Hello everyone, hope this is the correct sub forum.
I’m working on finalizing my plans for the music and tv in our new townhouse’s living room. As commonly seen, I’m designing within the spouse acceptance factor. That being said here’s my perceived options, all active with dayton kabd boards.
I’m currently in the middle of building a 1.1 system with a center consisting of two rs100p-8’s sealed with the dc28f tweet and a Tang Band W5 sealed in .23cf. This would be a benign setup with very modest bass, the small subwoofer will actually have a high shelf filter to have flat response to maybe ~30hz. Of course overall spl will suffer greatly but the lady, and neighbor probably won’t enjoy percussive content after dinnertime, so the design will be low spl flat-ish bass.
With the rather pedestrian 1.1 system, I’d be in need of a small stereo bookshelf pair for personal music listening. This pair would be limited to a set of .23cf cabinets with an anarchy 5.5” sealed, peerless 1.5” fr and 5/8” tweeters. It’s not a very large room but the .5 cf bookshelves I’d like to build would probably be a little big looking.
The last option that I feel is realistic is gutting and restoring an old ~.44cf polk center with dual anarchy 5.5’s, a 1.5” and 5/8”. This option has the ability to be a one speaker system that would be too big if there were other speakers around the room but if sold as the only speaker I want to have, it would be an easy sell.
The main question is whether I should put all my eggs into one basket (gutted polk dual 5.5” center) have what I would consider a pretty nice speaker, or compromise on a small stereo pair and small 1.1 system. Would I even be able to achieve the stereo effect in a small oddly shaped room with small bookshelves close to the wall and one probably kinda in a corner? Because if the speaker placement/size will prevent the stereo effect then wouldn’t it be wiser to just go all in on a good center? Two eq’d anarchy 5.5’s on ~150w model more than enough spl for what I’d realistically ever use. I could program a knob to attenuate bass depending on the time of day.
I’m working on finalizing my plans for the music and tv in our new townhouse’s living room. As commonly seen, I’m designing within the spouse acceptance factor. That being said here’s my perceived options, all active with dayton kabd boards.
I’m currently in the middle of building a 1.1 system with a center consisting of two rs100p-8’s sealed with the dc28f tweet and a Tang Band W5 sealed in .23cf. This would be a benign setup with very modest bass, the small subwoofer will actually have a high shelf filter to have flat response to maybe ~30hz. Of course overall spl will suffer greatly but the lady, and neighbor probably won’t enjoy percussive content after dinnertime, so the design will be low spl flat-ish bass.
With the rather pedestrian 1.1 system, I’d be in need of a small stereo bookshelf pair for personal music listening. This pair would be limited to a set of .23cf cabinets with an anarchy 5.5” sealed, peerless 1.5” fr and 5/8” tweeters. It’s not a very large room but the .5 cf bookshelves I’d like to build would probably be a little big looking.
The last option that I feel is realistic is gutting and restoring an old ~.44cf polk center with dual anarchy 5.5’s, a 1.5” and 5/8”. This option has the ability to be a one speaker system that would be too big if there were other speakers around the room but if sold as the only speaker I want to have, it would be an easy sell.
The main question is whether I should put all my eggs into one basket (gutted polk dual 5.5” center) have what I would consider a pretty nice speaker, or compromise on a small stereo pair and small 1.1 system. Would I even be able to achieve the stereo effect in a small oddly shaped room with small bookshelves close to the wall and one probably kinda in a corner? Because if the speaker placement/size will prevent the stereo effect then wouldn’t it be wiser to just go all in on a good center? Two eq’d anarchy 5.5’s on ~150w model more than enough spl for what I’d realistically ever use. I could program a knob to attenuate bass depending on the time of day.
The best thing would be to try or simulate each option. I know that with stereo speakers I get some benefit from surround effects in movies and TV; there'd be none of that with a mono setup.
Personally, I've never had a mono speaker TV that did not disappoint as compared to stereo, even if cheap built in speakers. There's probably more stereo information in regular TV broadcasts than one might expect.
TV dramas have been using matrix surround for a long time. I remember hearing surround effects watching the X-Files back in the '90s. I think PCM stereo sound can be preferable to lossy Dolby Digital; I was generally disappointed at how lifeless DVD sound was compared with laserdisc. When you cram 5 channels into 384 kbps, something has to give.
An update for those who contributed to this thread. I went with two Dayton RS100P-4’s and a DC28-F 1-1/8” tweeter in a pair of Denovo .04cf enclosures butted together as a mini center channel. I also decided last minute to go with four sealed Dayton tcp 4” woofers in a stealthy .2cf under shelf enclosure as the bass unit. The system is fully active with power provided by the Dayton kabd 430 board.
I just received two more tcp drivers today and after breaking in the suspension I’ll add them to have four drivers at a 4 ohm load. I decided to not use the Tang Band W5 subwoofer for this project. I’ve roughly EQ’ it flat and it’s going to be perfectly fine for the small room. Even with only two tcp woofers it’s pretty decent for my boring ****😉
I just received two more tcp drivers today and after breaking in the suspension I’ll add them to have four drivers at a 4 ohm load. I decided to not use the Tang Band W5 subwoofer for this project. I’ve roughly EQ’ it flat and it’s going to be perfectly fine for the small room. Even with only two tcp woofers it’s pretty decent for my boring ****😉
I’ve been listening to the center for a few weeks now and I’ve had the four 4” bass unit under the shelf for about a week. I’m very happy with both, more so the center but the bass unit is exactly what I envisioned when planning it out. Everything is lightly eq’d to smooth any major peaks and the woofers have a mild high shelf filter attenuating the upper bass allowing the lower bass to be heard.
It’s meant as a better sounding soundbar and bass module. Notice I don’t use the word subwoofer for a small woofer array. Any time of the day it can be used without any worry about the neighbor, we do have an end unit. I programmed a low shelf filter controlled by a potentiometer which can lower sub ~60hz content if we’re up late watching something bass heavy. It can do 40hz loud enough to bug me if my neighbor had this setup going at 10pm.
Overall this project is very much what I set out to achieve. Summing the stereo signal to mono has produced clear dialogue and an enjoyable tv experience.
It’s meant as a better sounding soundbar and bass module. Notice I don’t use the word subwoofer for a small woofer array. Any time of the day it can be used without any worry about the neighbor, we do have an end unit. I programmed a low shelf filter controlled by a potentiometer which can lower sub ~60hz content if we’re up late watching something bass heavy. It can do 40hz loud enough to bug me if my neighbor had this setup going at 10pm.
Overall this project is very much what I set out to achieve. Summing the stereo signal to mono has produced clear dialogue and an enjoyable tv experience.
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