studio monitor question

[bone215]

Presently I have up front
2 jbl 4412a as left and right along with a jbl ec35 center
using two smaller dcm speakers as surround l and r.

question
would moving to 5 or 6 identical speakers provide better surround sound experience in home theater, say 5 or 6 lsr 25s?
I know the 25s are quite a bit smaller than the 4412As. I really like the 4412As but they are rather large.
Would this be a decrease in sound quality??

[Titanium Dome]

You're going to have better dispersion on the highs and probably better midrange, but kiss the low end good-bye. Don't expect anything below 70-80Hz from the LSR25.

You could add a sub, of course. Depending on your receiver or pre/pro, you may or may not have an easy time balancing a sub with the LSRs. If you only get to choose one crossover point to the sub (like 80Hz), then that limitation is pretty severe. OTOH, if you can choose 60-80-100-120-150Hz as crossover points, or even better if a self-powered sub has a variable cross-over, then you can probably do quite well.

[bone215]

Ti
I am worried about losing sound quality, the 4412As put out a pretty big, clean, effortless sound. I presently have 3 subs in the system, no problem with integration. I am presently crossed over at 80 hz. The 80 works better in my room than 50 100 120 which are the other options.
Thanks for your response.

[LowPhreak]

Why not keep the 4412A's for mains, and use your 4408A's for surrounds?

I know many would disagree with me, but I think surround sound is way over-rated, even when used for video. Call me a curmudgeon or Luddite, but IMO unless one has an enormous screen, the "size" of the audio with surround sound seems out of all proportion to the image in most situations.

I personally never cared for surround much, because it just doesn't seem realistic. In reality, when you're looking at an event, you're not seeing it behind your head - you're looking directly at it and the sounds that accompany the event usually emanate from the direction you're looking, or from somewhere within the 180 degree frontal arc. A good imaging/soundstaging 2-channel system will give you that already. To some extent, yes, there may be ambient sounds on the sides and from behind, but with most surround systems I've heard, it is way overdone.

At most, I would use maybe one pair of small 2-way speakers on the rear or side walls with little information being passed to them, just to give the impression of space around the listener, but it would have to be correctly time-aligned for the room size, and perhaps it might be good to have a very coherent center channel for dialogue just to pull speech to the screen. A very good sub almost never hurts, so I guess I'm saying I could live with a 'toned-down' version of 5.1 for movies, but not for most music.


*LowPhreak now takes his leave...to run for cover...* :uhmmmm:


:thnkfast:

[Don Mascali]

Another worthless opinion;

The fronts/center are the most important. The bigger the screen the more important the center is. A timbre matched set for even sound as the action pans across the front.

As was said above, I don't find the side and rear speakers "as important". On my system I can kill the power to the front and center and there is very little information on the surrounds... I do disagree that they are useless. When you hear noise from behind in a scary movie it make the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Another example is in a "Star Wars" type flik when a ship comes from behind and past you , the effect is awesome. Remember we live in a 360' world.

My plan was to stick something in all of the positions and upgrade from there. It is a learning process and a financial journey. If I was rich and famous of course I would have a room full of Mac and top of the line JBL gear. Unfortunately I have this food and shelter addiction that must be attended to.

Good listening to you,

Don M

[LowPhreak]

I don't hold that surround channels are "useless" Don, just that they are often overdone, and the reason seems to be to impress with "awesome" effects. But for me, a little of that goes a long way, ie: less is more.

In my somewhat cynical (yet fairly realistic) opinion, the advent of x.1 channel "surround sound" was an attempt by the electronics and recording industries to boost slumping sales some years ago, as much as it may have been an honest poke at trying to improve the listening/viewing experience in the home environ. Now we all have to buy not only a stereo power amp & speakers, but multiples of each. Not to mention the neccesary media and disc players.

$ Cha-ching $

...which to me seems like a lot of expense and complexity for dubious returns.

I'll put it this way: until/unless we can have reasonably high quailty and reasonably priced surround video - which will probably never happen - I'll stick to "archaic" 2 or 2.1 (sub) channel.

Any way you do it, trying to reproduce sound and visuals in the home is an exercise in suspending your disbelief. I find that rather than lessening my disbelief, using virtually 3-D sound with point-source 2-D video actually increases the artificiality of the experience.

In short, I say let the sound match the video and vice-versa.

[LowPhreak]

In that case Giskard, I would have probably preferred to turn off the video, and concentrate on the audio only. But again, if the surround channels were out of proportion to the front/main, I'd rather just have the fronts coming at me.

I've seen PG at Saratoga Performing Arts Center - not a shabby venue sound-wise. Even so, I didn't hear anyone's guitar, voice, or keyboard sneaking up from behind me. No, I would say that about 85-90% of the bands output was coming from the stage in front of me, where the rest was bouncing off the sides and ceiling to one degree or another. The only "surround" sounds were those of the crowd.

[Don Mascali]

I believe that "Properly" set up and adjusted is the key here. The tendancy is to over do the effects, just as most new sub owners crank it up.:blink:
Even with music a little ambience makes the reproduction of a venue more realistic to me. There are always room effects in play in a live performance.
As with all of this, thats why they put all of those damn knobs on these things. If we all had the same taste we would have a "Straight Wire With Gain".

[LowPhreak]

The points are well taken. I think that for many of us who have less than stellar rooms to listen in, the use of what I call artificial ambience is needed sometimes to help recreate the original event. Certainly if we could have miniature Avery Fisher Hall's for listening rooms ;) then perhaps the ambience channels would be rendered moot.

Maybe it's just me. I'm just careful not to add more to a recording's playback than was intended.

[Don Mascali]

Agreed, it's like salt. A little is nice, too much sucks.:D

[greyhound]

i totaly agree.
iI dont have or want a surround sound. My tv is placed between my 2 speakers and it sound far more realistic than surround. I dont like the fact that you see someone before you entering from the left and you hear him speaking next your left ear.
I would defenitly just use the 4412's there sound is big and give's plenty of low for dramatic effect.



I don't hold that surround channels are "useless" Don, just that they are often overdone, and the reason seems to be to impress with "awesome" effects. But for me, a little of that goes a long way, ie: less is more.

In my somewhat cynical (yet fairly realistic) opinion, the advent of x.1 channel "surround sound" was an attempt by the electronics and recording industries to boost slumping sales some years ago, as much as it may have been an honest poke at trying to improve the listening/viewing experience in the home environ. Now we all have to buy not only a stereo power amp & speakers, but multiples of each. Not to mention the neccesary media and disc players.

$ Cha-ching $

...which to me seems like a lot of expense and complexity for dubious returns.

I'll put it this way: until/unless we can have reasonably high quailty and reasonably priced surround video - which will probably never happen - I'll stick to "archaic" 2 or 2.1 (sub) channel.

Any way you do it, trying to reproduce sound and visuals in the home is an exercise in suspending your disbelief. I find that rather than lessening my disbelief, using virtually 3-D sound with point-source 2-D video actually increases the artificiality of the experience.

In short, I say let the sound match the video and vice-versa.