I have a wood floor on concrete so not an issue with weight.
Good!
Another factor that should be considered is how all this equipment will be powered. Assuming 120 volt AC the four McIntosh amplifiers have specified current draws (presumably when outputting maximum rated power) that total 44 amperes, although under typical listening conditions I would expect that number to be much less. But the current draw of multiple subs on high volume bass transients will add to the total considerably, at least for brief instants. So it would seem probable that dedicated runs from at least two 20 amp circuit breakers will be necessary. Regards, -- Al
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@ Al
I have a wood floor on concrete so not an issue with weight. :b
@ Tim
I read your post then I got lost. English is my third language and when I see super long writing, I got lost. Thank you for trying to hhelp. Anyway, one dealer will help setup stereo and another will help setup HT. Eventually the Wilson Dealer will do the final tuning for both. I just have to give the HT dealer the job cause originally I went to him for budget system but then I change my mind and I could have bought all Mcintosh gear and wilson from the Stereo dealer but I feel bad cause HT dealer helped me so ended up I split up the purchase.
I hope they will do great job for me. |
Hi Al,
Good point about the weight, 1,600 lbs is no joke.
I have no idea what the weight capacity of a typical living or family room above a basement would be. I would think it all depends on the supporting structure underneath. If there were a few steel i-beams that are supported by a number of steel posts that are anchored into a basement's concrete floor, the weight capacity might be substantial.
Do we know for certain there even is a basement below his room?
If it's on a slab, the weight capacity could be extremely high.
Truth be told, the op is starting to tick me off. I'm getting the impression he's not even reading my replies so I seriously doubt he'll listen to my advice and add 2 extra subs. I think he's asked for assistance but already has his mind made up of how he wants to do things. .
I'm fairly certain he's going to be disappointed in the results but I can only lead a sautan904 to water, right?. If the yahoo doesn't want to drink, then he probably deserves a room with poor bass response.
Later,
Tim |
It is a lot of stuff in a smaller room sound wise as well. Benefits of proper subs with good full range speakers and amps to drive them is more marginal but still real. It's all a matter of how much of a total assault is really needed or desired. |
Tim, thanks for providing us all with some excellent inputs and food for thought.
On a different note altogether, I would ask the OP in all seriousness if he has considered the ability of the listening room floor, and its support structure, to handle the weight of all this stuff. By my calculations, including the not particularly heavy E-110 subs the equipment that has been listed weighs a total of about 1600 pounds. And given that the kitchen is adjacent, the listening area is apparently not in the basement.
Seems like a lot of stuff and a lot of weight to be putting in a 16 x 14 foot room, in addition to equipment stands and racks, source components, furniture, and people. And even more so if you were to go to larger subs and/or more subs.
Regards,
-- Al
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sautan904,
"
2x 12" it is. Yes. My stereo system will be setup and professional tune for my listening area with acoustic treatment too.
home theater will be setup by another HT and Mcintosh specialist."
Well, you made your decision and you'll soon know the consequences. . Are you saying one team is going to setup and tune your room for music (including room treatments) and then another team is going to come in and setup the same area for HT?
If so and unless these 2 teams are working as 1 team from the onset and have a plan that understands the compromises that are inherent to having 1 area sound good for both, you may be headed for disappointment at the results.
Will the setup, professional tuning and room treatments be geared in favor of music or HT?
Will the setup be geared to sound good at only 1 listening position or will it be geared toward sounding good at all seating positions in the area?
How will the 2 subwoofers be positioned in the room to avoid the inevitable peaks and nulls that result from having only 2 sources of low bass frequencies in a room?
Sound waves behave much differently in a room at 200 hz and below than they behave at over 200 hz.
Attempting to produce accurate and extended bass performance throughout a room with only 2 subs (no matter what size subs or room), room treatments (no matter how extensive) and DSP (digital signal processing) has proven to be not only expensive but likely futile.
Attaining good and evenly dispersed performance in your room on frequencies above 200 hz is going to be a piece of cake compared to attaining the same on frequencies of 200 hz and below.
The inconvenient truth is that attaining good and evenly dispersed bass performance on frequencies of 200 hz and below in your room with only 2 subs is not going to happen.
I'm sure you're skeptical but that's healthy and I was skeptical, too. The proof will be evident once your setup has been completed; just play some content with repetitive bass and listen to the bass in each of the seats in your listening area.
If the bass performance varies by seat position (bass is more prominent at some seats and lacking or even nonexistent at others) that means you have bass frequency standing waves in your area that result in peaks (overemphasizing the bass), nulls (underemphasizing the bass) and possibly cancellations (no bass percieved).
Okay, now the good news; When you realize the bass response varies by seat position, this is solvable through setting up a distributed bass system in your area that will result in consistently good bass response at all positions in your area. Unfortunately, this means you're going to need a minimum of 3 subs (will work with 10" or 12" subs) and possibly up to 4 subs setup in a precise distributed array method.
This is all just the result of physics and wave propagation laws that cannot be avoided. Bass wave propagation within a room have been studied extensively by acoustical engineers such as Dr. Gettis and Dr. O'Toole. They have published numerous white papers on bass wave behavior and experiments in various room sizes with supporting empirical results that have been independently verified multiple times.
The gist of their experimental testing conclusion is that the most effective method for reducing bass peaks, nulls and cancellations and attaining good bass response in any room is the use of distributed array bass systems. The found that the more source points for bass (subs) in a given room, the better the quality and dispersion of bass becomes in that room.
Obviously, there is a practical limit to the number of subs in any given room. Fortunately and crucially, they discovered there was a threshold of 4 subs in a given room that resulted in reducing the vast majority of peaks, nulls and cancellations in a given room and beyond which additional subs only resulted in marginal improvements. This is why the better distributed array bass systems typically consist of 4 subs.
Hopefully, your setup teams will be familiar with the distributed bass array system procedure. If they need assistance, I detailed the procedure in my linked thread on my previous post on this thread. You can ignore the parallel wiring section since my system uses 4 non-amplified subs while yours will use amplified subs. They'll just need to follow the sub positioning procedure and run line level cables to each sub and connect the power cord to an electric outlet. I'd suggest hiding the connecting cables for aesthetic reasons ( I drilled holes in my floor and ran all cabling in the crawl space below.
My motivation in posting on your thread and others is solely in sharing my knowledge about the effectiveness of distributed bass array systems and how well it works in virtually any room to such an impressive degree.
I consistently notice many threads that imply that they believe they can achieve good bass in their room if they only use a certain brand or size sub but rarely consider the number of subs and their precise positioning. I increasingly think this is the case because of the simple truth is that most people don't know about distributed bass array systems and how well they work while having the additional benefit of not requiring any room treatments, room analysis, equalization, DSP or any other tools and software many people believe is a good solution for achieving excellent and well dispersed bass performance in any given room.
Again, I'm not a dealer of anything and have no financial interests in distributed bass array systems.
I'm just an audio enthusiast who stumbled upon a great bass system method who wants to share the wordwith my fellow audio enthusiast brothers and sisters,
Tim
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mb1audio02The lower the frequency, the more air you need to move. Of course! |
" If you want to make bass, you can either move a large driver slow or a small driver fast. If all other factors are equal, there'a no difference. "
" That doesn't make any sense. A driver's movement corresponds to the frequency it's asked to reproduce. If it's a pure 32 Hz tone, the cone will move at 32 cycles per second, regardless of the cone's diameter. "
That's not true. The lower the frequency, the more air you need to move. If you make an 8in speaker move the same amount of air as a 10in speaker, then you get the same frequency. That means the 8in speaker has to move faster than the 10in speaker.
Check the specs on some speakers. Quite often you'll see speakers with smaller drivers that can go just as low as speakers using larger drivers. A good starting point would be to have a look at Carvers Sunfire Sub. He does a way better job of explaining this than I do.
http://www.sunfire.com/whitepapers/Sunfire_Subwoofer_Whitepaper.pdf
" |
I actually bought a pair of JL Audio E-Sub E110. Originally I was looking for decent HT system and saw this pair of brand new at great deal, so I got them. Then it seems like the more dealers I see, the bigger the system gets. Now, I also wonder if e-sub is enough to match the Wilson? I tripled my original budget so..... trying to save now!
arghhhhhhhhhhh...... |
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Driver must move at frequency to reproduce however smaller drivers have to move more i.e. At greater amplitude to deliver same SPL. as larger driver else you need multiple drivers. |
sautan904-
go for the REL. Happy Listening!
|
The key is for a given output. A cone can cycle at 40 hz, but the distance between stops (i.e. Where derivative is 0) will vary depending on the amplitude of the signal. A smaller cone has to travel further to move the same amount of air as a larger driver. So a large cone might move 5 mm back and forth to produce a given output at a given frequency. But a smaller cone might have to move 7.5 mm. And do so in the same period of time to keep the signal at 40hz.
If im wrong, show me the maths! :) |
cedargroverWell,
the frequency (i.e., the period between when the derivative is 0) won’t
change based on driver size but cone velocity will, for a given output. The "cone velocity" is the driver's frequency. If asked to produce a 32 Hz tone, the cone should move at 32 cycles per second, regardless of the diameter of the cone. It's simply not true that:If you want
to make bass, you can either move a large driver slow or a small driver
fast.
|
Well, the frequency (i.e., the period between when the derivative is 0) won’t change based on driver size but cone velocity will, for a given output. A smaller cone moves less air and has to travel further between peaks for the same output as a larger driver.
i’ve always understood it this way, but I’m here to learn so I’m happy to be proven wrong. ;)
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mb1audio02If you want
to make bass, you can either move a large driver slow or a small driver
fast. That doesn't make any sense. A driver's movement corresponds to the frequency it's asked to reproduce. If it's a pure 32 Hz tone, the cone will move at 32 cycles per second, regardless of the cone's diameter.
|
" Your speakers are pretty full range so you'll need 12 inch or larger to extend lower if needed at all. Two are better than one for balance across the room. "
" @ mapman. I thought so too. That is my original idea but shaken up a little when spoke to the dealer. He suggested his 2 used 10" subs at super crazy discount....
Also the room size is OK for 2x 12" subs?"
Not true. If you buy subs with 12in drivers, the only thing you can be sure of is that your subs will have 12 in drivers. Are all 12in drivers identical? Better yet, if you have one of the drivers blow in your Wilson's, are you going to run down to your local Radio Shack for replacement? People may disagree with me on this, but I think the quality of the speaker is a factor in how it sounds.
If you want to make bass, you can either move a large driver slow or a small driver fast. If all other factors are equal, there'a no difference. Not only that, a high quality 8 or 10 in woofer, can easily outperform a low quality 12 in unit.
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2x 12" it is. Yes. My stereo system will be setup and professional tune for my listening area with acoustic treatment too.
home theater will be setup by another HT and Mcintosh specialist.
i hope all work out well.
now, I just need to wait. Wilson will ship my speaker mid January! |
I need to make 2 corrections to my reply post earlier tonight about my DEBRA distributed array bass system:
1. Each sub contains a 10" woofer, not an 8" woofer.
2. The subs are connected in-parallel, not in-series.
Sorry,
Tim
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sautan904, You obviously have invested in some very good amps and speakers. Getting a good bass system in place will complete the audio portion of your home theater. I think I'm the 3rd person to recommend multiple subs for the best bass performance both in terms of ensuring bass sounds good throughout the entire room (no bass peaks or weak spots at some seats) and quality bass impact. A very good solution for you would be what's called a 'Distributed Bass Array System'. If you google this name, there is a lot of info on this; the theory behind it explained by the acoustic engineer, Dr. Gettis,who 1st proposed it, explanations of how it is applied and sellers of these systems.. I purchased one of these bass systems for $3,000 called DEBRA from Audio Kinesis in Utah. I was so impressed I started a thread here on Audiogon that describes my system and asks for input from others that have employed it. Unfortunately, there aren't many current members who use it. A good place to start would be to read this thread. Here's a link to it: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/anybody-else-using-a-distributed-array-sub-system?highlight=d... I was originally considering solutions like you are. 2 subs along the front wall at spots that are convenient. I was looking at Hsu, Rhythmik, REL and JL that would be good for music and ht. Fortunately, I discovered the distributed bass array system before I decided on specific brand and model of subs. Here's a link to the site I bought the Debra at: http://jamesromeyn.com/old-pages/home-audio-gear/dsa-1-0-distributed-subwoofer-array-5-pieces-4k-usd... I was skeptical at first but, after many emails and phone conversations with James Romeyn, I decided to give it a try. I justified the cost by rationalizing that 2 high quality subs would likely exceed the $3k cost of the array. The system consists of 4 67 lb 4 ohm subs that are relatively small with 8" woofers that are ported. The subs are powered by a 1,000 watt class A/B amp that has a variable cut-off frequency control. There is an extensive and detailed setup procedure that instructs exactly where to place each sub in your room and how to wire the subs in-series to the amp. I know 8" woofers seem small but the 4 summed together produce excellent bass for both music and ht. It's very versatile and can reproduce taut and nuanced bass for music and reproduce wall- shaking deep, powerful and sustained bass for ht that makes ht effects sound very real which can be startling at times. The added bonus is that you won't have a bad seat in your room for great bass response and you'll have no need for bass room treatments or digital signal processing systems. I'm not a dealer and I have no financial interest in distributed bass array systems or companies. Just a big fan of this method, Tim |
Two 12s are best but yes may take work to integrate well.
10" is good with limited range speakers like monitors. But good 12 done right still better. |
My point at the end is, subwoofers are fabulous when well fed, and evil monsters otherwise. If you are getting pro help integrating them, great, otherwise it can be a real learning curve and chore.
Erik
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That 10" subs sound better for music is a myth perpetrated by those who don't know how to integrate them well.
Without a doubt, 2x 12" is the better way to go. However, with all this spend, who is doing your room acoustics and subwoofer integration?
You should have that all done for you.
Erik
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@ mapman. I thought so too. That is my original idea but shaken up a little when spoke to the dealer. He suggested his 2 used 10" subs at super crazy discount....
Also the room size is OK for 2x 12" subs? |
Your speakers are pretty full range so you'll need 12 inch or larger to extend lower if needed at all. Two are better than one for balance across the room. |
+1 on multiple subs if your space can accommodate them. Since rooms can have so much of an impact on low frequencies, I'd look into sub options that have DSP that can correct for the room. This also gives you more placement options for your sub(s).
Haven't been in the market for a sub since these DSP designs hit the market, so I can't make any specific recommendations for particular manufacturers or models. |
Multiple subs tend to lead to more even bass. As for the 10 or the 12, that only you can decide after a good demo in your listening space. |
