Show us your gear!

[barfle]

Nor running on Saturday, either. Doggone it, rewiring is a pain!

The cable box is ready to record the final F1 race, though. All is not lost, even if I stripped a few screw holes.

 

[mandrix]

Nor running on Saturday, either. Doggone it, rewiring is a pain!

The cable box is ready to record the final F1 race, though. All is not lost, even if I stripped a few screw holes.

I feel your pain. Although my speaker wiring is all in cable raceways, and labeled at the rear of the amps, the rest of the cables are a mass of spaghetti.
My AVR and Receiver, one corner speaker sit on an old Oak dining table, with the big center speaker on a shelf elevated and to the right.
There is a I think 15x50 inch shelf above the table that has 4 disc players and my router with all that mess of cables/power cords hanging down the wall.
There are two big honking pc's in the room, two Oooops underneath the table, and my sub in front.

Yesterday I moved my HDMI switch over to my desk/MLP (it's for the pc's > AVR) and I was low crawling under that table. It ain't pretty but it all works.

After I get my hip replaced I'm going to run a 20A line for the AVR stuff. Which I'll run underneath the house in conduit. Evidently the en suite bathroom is on the same circuit and every time I flip the exhaust fan on the sub "pops" which drives the male dog nutso.

Guess I should look for a more elegant solution for the disc players and jack the cables through the sheetrock. Need to look into how to do that. I would show a pic but like I said it ain't pretty.

 

[alansanchez86]

So an audiophile acquaintance came over yesterday with the purpose and objective of calibrating my Home Theater, as well as having the proper speaker placement.

Boy, the results are significant! We expanded the wides a little bit (as well as opened the angle), same thing for the rears and fronts. As for the surrounds we moved them slightly behind the couch, which I had my doubt of missing some sound, but instead of that, sound was more immersive and now you don't listen to sounds coming from "the speaker" rather more homogeneously.
We let the Auddysey setup do its thing, which I was doubtful as well, but it came out nice, for instance it balanced the back subwoofer vs. the front sw, the back sw is now in lower dbs, since it's closer to the couch, which makes sense.

Here's a photo of how it looks now.

 

[mandrix]

So an audiophile acquaintance came over yesterday with the purpose and objective of calibrating my Home Theater, as well as having the proper speaker placement.

Boy, the results are significant! We expanded the wides a little bit (as well as opened the angle), same thing for the rears and fronts. As for the surrounds we moved them slightly behind the couch, which I had my doubt of missing some sound, but instead of that, sound was more immersive and now you don't listen to sounds coming from "the speaker" rather more homogeneously.
We let the Auddysey setup do its thing, which I was doubtful as well, but it came out nice, for instance it balanced the back subwoofer vs. the front sw, the back sw is now in lower dbs, since it's closer to the couch, which makes sense.

Here's a photo of how it looks now.
View attachment 111696
View attachment 111697
View attachment 111698

Happy for you, man! When you get thing dialed in it makes so much difference. You're fortunate in that you have a large room to work with.

 

[ar surround]

So an audiophile acquaintance came over yesterday with the purpose and objective of calibrating my Home Theater, as well as having the proper speaker placement.

Boy, the results are significant! We expanded the wides a little bit (as well as opened the angle), same thing for the rears and fronts. As for the surrounds we moved them slightly behind the couch, which I had my doubt of missing some sound, but instead of that, sound was more immersive and now you don't listen to sounds coming from "the speaker" rather more homogeneously.
We let the Auddysey setup do its thing, which I was doubtful as well, but it came out nice, for instance it balanced the back subwoofer vs. the front sw, the back sw is now in lower dbs, since it's closer to the couch, which makes sense.

Here's a photo of how it looks now.
View attachment 111696
View attachment 111697
View attachment 111698

Those are exactly the things I did, Alan: increased the angle / spread of the fronts and moved the sides behind the couch like yours. Made a big difference. Congratulations on getting a high return on a few speaker placement tweaks.

 

[barfle]

I feel your pain. Although my speaker wiring is all in cable raceways, and labeled at the rear of the amps, the rest of the cables are a mass of spaghetti.
My AVR and Receiver, one corner speaker sit on an old Oak dining table, with the big center speaker on a shelf elevated and to the right.
There is a I think 15x50 inch shelf above the table that has 4 disc players and my router with all that mess of cables/power cords hanging down the wall.
There are two big honking pc's in the room, two Oooops underneath the table, and my sub in front.

Yesterday I moved my HDMI switch over to my desk/MLP (it's for the pc's > AVR) and I was low crawling under that table. It ain't pretty but it all works.

After I get my hip replaced I'm going to run a 20A line for the AVR stuff. Which I'll run underneath the house in conduit. Evidently the en suite bathroom is on the same circuit and every time I flip the exhaust fan on the sub "pops" which drives the male dog nutso.

Guess I should look for a more elegant solution for the disc players and jack the cables through the sheetrock. Need to look into how to do that. I would show a pic but like I said it ain't pretty.

When we had an earlier remodel, I had the electrician run two 20A lines into the space, so that work is done. But as you can see in my blog, I have quite a bit of MCH gear, as well as quite a bit of older AV equipment. Add to that the new Atmos capability and the Zektor switch, and the number of wires has gone well into the hundreds. They’re all labeled, but poking around the rear of those shelves is tough on this old body.

I fired up the 7706 yesterday, but just to watch the Abi Dhabi grand prix.

Not the least of my issues is that every single piece of equipment has a power plug. And although most of it has been on its appropriate shelf, a lot of it has been sitting idle for years. They aren’t big power consumptors, but they need outlets.

 

[mandrix]

When we had an earlier remodel, I had the electrician run two 20A lines into the space, so that work is done. But as you can see in my blog, I have quite a bit of MCH gear, as well as quite a bit of older AV equipment. Add to that the new Atmos capability and the Zektor switch, and the number of wires has gone well into the hundreds. They’re all labeled, but poking around the rear of those shelves is tough on this old body.

I fired up the 7706 yesterday, but just to watch the Abi Dhabi grand prix.

Not the least of my issues is that every single piece of equipment has a power plug. And although most of it has been on its appropriate shelf, a lot of it has been sitting idle for years. They aren’t big power consumptors, but they need outlets.

I hear you. Power cords, HDMI cables, ethernet cables. Not sure I want to add any more cable raceways but I may at some point. Couldn't look any worse than that mass of wires hanging down from disc players/router I guess.

 

[CINERAMAX]

Tell me more about those speakers.

Seems like I've seen them before, maybe from you, or perhaps some other source.

ELIPSON PLANET L.

 

[mandrix]

I hear you. Power cords, HDMI cables, ethernet cables. Not sure I want to add any more cable raceways but I may at some point. Couldn't look any worse than that mass of wires hanging down from disc players/router I guess.

Actually I spent the day adding a few vertical raceways. You might know I'd miss two cables. Ah well for another day. I'm beat from crawling around stuff, unplugging and reconnecting all the darn cables.

 

[mandrix]

My top speaker amp is an oldie. Only has those spring loaded speaker contacts, no 'nanner plugs. I use those rca > pin converters and wrap the hell out of them in shrink wrap to keep from shorting.
Old amp works good, though, old Sherwood I bought many years ago at a chain store going out of business for a steal.

 

[Albert Dagger]

So an audiophile acquaintance came over yesterday with the purpose and objective of calibrating my Home Theater, as well as having the proper speaker placement.

Boy, the results are significant! We expanded the wides a little bit (as well as opened the angle), same thing for the rears and fronts. As for the surrounds we moved them slightly behind the couch, which I had my doubt of missing some sound, but instead of that, sound was more immersive and now you don't listen to sounds coming from "the speaker" rather more homogeneously.
We let the Auddysey setup do its thing, which I was doubtful as well, but it came out nice, for instance it balanced the back subwoofer vs. the front sw, the back sw is now in lower dbs, since it's closer to the couch, which makes sense.

Here's a photo of how it looks now.

I'm glad you found this process useful.

My experience has been quite similar, and I support 100% room calibration, particularly using Audyssey or Dirac for multi-channel systems (especially to control bass). In my room, using Audyssey MultEQ-X has been transformative. Tight bass, good tonal balance and volume across all speakers. Quite an improvement. I am not a fan of correcting the frequency response beyond the Schroeder frequency (250/300Hz), but MultEQ-X allowed me to put a curtain on the correction exactly at that frequency, and add manual parametric EQ to fix minor tonal balance issues for different speakers (for example, my height speakers required a little bump in the treble compared to the front speakers).

If you are inclined to experimentation, buying a UMIK microphone and using REW to measure the results of your calibration is quite a nice thing to add to your hobby. While I trust my ears to an extent, I trust numbers more, or at least they can give me an indication of some issues I might need to solve. Learning REW is quite easy with video tutorials and a UMIK mic is a minor investment compared to the cost of audio gear. A nice way to spend some time and get to know your system (but also to develop some confidence in how it can be tweaked, in my view).

 

[barfle]

Got a text yesterday that my new turntable is in. To review, I want it to play CD4s, and my demodulator had never been fired up by me. It was dead silent when we tried to see if one of their higher end cartridges would trigger the demod, and I found a blown fuse, which I replaced with a slow-blo and it seems to at least stay on. But it’s pretty moisy, so I intend to recap the little booger and replace the RCA connectors on the back with gold-plated ones.

Of course, I’m still putting my rack back together from my latest purchase, Marantz 7706 atmos pre-pro, and adding in a Zektor switch so my analog quad decoders can be part of the overall system.

I’ve been griping about how many wires I have in the system. I took out an old stereo amp that I’d been using for the back channels and added an Emotiva BasX 6-channel amp. Six inputs, six outputs, a power cord and a 12V trigger makes 14 wires just for that device. And I can’t put the inputs and outputs in the same bundle, of course.

The shelf with the vinyl decoders has a preamp, CD4 demod, SM3, dbx decoder, noise reduction box, and a Zektor switch. They all need power, and a bunch of them have wall-warts, which, of course, take up two spots on the outlet strip. Getting a new outlet strip from Jeff’s place sometime today to address that little issue.

This is turning into a bigger project. Nothing new there, alas.

 

[mandrix]

Got a text yesterday that my new turntable is in. To review, I want it to play CD4s, and my demodulator had never been fired up by me. It was dead silent when we tried to see if one of their higher end cartridges would trigger the demod, and I found a blown fuse, which I replaced with a slow-blo and it seems to at least stay on. But it’s pretty moisy, so I intend to recap the little booger and replace the RCA connectors on the back with gold-plated ones.

Of course, I’m still putting my rack back together from my latest purchase, Marantz 7706 atmos pre-pro, and adding in a Zektor switch so my analog quad decoders can be part of the overall system.

I’ve been griping about how many wires I have in the system. I took out an old stereo amp that I’d been using for the back channels and added an Emotiva BasX 6-channel amp. Six inputs, six outputs, a power cord and a 12V trigger makes 14 wires just for that device. And I can’t put the inputs and outputs in the same bundle, of course.

The shelf with the vinyl decoders has a preamp, CD4 demod, SM3, dbx decoder, noise reduction box, and a Zektor switch. They all need power, and a bunch of them have wall-warts, which, of course, take up two spots on the outlet strip. Getting a new outlet strip from Jeff’s place sometime today to address that little issue.

This is turning into a bigger project. Nothing new there, alas.

Yeah but you're rolling now! Pretty soon it will all seem worth it.

 

[barfle]

Yeah but you're rolling now! Pretty soon it will all seem worth it.

Someday. I just made a list of projects, and I won't be done by Christmas, even the Christmas presents I want to make.

 

[mandrix]

Yeah we all have those things we have to do, for sure. Since my hip has decided to slowly kill me I've been working more on the audio room of late. I try to never go a whole day without music, even if I have to be up 'til late-thirty reconnecting things.
But I don't have the impressive array of equipment you have. I've scaled it back to 1 AVR, 1 Amp, 4 disc players, HDMI and KVR switches. All the rest is either boxed up or sitting in the (now storage) audio cabinet in the living room, or tucked away here and yon.
Well all the regular CD's are boxed up. all the surround is in multiple racks in another room.

 

[barfle]

A bum hip can certainly slow you down. I have a little arthritis in my neck, which makes some of those positions I have to get into a bit uncomfortable, but at this point, it’s just slowing me down, not stopping.

I’ll probably just get the Zektor switch wired up, then set up the new pre-pro trying to match whatever settings I had on the old one (I did write them down. Now where is that paper?) and voicing it out. I have an Atmos setup Blu-ray, and that might get used by Christmas.

I found a service manual for the 400B on line, and made a list of the electrolytic caps to order. I think there’s about 60 of them. I need to see what I’ve already got in the shop, but I’m not very optimistic.

 

[mandrix]

A bum hip can certainly slow you down. I have a little arthritis in my neck, which makes some of those positions I have to get into a bit uncomfortable, but at this point, it’s just slowing me down, not stopping.

I’ll probably just get the Zektor switch wired up, then set up the new pre-pro trying to match whatever settings I had on the old one (I did write them down. Now where is that paper?) and voicing it out. I have an Atmos setup Blu-ray, and that might get used by Christmas.

I found a service manual for the 400B on line, and made a list of the electrolytic caps to order. I think there’s about 60 of them. I need to see what I’ve already got in the shop, but I’m not very optimistic.

I see your new 7706 uses Audyssey Multi EQ for calibration. Do they supply a "puck" mic or do you need to buy a mic? If compatible with the AVR's calibration system I highly recommend the UMIK-1 mic and either a mic stand or a camera stand (what I use, with an adapter for the mic). The UMIK-1 comes with a calibration table in a text file that some calibration software can read. This is a very reasonably priced omni directional mic.

 

[barfle]

I see your new 7706 uses Audyssey Multi EQ for calibration. Do they supply a "puck" mic or do you need to buy a mic? If compatible with the AVR's calibration system I highly recommend the UMIK-1 mic and either a mic stand or a camera stand (what I use, with an adapter for the mic). The UMIK-1 comes with a calibration table in a text file that some calibration software can read. This is a very reasonably priced omni directional mic.

They provide a mic. It looks like the same one that came with my 7701. They also provide a cardboard fold-it-up stand for it so you can place it on a seat and elevate it to head height. I have a couple of camera tripods that the mic fits on - it’s one of those zoomba thingies with legs that bend all over the place, letting you hook it on the back of the chair.

A fancier calibration mic is a possibility, but you know I’ll be busy figuring all the rest of it out .

 

[mandrix]

They provide a mic. It looks like the same one that came with my 7701. They also provide a cardboard fold-it-up stand for it so you can place it on a seat and elevate it to head height. I have a couple of camera tripods that the mic fits on - it’s one of those zoomba thingies with legs that bend all over the place, letting you hook it on the back of the chair.

A fancier calibration mic is a possibility, but you know I’ll be busy figuring all the rest of it out .

cool. I do a 9 to 13 point mic placement with Dirac Live. But I don't move the mic very far from the MLP because I have a tightly focused listening position: no couch or anything just my desk chair really.
The first one I always take as close to where my head will be because that's the one that's going to set the speaker delays. Actually even those puck mics do a pretty good job with the speaker distance settings.
Onkyo has phone apps to do setup but I use the pc version of Dirac Live (the Onkyo came with Dirac license built in).
Once all the sweep tones are captured from all speakers at all mic positions, the app displays the actual data recorded for each speaker and the compensations made, which can be altered in chosen areas by use of "curtains" to raise or lower Dirac compensations.

Of course there are those that think calibrating this way is a waste of time, which I fail to understand. I only know the Dirac calibrations did a really great job compensating for my room.

 

[barfle]

cool. I do a 9 to 13 point mic placement with Dirac Live. But I don't move the mic very far from the MLP because I have a tightly focused listening position: no couch or anything just my desk chair really.
The first one I always take as close to where my head will be because that's the one that's going to set the speaker delays. Actually even those puck mics do a pretty good job with the speaker distance settings.
Onkyo has phone apps to do setup but I use the pc version of Dirac Live (the Onkyo came with Dirac license built in).
Once all the sweep tones are captured from all speakers at all mic positions, the app displays the actual data recorded for each speaker and the compensations made, which can be altered in chosen areas by use of "curtains" to raise or lower Dirac compensations.

Of course there are those that think calibrating this way is a waste of time, which I fail to understand. I only know the Dirac calibrations did a really great job compensating for my room.

So far, I’ve only used the system to watch the AbuDabi Formula 1 race off my DVR. I haven’t set up diddy yet, still dealing with wiring and all the spousal duty projects (in spite of her despair over the theater being a work space at the moment). Sound was not impressive, but again, zero setup, just passsing signals.

The room has four seats, with the MLP in the left front, so I do move the mic around when I’m running the calibration. Back right is way too close to the back right speaker, but back left sounds pretty good in 5.1 - in fact that’s where I sit when I’m listening to surround sound alone. The front seats have high backs - something I hadn’t considered when I bought them 15 years ago.