Best way to run an SRT Reference System with 7 channels?

MRaz

Hi everyone. New to the forum! I submitted the inquiry below to Polk support but thought I would also post it here to see if there is any additional input/suggestions from actual end-users. Hope that's okay. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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Hello,

I am hoping that you can help answer some questions I have regarding my SRT reference system. I purchased it new back in 1997 and have been using it ever since in a 5.2 HT environment. I am now rebuilding my HT and would like to move to a 7 channel system. My questions are as follows...

1. Since the SRT was designed as a 5 channel system, with dedicated front and rear control centers, can I even use it in a 7 channel system since the sides would not have a control center? Of course, I can just add 2 side speakers, but without the SDA processing from the control center, wouldn?t that throw off the soundstage and defeat the entire purpose?

2. If the above is true and I am limited to using it only in a 5 channel configuration, my thought was to just bypass the control centers and forget about the SDA processing. I would just wire directly from my amps to the speakers stereo array. If I do this, can I also use the SDA array as another stereo array or to ?enhance? the main stereo array? In other words, is all the SDA processing taking place in the control centers or is there something different/special about the drivers in the SDA array that would make them only be useful in that role?

3. I realize that if I choose to power the SDA array directly as a stereo array, I would be driving each main speaker as 4ohm rather than 8ohm but would there be anything inherently ?bad? about doing this? Since the SDA array doesn?t have a tweeter, would that also throw off the soundstage if I tried using it as a stereo array? I know that I can just turn OFF the SDA processing, add 2 sides and run 7 channels that way but that would essentially be ?throwing away? 14 drivers (4 on each L/R and 3 on each surround) and diminishing the system?s full potential.

Thanks for your assistance. I have greatly enjoyed this system over the years and would love to find a way to continue running it in a 7 channel environment. I welcome your response and any additional input/suggestions you may have.

dpowell

Hi and welcome to the forum! That is a fantastic set of speakers you have there and very rare! As a former SRT owner, my advice to you would be to continue using them in the same configuration you have before and not bypass the control centers. If you want to go to a 7.1 surround setup which is what I did with mine when I had them, you can add a pair of FX1000's to use as side surrounds if your room configuration permits and use the SDA surround speakers in the back.

I would not eliminate the control center and use the dimensional arrays as additional main stereo drivers. Since they were designed specifically to eliminate the interaural crosstalk and don't have a tweeter, you might find that they don't sound right or would over power the single tweeter.

MRaz

Thanks dpowell, I appreciate your feedback! I understand what you are recommending and why. My reluctance to use the system as you advise is because by adding the sides, I would need to turn off the SDA at the control center (at least this is my understanding). Since most of my listening will probably be 7.1 HT, I feel that I would be wasting all those drivers in the dimensional arrays. My immediate thoughts are to sell it to someone who would make better us of it as a stereo/5.1 system and purchase something else to use as my 7.1.

When you added your sides, did you run the rest of the system with SDA on? Did the sides not throw off the whole effect?

dpowell

M, there should be no reason to have to turn off SDA for any configuration. If you add a pair of FX1000's or similar to the rear sides, you can still use the SDA surrounds in the back. You would also have the main SRT speakers doing L/R in the front with SDA so I don't see where you have to kill the use of SDA either in the front or back. Is this due to amp channel limiations or something else? You are simply adding the rear side speakers which would not be a SDA situation. In my case, I did not have the rear SDA surrounds and I just used regular rear speakers but the fact that I was running 7.1 had not bearing on whether I used the SDA functionality in the front.

MRaz

Understood. I think my confusion, and pardon my ignorance here, stems from the fact that I thought that any side speakers added to the system would HAVE to utilize SDA to blend in with the front and back soundstage. If the front and back SDA is set (either to normal or wide), then the sides would collapse that stage since it was not part of the same processing without being connected to a control center. If you are certain that sides DON'T require any SDA processing when used with the 5.1 system to make it a 7.1, then that is great news and I will definitely keep the system and run it that way. I just wasn't sure and have not ordered sides yet so I couldn't test it out. Thanks for the info!

dpowell

As long as you have a 7.1 receiver, all channels are discrete and won't interfere with each other. If you are using a 5.1 channel amp, I can understand your concern. If you need a 7.1 channel amp, consider a Pioneer Elite with the MCACC. It's amazing how much better movies sound once room correction has been completed by the MCACC!

MRaz

Hmm... just got a response from Polk support and they are telling me that it was NOT designed for use with any other speakers and that I will run into phasing and cancellation issues if I add ANY sides. They also advise against bypassing the control centers. I'm really confused know as to how to proceed. Thinking that selling them may be the way to go. I will call Polk tomorrow and see if I can speak with a tech who is familiar with the SRT and see if I can get more info.

ESavinon

The SRT system is modular. It can accomodate as many discrete channels as necessary. If you're going to add rear surround speakers they have to be either the Fx1000 series, the LS/FX series or the SRT/SDA surrounds. The SDA feature enhances the stereo effect just like any SDA series speakers do.It is only used for the Left/Right channels unless you have a pair of SDA/SRT surrounds or other main satellite SRT with it's controller.

MRaz

Thanks Esavinon. This is where I'm getting conflicting info. The system I currently have has the 2 SRT mains, center and 2 SRT(?) surrounds (the upgraded ones that look similar to the front satellites). So I already have the rear surrounds and 2 controllers (one for the fronts and one for the rear surrounds). What I'm trying to add are side surrounds for a 7.1 setup and this is where Polk support is telling me it won't be possible. Even if I were to add a 3rd controller (good luck me finding one!) it wouldn't work as the SDA effect was not made to account for side speakers. Hope I'm making sense

My only option as I see it is to bypass the control centers, add 2 sides (probably whatever the best side speakers Polk currently sells), and just hook them all up directly to my amps. I know I lose the SDA this way and essentially waste all 14 SDA drivers, but at least it would work and I would have a decent 7.1 system. I don't know what other 7.1 system I could get for the sell price of the SRT that could compare so I would prefer to keep it.

And suggestions you may have on how I can turn my SRT into a 7.1 system, I would appreciate the feedback and I'm all ears!

bluecomet

I just bought the same setup you have. I thought of making a 7.1 system also. My question is I had 2 SRT centers before I bought this system. I was thinking about using the 2 extra centers as the side speakers in the system. Does anyone know if I would have any issues with this setup.

drumminman

If I were you guys I'd borrow or buy the speakers I planned to use and try it. How else will you really know how well or poorly a 7.1 with the SRT works?

ESavinon

MRaz wrote: »

Thanks Esavinon. This is where I'm getting conflicting info. The system I currently have has the 2 SRT mains, center and 2 SRT(?) surrounds (the upgraded ones that look similar to the front satellites). So I already have the rear surrounds and 2 controllers (one for the fronts and one for the rear surrounds). What I'm trying to add are side surrounds for a 7.1 setup and this is where Polk support is telling me it won't be possible. Even if I were to add a 3rd controller (good luck me finding one!) it wouldn't work as the SDA effect was not made to account for side speakers. Hope I'm making sense

My only option as I see it is to bypass the control centers, add 2 sides (probably whatever the best side speakers Polk currently sells), and just hook them all up directly to my amps. I know I lose the SDA this way and essentially waste all 14 SDA drivers, but at least it would work and I would have a decent 7.1 system. I don't know what other 7.1 system I could get for the sell price of the SRT that could compare so I would prefer to keep it.

And suggestions you may have on how I can turn my SRT into a 7.1 system, I would appreciate the feedback and I'm all ears!

Just add 2 ls/fx or fx 1000 to the system as surround back left/right. You only need the controllers for the SRT mains and the SDA/SRT surrounds. The SDA effect will not be affected by the number of surround speakers used.

ESavinon

bluecomet wrote: »

I just bought the same setup you have. I thought of making a 7.1 system also. My question is I had 2 SRT centers before I bought this system. I was thinking about using the 2 extra centers as the side speakers in the system. Does anyone know if I would have any issues with this setup.

You can use the center speakers as side speakers. The center SRT speaker is essentially the main satellite minus sda effects drivers.

bluecomet

That's good to know. Thanks. I have F/X 1000's also I may try them as surrounds and use two SRT centers in a over/under screen placement like you have in your setup. Do you hear much of a difference with the two centers running over and under compared to one.

ESavinon

bluecomet wrote: »

That's good to know. Thanks. I have F/X 1000's also I may try them as surrounds and use two SRT centers in a over/under screen placement like you have in your setup. Do you hear much of a difference with the two centers running over and under compared to one.

That's a resounding YES!

ESavinon

MRaz wrote: »

Thanks Esavinon. This is where I'm getting conflicting info. The system I currently have has the 2 SRT mains, center and 2 SRT(?) surrounds (the upgraded ones that look similar to the front satellites). So I already have the rear surrounds and 2 controllers (one for the fronts and one for the rear surrounds). What I'm trying to add are side surrounds for a 7.1 setup and this is where Polk support is telling me it won't be possible. Even if I were to add a 3rd controller (good luck me finding one!) it wouldn't work as the SDA effect was not made to account for side speakers. Hope I'm making sense

My only option as I see it is to bypass the control centers, add 2 sides (probably whatever the best side speakers Polk currently sells), and just hook them all up directly to my amps. I know I lose the SDA this way and essentially waste all 14 SDA drivers, but at least it would work and I would have a decent 7.1 system. I don't know what other 7.1 system I could get for the sell price of the SRT that could compare so I would prefer to keep it.

And suggestions you may have on how I can turn my SRT into a 7.1 system, I would appreciate the feedback and I'm all ears!

Unless you have a humongous room, a 5.2 comprising of the SRT mains, 2 centers and 2 SDA/SRT surrounds is more than enough for any state of the art surround sound system. I would focus on providing adequate amplification to your speakers (250 wpc +).

schwarcw

Ed has the most SRT experience of anyone here. His advice is always spot on. The "SRT King" of Club Polk!

BTW, I have heard Ed's system and it is something to behold. I brought burnt offerings and sacrificed young nymphettes at the SRT altar.

dpowell

Bottom line to both of you is you CAN use the SRT's with a 7.1 system. Side rear speakers are non SDA and won't interfere with the SDA imaging. This is not primarily a stereo music playback situation. It is 7.1 discrete channels of HT. Do what Ed said, get good amplification. Parasound Halo A51 or Sunfire Cinema Grande are both good sounding amps with plenty of clean power and will tame those tweeters. Get a good AVR. Pioneer Elite for example. Run room correction once you have your speakers placed. Get FX1000's, you won't be sorry. You can use the centers as sides but FX1000's will look better and do a better job diffusing the surround effects.

ESavinon

dpowell wrote: »

Bottom line to both of you is you CAN use the SRT's with a 7.1 system. Side rear speakers are non SDA and won't interfere with the SDA imaging. This is not primarily a stereo music playback situation. It is 7.1 discrete channels of HT. Do what Ed said, get good amplification. Parasound Halo A51 or Sunfire Cinema Grande are both good sounding amps with plenty of clean power and will tame those tweeters. Get a good AVR. Pioneer Elite for example. Run room correction once you have your speakers placed. Get FX1000's, you won't be sorry. You can use the centers as sides but FX1000's will look better and do a better job diffusing the surround effects.

In mraz's case, He's using SDA/SRT surrounds. I would place those on the sides since the rear 2 channels are mono and the sides are discrete stereo channels. If he uses SDA speakers in mono channels, He'll lose the SDA effect. The SDA/SRT speakers are dipole SDA speakers.

MRaz

I can't thank everyone enough! Knowing that the sides will not interfere with the SDA (front and rear) is exactly the answer I was hoping for. I can now keep the system with confidence. I had been running it with a Pioneer Elite SC-07 but just ordered a pair of Emotiva XPA-1 mono-blocks for the fronts and an XPA-5 for center and surrounds. I will continue to use the SC-07 as my pre/pro as it has been great so far. Just felt the power was a little underwhelming for the SRT's. My room size is about 15x20x8 so I think everything should work out nicely.

I think I'm all set now...thanks again everyone for all your feedback, it was greatly appreciated!!

bluecomet

ESavinon wrote: »

In mraz's case, He's using SDA/SRT surrounds. I would place those on the sides since the rear 2 channels are mono and the sides are discrete stereo channels. If he uses SDA speakers in mono channels, He'll lose the SDA effect. The SDA/SRT speakers are dipole SDA speakers.

Then in my case, since I also have the SDA/SRT surrounds, I would be better off using the SRT surrounds for the side effects and using the extra SRT centers as rear speakers since they do not use the SDA effect.

ESavinon

Yes but the centers won't look good used as rear surrounds. You're better off using LS/FX for rears or a pair of FX1000. The LS/FX and FX1000 are dipole/bipole switchable and are designed to be placed on the wall.

bluecomet

Looks like I have a couple of options. Thanks.