Anyone driving their speakers constantly at these level is either inconsiderate, or already deaf.

Anyways, what I want to say is that in most common situations, you won't really use more than 25w for a Bookshelf speaker or let's say 50w for a tower at moderate volume level (less than 85-90 dB) even if you have a large room. I do not have towers, but my LSi7 are medium-low efficiency bookshelf speakers (88dB) with a 4 ohm rating. My NAD326, rated 2x50w, drives them smoothly at 85 dB (medium room) and stays cool, way cooler than my receiver did.... even a 2x20w would give them plenty of power for what I use them for.

So, I would argue that it is better to put money in a quality amp with quality watts, than "quantity" watts... but that's only my point of view, with what I consider important in music: quality over loudness... :cool:

Be responsible, for yourself... and also, continue to ask questions and search the internet for answers. This is only but the first step of a long journey.

Velocitydreamer

how much better is the cs1000p than the cs400i? I have the oportunity to get a cs400i for $150, and cs1000p for $550+s&h... some compare and contrast would be wonderful!! Thanks! Currently using rt2000p fronts, rt1000p sides, looking for either cheap rt55i rears, or cheap rt1000p rears.

Joe08867

For a timbre match the CS1000P is your best bet. The cs400i doesn't hold a candle to it. It just isn't built the same.

Velocitydreamer

Awesome, thanks a ton!