Home System (and what to do)

pharoah14

I've read through threads and don't see what I'm really looking for in an answer. First post, so be gentle.

I recently picked up a home theatre system which includes:

Harman Kardon AVR 254
2x - TSi 400
2x - TSi 100
1x - CS10
1x - PSW110

(Best Buy stuff if you couldn't tell)

It sounded decent, but midrange sound just wasn't there. I notice a dramatic increase in lower frequency sound in my car and hoped to achieve this in my home so I added another PSW110 via RCA y splitter. That didn't seem to really do anything. Don't get me wrong, it shakes your eyeballs in your head when watching a movie and an explosion goes off, but I listen to music 80% of the time with the system.

When listening to music I have it set to 5 channel stereo, and last night noticed a distinct smell and smoke pouring out of the back of one of the TSi 100's. My question becomes this (it's a two parter):

A: Do I just buy two TSi 500's for the front and use the TSi 400's for the rear surrounds (I have no idea if this would destroy movie sound and help with music).

or B: Replace the TSi 100 with the same and perhaps pick up two PSW125's and set the crossover to < 70 and then set the two PSW110's to the max of 160hz and just turn down the gain?

If these ideas suck, I'm all ears to a solution that could be accomplished for a max of $1500 on top of the system already in place.

Remember, forum (and sound) noob so any advice would be much appreciated.

messiah

Welcome to the forum. The first thing I would suggest is using the built in room EQ to set up your speakers on your HK receiver. Second, you dont need two sub-par subs (no pun intended), just one good one. The psw 110,125 are not good ones. The idea of getting a bigger sub and turning the crossover all the way up to 160 is NOT a good idea. It will sound like crap. Boomy, and you will lose all kinds of detail. If your rears are smoking, there is a problem, and they need to be returned. Grab the 200's if you can, you will be happier. The trick is finding the correct crossover point on your fronts, and then not over lapping on your sub. If this doesn't make sense, just ask more questions and we will be happy to help.

pharoah14

When I set the system up, I did use the microphone provided. The only adjustments that I've made to it are changing the front and surround speakers. I set the fronts from medium to 100hz (400's) and changed the surrounds (100's) from medium to 120hz. It actually really cleaned the sound up at high volumes. As I said though, it seems to be really lacking in some of the lower frequencies. Are the TSi 500's that much of an upgrade over the 400's that I could change the crossover setting to allow lower frequencies (80hz) through and still get crisp sound?

With the subwoofer idea being bad, does the other thought of putting the 400's in the back as surrounds and putting the 500's in the front make any sense?

Once again thanks for the feedback and help.

Matt34

Do you have an SPL meter, I have a feeling your driving these speakers too hard and getting a lot of compression. First thing you need to do is level match all your speakers using the SPL meter.

Get that done and tell us how loud your listening to these at.

jimmydep

Try setting the front speakers to large and the rears to small, sub crossover at 80hz and see if that makes a diference. As far as the smoke pouring out of the speaker there is a problem.

If you like high volume the AVR 254 with 50wpc may not have enough clean power for the speakers to reach thier full potential, and may actually have been the cause of the TSI-100 smoking.

The good thing is your AVR has pre-outs so you could add a seperate power amp.
I also agree 1 good sub is better than 2 mediocre subs.......

Welcome to Club POlk and get ready to spend your money.

Jimmy

pharoah14

I just went out and bought the sound level meter that radio shack offers. I'm not sure what tests I need to post but measuring 3ft away from all the speakers I get.

front right (TSi400) - 108
front left (TSi400) - 108
center (cs10) - 103
surround left (TSi100) - 106
surround right (TSi100) - 102
sub back right (PSW110) - 106
sub back left (PSW110) - 106

The little meter bar at the bottom was showing +3-4 on all speakers. This was with the receiver set at 0 (+10 being the max which I run at times). I normally watch movies in the -10 range and they sound beautiful.

I've tried playing with the crossovers quite a bit, but I'll give the large option on the fronts a try. I haven't set anything to large because my understanding was that it was mainly for fully integrated speakers (woofer, tweet in same cabinet).

I'll keep **** around with some of the ideas here. I was also told that even though the HK has a lower power rating than most receivers, it's because it does offer considerably better sound than most with much higher ratings.

concealer404

I think you may actually need a different power setup to drive these cleanly.... unless i'm mistaken, that's pretty loud.

bobman1235

Yeah, if you're willing to spend 1500 bucks, get out there and buy yourself a real amp. The Harman puts out decent power, but nothing like what you'd get from a nice 5 channel amplifier. You'd be amazed at what a difference you'll hear, and you don't need to spend anything near 1500 for it.

pharoah14

Fair enough. Would hooking an amp up only entail buying some RCA's (I've recently gotten into monoprice.com) and using the pre-outs on the back of the HK receiver? I've always just had a receiver, never dealt with pre-amp/amp before.

If it's really just that easy, can you also point me to a spot where I can check pricing / comparisons. We used to have a great shop around here (Classic Stereo) that could help me, but they are out of business.

Thanks again.

bobman1235

Yeah, amps are amazingly simple to hook up. Single RCA per channel, and the speaker wire, instead of going from your receiver, goes from the amp.

As for a good comparison site, I can't help, I just read the stuff around here and made a decision based off of that. Unfortuantely most big box consumer places don't cater to people who buy separate amps so it's not as mainstream a market.

Paden501

You said that there's plenty of bass when watching a movie but it's just not there during music right?

If so, make sure that your HT reciever is set to use the sub during stereo playback. I know that my Onkyo does not send signal to the sub in 'stereo' by default. You may be having the same problem.

Of course, using an external amp will power your stereo speakers much more efficiently and will probably tighten up the bass a lot (at least it did for me). HT recievers tend to be pretty sloppy and inefficient as amplifiers.