The most awesome set of custom jbl speakers

[Ferrari]

Gene asked in the first post " I would like to know, which JBL fan built the bigest - butt kickng custom 2 channel stereo speaker system? "


I am impressed that the High End systems are returning to 2 Channels.

Surround sound is great for Movie Theaters and even for THX Home Theaters, but the Grooves on my Albums only have two sides (Right and Left), and my cassettes only use two final tracks (right and left).

Well, The article on Daniel's system takes the wind out of my sails. In Fact all of the systems everyone has shown on here are awesome. The only advantage my system has is the fact that it is Poly Amped (5 different 500 watt amps) all fed by and networked through my computers Itunes Program for a total house experience.

Although each system is dedicated to a different room, they are all playing the same song at the same time through a full array of speaker systems as if they were all receiving their signals from a Tuner/receiver.

Unfortunately the most realistic sounds are reproduced when I play 33 1/3 Albums or Cassette Tapes through my Onkyo stack, but Digital Media still has its moments.

Only one of my systems is Two Channel, the other four systems want to surround me with sound. The Onkyo is by far my best sounding system and I showcase it in my living room.

My Kitchen is wide open and the very best acoustics are enjoyed while listening to the clarity of a piano or the Drums of Santana while cooking.

Individually each system lacks the Awesome Power and refinement of Daniels System.

I can not wait to see what other members will bring to the table on this one. The JBL/Altec Lancing systems that have been available for the last 60 years are enough to blow your mind. Paragons and Model 19's right out of the box trump my systems hands down.

Home Theaters are now being built first and the houses are designed around them. I am excited about your request and anxiously await the next responses to this post.

If I ever get the time I will post pictures, but most of my stuff is bland (Onkyo, Sony, Pioneer, Kenwood and nothing with tubes anymore.)

Ferrari
In the Panhandle of Florida

[Donald]

Ferrari,

Are all the amps in one place and you run speaker wire to the rooms?

Do the rooms have the amps and you distribute the signal?

It sounds like you have source material on a PC and use Ethernet to distribute it. How does it get back to analog in each room?

By my avatar you see I have many pairs of speakers. And I have many amps. I have not found an economical way to get a single analog source to amps in multiple rooms.

[hjames]

I'm an iTunes fan as well - I currently load songs at 320kbps - have around 12000 songs in the system - but I can only play in my office or feed remotely to my stereo system with the biamped homebrew 4343 clones.
I really need a computer in the stereo rack to allow me to pick through iTunes better from the media room, but that will come later.

Media room is configured so when I play music its 2 channel, but when I play a movie the other channels kick in automatically to give the surround effect.

Gene asked in the first post " I would like to know, which JBL fan built the bigest - butt kickng custom 2 channel stereo speaker system? "


I am impressed that the High End systems are returning to 2 Channels.

Surround sound is great for Movie Theaters and even for THX Home Theaters, but the Grooves on my Albums only have two sides (Right and Left), and my cassettes only use two final tracks (right and left).

Well, The article on Daniel's system takes the wind out of my sails. In Fact all of the systems everyone has shown on here are awesome. The only advantage my system has is the fact that it is Poly Amped (5 different 500 watt amps) all fed by and networked through my computers Itunes Program for a total house experience.

Although each system is dedicated to a different room, they are all playing the same song at the same time through a full array of speaker systems as if they were all receiving their signals from a Tuner/receiver.

Unfortunately the most realistic sounds are reproduced when I play 33 1/3 Albums or Cassette Tapes through my Onkyo stack, but Digital Media still has its moments.

Only one of my systems is Two Channel, the other four systems want to surround me with sound. The Onkyo is by far my best sounding system and I showcase it in my living room.

My Kitchen is wide open and the very best acoustics are enjoyed while listening to the clarity of a piano or the Drums of Santana while cooking.

Individually each system lacks the Awesome Power and refinement of Daniels System.

I can not wait to see what other members will bring to the table on this one. The JBL/Altec Lancing systems that have been available for the last 60 years are enough to blow your mind. Paragons and Model 19's right out of the box trump my systems hands down.

Home Theaters are now being built first and the houses are designed around them. I am excited about your request and anxiously await the next responses to this post.

If I ever get the time I will post pictures, but most of my stuff is bland (Onkyo, Sony, Pioneer, Kenwood and nothing with tubes anymore.)

Ferrari
In the Panhandle of Florida

[Hoerninger]

Media room is configured so when I play music its 2 channel, but when I play a movie the other channels kick in automatically to give the surround effect.

Heather,

is this done by an amplifier available for everyone or do you have a custum solution?

Best regards
Peter

[hjames]

Heather,

is this done by an amplifier available for everyone or do you have a custum solution?

Best regards
Peter

Its the Harmon Kardon AVR-335 receiver I bought from Harmon direct (ebay) ... $350 US refurbed. I wasn't sure if it would do what I wanted when I bought it, so I got a cheaper model pretty much to try it out. It has 7 channels at 55w/ch - but I just use it in 5.1 channel mode. (the Sub bass feeds an external amp/ speaker)

Each channel has a preamp out jack on the rear - all controlled by the master volume (and by a remote control!).
So - I feed left front and right front to my JBL 552 active crossover, then it feeds "low" out to the Citation 22 (220w/ch) for the front woofers, and "high" out to a Crown d-75 that feeds a passive crossover for the midBass, LE-85s and the 2405s.

its smart and remembers settings, so I can set the mode for each input (Stereo, DTS, etc) and when you select that source it plays that way. When I set it to play Cds, or Airtunes from my Mac, or records (I needed a preamp for records), I clicked a button on the remote to force it to "stereo", and after that it remembers to play CDs etc on just the front two channels. When I load a DVD, or HDTV, it plays that in 5.1 mode - and decodes two modes or Dolby, or DTS as needed.

Works very well for sound, plus, I can mute everything quickly when the phone rings!

[JBL 4645]

Ferrari

Have you listened to the (non-sync) mode when played in a THX sound system cinema the sound of the stereo spread is cool on those JBL cinema PA types like 4675-A I haven’t heard the new 5000 series as of yet.

As for stereo playback on my JBL control 5 I do my best to get the most wide spread sound as possible. There is a slight gab in the middle when sitting close and the closer I move, err that damn fly! The close I move in the hole gets bigger!

But I have additional JBL control 5 placed at the left centre and right centre there not hooked up as of yet but I have a few tricks up my sleeve oh I also have JBL control 5 for the centre so there’s five spaced over the front.

Crazy hay!

[Ferrari]

By my avatar you see I have many pairs of speakers. And I have many amps. I have not found an economical way to get a single analog source to amps in multiple rooms.

Economy.. Hmm Cheap would be running RCA pigtails from each out put of your players (CD for instance) to the inputs of two separate amps. I have done this before and it can become combersome when you are trying to hook up RCA pigtails to a dual tape player deck, a 50 disk CD player, a Tuner, a record player and mix them with all the connections and wires for two complete surround sound systems..

Co-Ax may be a simple solution.

Try looking at http://coaxsys.com/

If you want to spend some money this is another way of going

Sonos

Whole house music system

Music playing simultaneously in every room of your house is a luxurious experience, and decidedly different from a song playing in a single room. Music in a room is a dim, blurry sonic echo if you're not in front of the speakers. But music everywhere is an environment that envelopes you as you go about your day. Of course to get this experience, you could run speaker wire to a second room and connect up a second set of speakers, but that's not the same enveloping sonic goodness of a whole house system.
Used to be whole-house music systems were only for the very rich. You needed a rack of amplifiers (two channels for every room), a pre-amp, switcher, control unit, and then in-room controllers either hand-held or built into the walls, plus cabling from the speakers in each room homerunned back to the equipment, which probably needed its own closet because there was so much of it, it was so loud, and so hot. Crestron, Niles and others have made good money catering to this rarefied market. But the systems are pretty bespoke (there is no standard OS, the equipment is not interchangeable, you need an installer to set them up, you had to destroy walls to run cables, etc.), they were inherently less reliable than mass produced equipment, and they were, as I said, so expensive (as in $20-50K and up for equipment alone, plus design and installer time in addition) that only the wealthy could afford them. Oh, and none of them can connect to the consumer music server standard that we all use and love -- iTunes. That's right, they all use proprietary or non-Apple servers.
That was then. But now if you want a whole house music system, you have a much lower cost, more reliable, and more functional alternative: Sonos. It isn't cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than the previous bespoke solutions. It's dead easy to install -- literally anyone can do it. It connects seamlessly to the iTunes music library, as well as giving you access to internet radio stations. And it's just completely thought out. Sonos is one of the two best consumer electronic products ever created, the other being the Garmin Nuvi.

Sonos comes in two flavors: with and without amplifiers. Either can connect via ethernet or wirelessly to your computer with its iTunes library (you can also use other libraries if you want). The Sonos unamplified units -- smaller than an Apple Mini -- mate with amplifiers (or receivers) you probably already have that are connected to speakers. The Sonos amplified units (think the size of a big old family bible) drive speakers where you don't already have amps. Both type of units talk to each other via a mesh network. You can lash up to 32 of the beasts together if you're so inclined. The sound across the entire network is in perfect sync. (Airport Express, in contrast, has a limit of, I believe three units, because it can't handle the data in way that can keep the units delivering the sound simultaneously without lags). And the fidelity is exemplary -- I rip all my music to Appleloss, and every room is playing music as if the CD is present, not ripped to a server at the other end of the house.
How easy is it to set up? You can install the software and set up half-a-dozen of these units in an hour. Once installed, the systems are rock solid. And if you ever have problems, online and telephone support is conscientious, even exemplary. You get the feeling they really want you to have your system working right, and for you to be happy.
You can control the whole system from your computer, selecting music and playing it in one, all, or a combination of rooms, at different volumes for each room. For instance, you can play different music in each room; or you can play music from your iTunes library in one room, or an internet radio station in another, etc. A better way to control the Sonos system is with the Sonos wireless handheld controller, which has a scroll wheel like the iPod and a color LCD screen which provides all the functionality of the Sonos computer software. You don't need one per room -- per floor is more like it.

Sonos is a lot cheaper than the old bespoke whole house system. Two unamplified players with one handheld controller will run you $1000. You still need an amp and speakers for each player. Or you can buy two amplified players (and the amps are decent 50W units) and one controller for $1200. Each extra controller will run $400, each unamplified player $350, and each amplified player $500. And Sonos has a deal with Rhapsody where you can subscribe to their million song library for $10 a month (sound quality is only mediocre MP3, but being able to sample virtually all current releases for ten bucks a month is pretty compelling).
Sonos: Not cheap, but an entirely more affordable luxury than whole house music systems used to be.

[Donald]

Thanks for the info.

I have looked at SONOS. Way too expensive. My source is all CD. No computer based files.

Coaxsys look interesting but apparently to answer my questions I have to talk to a dealer. No prices given, no pics of the back of the units, no comparison charts.

[Woody Banks]

Here is the Lease Breaker located on the West Coast.

[Audiobeer]

Hello Reissen, actualy that was Don that said that.

[Robh3606]

I think the lamps add a nice touch.

Rob

[speakerdave]

Hmmm. That photo's been floating around the Internet for a while. I believe the installation is (or was) in Lake County, the next county north of here.

I don't think it's all that crazy. If you think about it, it's actually less than the equivalent of two pairs of 4350's. Plenty of LH members have way more speakers than that, including me. He just has them in one place, really working together; most of mine are in boxes.

I don't see the problem.

David

[hjames]

I dunno - from what have learned here about too many drivers reproducing the same frequency range - once you are out of the low bass it would get garbled. Not at all like a pair of stacked L100s tho (he he he )
- I dunno - but I'll agree that it LOOKS impressive.

I have to wonder about the crossovers - or is it biamped (quadamped?) ...?

That picture has been posted in here quite a few times already tho ...
low res and very grainy ...ugh.
Maybe someone could get a better quality shot of it - if those monsters actually still exist somewhere ...

Hey flipprs - Think of the ebay revenues if you parted them out!!!

[speakerdave]

I dunno - from what have learned here about too many drivers reproducing the same frequency range - once you are out of the low bass it would get garbled. . . .

Well, yeah, it's probably a little random. Not all it's stacked up to be, so to speak.

David

[Andyoz]

It sounds like you have source material on a PC and use Ethernet to distribute it. How does it get back to analog in each room?

By my avatar you see I have many pairs of speakers. And I have many amps. I have not found an economical way to get a single analog source to amps in multiple rooms.

I have come into this thread a little late but I think the answer to your question lies here - http://www.slimdevices.com/

They produce a device called a Squeezebox. This clever little device takes music data (mp3,wav, etc) through Ethernet or wirleess connection and converts it back to analogue in the room that the music is played. It also acts as the controller for the remote music server so you can select songs.