aleph theatre?

[cowanrg]

i have a friend who is wanting to build a theatre in his basement, and wants all the components DIY. we were kinda thinking of what amps to use. would it be realistic to have aleph2's? they generate so much heat, i was just wondering if there was a way to get a multichannel in one case. 5 monoblocks would be a little massive for the project.

i was thinking of maybe putting the rears and center in one box, but having external supplies for them. so, one box would house the transformers and caps, and the other box would have the actual amp in it... and then just build the front 2 channels normally. (or as a dual monoblock).

does anyone have any suggestions on this? what would be best for a 5 channel home theatre project? maybe the aleph 5, but it doesnt seem powerful enough for theatre, i could be wrong.

[FullThrottleRic]

WOW, 5 channels of Aleph2, thats a LOT of heat/money/metal

If the system were just for movies then I'd go for 5 channels of a 100wpc or so class A/B amp, such as the ESP Project 3A. As for home theatre all you really need is bags of clean power, which none of the Pass designs will provide (well, the 'clean' bit yes, but not the 'bags' bit hehe) without becoming massive.

If the system has to deal with music, thats another subject all together. My system atm is used for both music and moives, and with my Zen already heating the room quite nicely, I did'nt want 3 more channels of it!!!
So I use the Zen for the front L+R, and ESP 3A's for the centre/rear L+R. Although I have managed to get the little Zen to clip a few times, enter the Zen 4...

[Apogee]

I too have considered doing the same thing...

I figure the only way to do it is to go water cooled...

I thought about building the amps and hooking them all to a modified heat pump on the outside of the house so it'd be quiet and easily able to handle the heat... I was planning on just finding an old one that someone was having replaced figuring that it would be the easiest thing for the project.

Just an idea...

[skaara]

Five Aleph 2s must be enough for theatre (5x100w).. You could use one BIG cooling block for all five alephs and then you drive the water to water radiator to cool it and then back.. I guess the whole thing would have to be custum made..

[cowanrg]

cool cool.

i was thinking watercooling, which isnt tough... the guy who's house is going in is into building competition airplanes (stunt/aerobatics). he has access to machine shops and has an amazing shop in his basement also. so, building isnt the problem, if its possible, we could do it. i have already built a couple custom watercooling units for other things, so one for a 5-channel aleph2 wouldnt be immensely hard. the custom cooling blocks would be the hardest.

i just dont think doing like an aleph 5 in 5 channel would be enough juice. nor would a zen. sure, they are great for music, but for high power demanding movies, they would just clip... and i think the goal is more in the realm of a class A home theatre... we both actually work for an audio/video store... if i wanted just a home theatre receiver, i could get one cheaper than building the amps (i can get the denon AVR-5803 for under $2K, perks rule).

plus, it would be nice to use the system for DVD-audio or multichannel SACD, since both of us are going to get that new pioneer elite DV-47Ai. quality will most likely come first, then the others next. heat isnt a real issue, any theatre is gonna get hot, and its a basement with proper venting, thats not going to be an issue.

if anyone else has any ideas here, i would like to hear them... im still up for building a multichannel box, and separate powersupply box. i think there is a levinson setup like that.

[AMPMAN]

you might check out my amp in the solid state thread common source versus common drain

[skaara]

Arent aleph 2s enoughs, and as far as I know a good waterblock wont have any job with 1500W of heat (my friends cpu is overclocked and it dissipates ~100w of heat, he watercools that with 5cm X 5cm waterblock and water temp is never above 40°C..)

[moses]

Being a Aleph 2 is rated at 300W for power consumption, you would have 13 amp power draw on your AC line, you would probably need to put in a 20 amp power line specifically just for your amp. It would also be a waste not to do both front and rear centers, as some DVDs today are being encoded with DTS 6.1 (DTS ES and DTS ES 24/96).

[cowanrg]

Originally posted by moses
Being a Aleph 2 is rated at 300W for power consumption, you would have 13 amp power draw on your AC line, you would probably need to put in a 20 amp power line specifically just for your amp. It would also be a waste not to do both front and rear centers, as some DVDs today are being encoded with DTS 6.1 (DTS ES and DTS ES 24/96).

good points about both outlets and 6.1

i guess 2 3 channel amps would be good. but even with separate power supplies, that would be 4 boxes. weight isnt an issue, money isnt really an issue, heat is an issue, and so is size. so, basically, using aleph or not, this is what is needed:

-around 100W/channel (5 or 6)
-great sound for SACD and DVD-Audio
-relatively compact overall size

i want to kind of stress "quality of sound" here considering what this guy has upstairs... he's got a 5.2 channel system with sonus fabre pioneer elite, and some others. its a pretty damn nice setup. so we are trying to get to around that quality and i think the alephs would do the trick. however, if there is another great class a design, that would be cool too.

[FullThrottleRic]

Sorry m8, but you will not get 100wpc class A and compact size, unless you do as suggested earlier and water cool it and put the rad outside your house or somthing similar.
And I would'nt bother with external power supplies either, the ammount of c**p you'd get on the lines by the time they got to the amps would be horrible.
For 6.1 (assuming you want DVD-A/SACD) I'd build three, two channel amps, with built in power supplies, and three waterblocks going to an external rad and pump.