drew_eckhardt
Responses from drew_eckhardt
| advantages/disadvantages of 2 subs..... >Room 20 x 16...thinking of 2 10" subs...would this be wise?For what purpose? Ported/passive radiator, bandpass, or sealed?For most music (even electronic music) peaks in the last octave don't have 1/10th the power that they have in the rest of... | |
| Stereo Subs - Do they need to be identical? >There is a reason subs can be smaller now1. Solid state amplifiers technologies which generate less waste heat so you can run modest sized (and less expensive) heat sinks and stick them in a small box like class D (switch between full on and o... | |
| Why not use mains as centers >OK, tried the "phantom" center yesterday, and I hate to say this, but it didn't sound good at all. Very hollow sounding, I tried some other setting changes, but just turning the center on again was a huge improvment. You probably have main spe... | |
| Best Inexpensive Subwoofer >The real point of the SPLR 8" vs the SPLR 15" is that the same vendor wants $1600 for the latter. Three smaller 8" subs offer just under the total radiating are of the single 15" sub (if my math is right) and my guess is that distortion levels... | |
| Omni directional speakers Linkwitz Pluto, available as either a turnkey product ($3K) or DIY (about $800 if you buy the plans and circuit board package from SL and stuff the boards yourself).Speakers with uniform but more directivity sound as natural but suffer less from n... | |
| Remote not in line with seating position I installed a Xantech IR target above my screen so I could use any of my remotes since it's convienient to have all the buttons when trying to do things like setup a CRT projector.You can also get RF universal remotes with IR repeaters. | |
| Why not use mains as centers >Is there a reason I should'nt use two good bookshelfs or smaller towers for my center if I have two center outputs and available amp channel?You don't want to use two because one will have more uniform power response and off-axis behavior than... | |
| active vs passive speakers The other interesting thing to point out here is that it can be much simpler to adjust active speakers for different rooms with their non-uniform environments across the frequency spectrum.With simple trim pots you can adjust the level of each fre... | |
| active vs passive speakers >Another similar speaker design is powered speakers. Here the crossover still operates on speaker level signals and there's a single amp shared by all the drivers.There's no good reason to make a powered speaker which uses a passive speaker lev... | |
| Why not more DIY talk/equipment on the 'Gon? >Speakers are perhaps more difficult, and in good part due to the fact that most of us are not skilled woodworrkers, but there are ways around that in many cases.Making rectangular is not hard, although if you want a fine wood working project y... | |
| New Plasma: 1080p or 750? At what viewing distance?You need to sit within about 5' of a 42" plasma to visually resolve 1920x1080. For most installations you won't be close enough to tell the difference, and want to buy the set with the fewest other problems (green noise, b... | |
| Which speakers have wide dispersion? You want uniform dispersion up to a few kilohertz with a gradual reduction in total power response at the high end.While "omni" speakers are one way to achieve that, designs with controlled directivity (dipoles, wave guides) accomplish the same en... | |
| Projector and Screen recommendations >We do not wish to sit in complete darkness, but need very little ambient light.You might consider installing some narrow beam (~10 degree) 2" spot lights aimed at your seating area combined with remote controlled dimmers. 120V PAR-16 bulbs are... | |
| Any new ideas on an old theme? Decouple, because the floor boards are a big, flexible, poorly braced structure which will radiate sound.If you have nice speakers where even the sub-woofer enclosures are braced every 7-8" to keep panel resonances out of the pass-band, why would ... | |
| Are you buying blu-ray versions of older movies? >Looking at our DVD purchase requirements, what is desired in our family right now are older "Nature" type films, from PBS and BBC, as well as March of the Penguins etc. None of these were shot in HD. Therefore does it make sense to buy their B... |