Synyrgy Cynyma II ( Pronounced: Lynyrd Skynyrd Too)

[1_sufferin_mind]

Excellent direction @JStewart. Tail-chasing has drained my energy. And yes, I was referring to the Revels in the Green Room—too naive at the time to paint it, but the new room will inherit a color suitable to a dedicated theater. The Revels are ridiculously oversized for that 9x13ft space. They’re too close to the sidewalls (Toe’d In 8” from wall at rear corner; 15” at front corner), and to each other (5.5ft on center). Like @Sonnie mentioned, difficult to coax decent 2-channel sound out of that configuration.

So following your lead, I’ll draw up plans as accurately as possible at this point. It seems setting up on the short wall will be riddled with hurdles and still not deliver HT wow-factor. But those are he cards I’ve been dealt (unless I can convince the missus otherwise). For now, it’s back to the drawing board!

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

The resultant sketches surprised me--pleasantly so for the short wall setup; not so pleasantly for the long wall. If you look at the sketches I attached to the FLOOR PLANS & VIEWS section (Post #2), you'll notice that I was able to shoe horn in a 100" diag screen! I had previously bellyached about not having enough room width, but lo and behold, I wasn't wrong just once, but twice! My current room is 9x13, not 10x13 as previously reported; so the new room coughs up an extra foot per side. @JStewart, a pic of the current layout in the Green Room is attached to this post. Bottom line is that a 100+ inch diagonal screen fits with room to spare when setup along the short wall. Long wall setup increases that size to 110" diagonal.

My take on the short-wall layout:

• Optimizes multi-channel A/V entertainment
• Accommodates reasonably high fidelity stereo playback
• Allows upgrade to 7.1 from 5.1
• Restricts subwoofer placement (unless one or more 2nd-row seats are removed)

My take on the long-wall layout:

• May not optimize 2-channel stereo listening
• Accommodates big-screen experience for MLP
• Theater experince deteriorates for non-MLP seats
• Retains 5.1 system with compromised surround locations
• Allows for subwoofer placement options.

? Thoughts ?

 

[JStewart]

a 100+ inch diagonal screen fits with room to spare when setup along the short wall.

Oh man, I feel so bad to say this, but the screen width for a 100" screen in 16:9 format is 87". Add a few more inches for the screen border.
Room Width 132" - 90" = 42", so 21" on either side of the screen.

The long wall sketch looks more promising. For this scenario if you want to keep the speakers in the same position I'd look what happens with a 92" (80" wide without a border) screen and moving it closer to the L/R speakers front baffle plane so that the speakers won't block the view of the outside seats and maybe adding a little toe-in to the outside seats. At 7 to 8 ft viewing distance a 92" screen will appear quite large as it would be closer than THX ideal. A possible downside here is it would fall intot he range where more pixels might help. The other interesting thing to consider with this scenario is a 75" flat panel has a THX viewing distance of 8.5 feet, that should be a strong contender too for this scenario.

Here's rtings size distance calculator with some other goodies for future reference https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

How embarrassing to have made so many simple mistakes.

 

[JStewart]

I wouldn’t be. That’s what this collaboration is for.

Personally my biggest worry is giving bad advice and having it followed. I can get over problems I make for myself. Not as easy for problems I might cause someone else. Not to mention the embarrassment.

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

I absolutely feel the love!

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

...I'd opt for a ceiling mount pull down acoustically transparent screen. Bigger will be better for the screen and give you a "theater" experience and you could at least place the Revels further from the sidewalls for your two channel it that helps.

Given that the short-wall scenario screams for a drop-down AT screen, and that the long-wall scenario would benefit from one located on the plane between speaker baffles, it seems logical to go down that road. Think I’ll reconsider some options and see what develops.

I’d like a little more time to digest all the useful info pouring in.

 

[Todd Anderson]

If two channel music is more important... there would no question for me using the long wall. If movies and surround are more important... I probably lean towards using the narrow wall.

I think there's a lot of wise-ness in this statement.

Secondarily, how important are the number of seats? I'm guessing more times than not that a solid row of five is less important?

 

[Todd Anderson]

Given that the short-wall scenario screams for a drop-down AT screen, and that the long-wall scenario would benefit from one located on the plane between speaker baffles, it seems logical to go down that road. Think I’ll reconsider some options and see what develops.

I’d like a little more time to digest all the useful info pouring in.

The drop-down AT screen is definitely an interesting idea. My biggest concern is quality/price. Have you checked out options by SeymourScreen Excellence? I've seen/heard their AT Screens in action at several CEDIA events. They are SUPER nice. The price might be high, tho. Fairly certain they make a retractable AT screen.

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

SUPER nice? Are they ever! Industry-leading velvet border hiding screen-tensioning mechanisms in a variety of sizes and shades. Plus they have AT screens, and all are reasonably priced compared to lower quality offerings on the market.

You’re right about price. The ones I’m considering run between $1800 and $2000. Combining that with $1k for a used projector and lamp leaves only $2k of my $6k budget. A little thin to spread between a sub and four surrounds which aren’t embarrassed in the Revels’ company.

To pull this off, I think I’ll need to plumb the depths of the used market and review my budget for sacrifices. Do I really need a top-of-the-line subwoofer to just idle along in that smallish space? Instead of an SVS SB16 Ultra, their SB4000 might do the trick. Fear beckons as I may be unable to squeeze-in the proper quality components.

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

I think there's a lot of wise-ness in this statement.

Secondarily, how important are the number of seats? I'm guessing more times than not that a solid row of five is less important?

Music is more important. I know what the Revels are capable of, and it pains me to stuff them in locations which severely compromise their audio magic. SQ is so mediocre with such constrained stage width and barely palpable image definition that I’ve curtailed my listening habits to the point they’re practically nonexistent.

Unhealthy!

I’ve also lived with video compromises in the Green Room for a long time, so without a comparable frame of reference, I don’t even know what I’m missing. My surrounds are currently stuffed high in the back corners and don’t contribute convincing special effects. Maybe with a bit of planning and a pair of dipole/bipole surrounds, I’ll be able to reverse that disadvantage. My biggest disappointment so far with long-wall setup is the possibility of poor surround sound due to inappropriate mounting locations (far enough from listener and properly aimed). I had planned on upgrading to 7.1 but I think I may need to stay at 5.1 and use dipole/bipole surrounds for extra coverage and dispersion.

The room will need minimum of four seats. I’m somewhat of an antisocial recluse, so don’t anticipate any bigger audiences. I will be the only participant the vast majority of the time (4 hours/day). My wife will keep me company 1-2 hours/day. Finally, the mother- and sister-in-law will join us maybe once a week—they have no concept of high fidelity sound and are basically indifferent to picture quality, so they probably won’t mind sitting far off-center or more in front of one speaker than another—they’ll be there for the company.

As for the occasional visitor who also happens to be an A/V enthusiast, I’ll give up the MLP. I’m not going to stress about smoothing bass across all seats, though it would be professional and courteous to remove line-of-sight obstacles from the design.

EDIT: Anti-social recluse? No concept of high-fidelity picture or sound? Was I off my meds?
Seems harsh with 20/20 hindsight. I am not an animal! Maybe rough drafts are in order.

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

Found a decent explanation of all things dipole/bipole here. No doubt I’ve some reading to do.

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

I’ve some decision-making and priority-setting do as well. That would definitely help avoid frustration and misguided effort on my part. Slowing down a bit and single-tasking wouldn’t hurt either.

You’ve all been great and didn’t deserve my earlier rant. Please understand I highly value video performance, but am passionate about audio. Please also understand I feel cursed with perfectionism, which sometimes cripples my progress. I do care about designing for my audience, whoever they are. And I’m not really an anti-social recluse; I’m just a lone-wolf.

My theater’s appearance and performance will reflect on both my personality and my skills. I’m less concerned with audience opinion than I am with personal pride and satisfaction. My goals will include offering my audience the best experience I can without compromising performance at the MLP.

I’m willing to try new methods and bust old habits You have all been extremely helpful in shortening my learning curve. Much appreciated. Oh my, look at the time! What time is it? It’s time to.... contemplate!

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

I highly value @AudiocRaver opinion regarding all things speaker-positioning. I’m hoping he’ll chime in on setup pitfalls and potential SQ when playing into the short dimension. Not that I don’t believe Sonnie’s earlier advice (against long-wall for music). I’m just trying to cash in on AudiocRaver’s extensive set up experience.

During the 35+ years spent in this hobby, it seems as if short-wall setup has always been the preferred system configuration. I believe the reason given had to do with wavelengths of the lower frequencies—give them a fighting chance to develop before being reflected. Is that Audiophile Urban Legend?

In any case, I’m specifically interested in whether he’d even try to set up on the long wall for best SQ in an 11x17 room. What sort of SS&I could be coaxed from the setup? How difficult would it be? I’ve set up on many a short-wall—including my current room—and have trouble recalling any that offered a convincing stage.

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

So far, you great people have me leaning toward a projector with AT pull-down screen set up on the long wall. Possible setup issues are listening and viewing distances. Optimize one, and the other goes out of whack.

Buyers’ remorse may also come into play for a projector/screen vs a TV due to size vs quality issues. I really value image quality (even if I am still rooted in 1080p) over size, so am naturally apprehensive about switching formats. Browsing the net for reassurance isn’t comforting because user satisfaction runs the gamut between disappointed and impressed. But I do trust the members here, some of whom have already expressed their confidence in being able to find a suitable projector on the cheap.

My mission, should I decide to accept it, is to select a room orientation, screen size, seating configuration, and seating distance which will allow decent video performance while accommodating exceptional audio.

EDIT: There’s no easy way out. I will eventually need to invest the sweat equity to arrange and rearrange the speaker/seating and screen/seating relationships

 

[NBPK402]

In my old setup I ran a SeymourAV AT screen, and loved it. I ran it on the short wall, and ran my front speakers behind the screen. Sounded great IMO. I would def look at making some room treatment panels. In myHT, and also a friend's HT it made a huge difference in the sound. Now my setup was with a fixed screen...not a pull down, but my next will most likely be a pull down screen.

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

In my old setup I ran a SeymourAV AT screen, and loved it. I ran it on the short wall, and ran my front speakers behind the screen. Sounded great IMO.

To sound great, my Revels need more space around them than they’d have behind a false 11’ wide wall. I recently found an SS&I set up guide I had previously followed on another site. IIRC, the solution for short wall set up in my current 9x13 room was indeterminate. I’ll need to crunch the numbers again for the new 11x17 room to see what precipitates.

I would def look at making some room treatment panels. In myHT, and also a friend's HT it made a huge difference in the sound.

It may come to that. My budget has no room for them. Luckily though, I already have eight absorptive/ diffractive wall panels, two bass traps, and four broadband traps.

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

After a fair amount of reading and number crunching, I’m starting to believe excellent SS&I will be difficult to achieve in my new room. @AudiocRaver ‘s SS&I setup procedure contains posts which reassure that the method works with its unconventionally close listening position and wide speaker locations.

But I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around the location of the speaker/LP “unit” relative to the room. While it is mentioned that the unit should be located symmetrically, it would be helpful to know what constitutes too small of a room, or how close to the sidewalls is too close.

Granted, the guide does spell out how to adjust different physical parameters to dial-in the soundstage and imaging after the basic theoretical ones (A,B, & C) have been derived. But it also warns that great SS&I might need extra work moving speakers and/or LP and starting over.

More and more, it seems as if putting theory into practice is going to take more than pencil and paper. Having to decide on long-wall/short-wall setup without knowing which supports good SS&I seems like a huge setback.

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

Here are the previously mentioned relationships where

• A is the distance between the LP and the speaker baffle plane
• B is the distance between speaker cabinet centerlines without toe-in
• C is the distance between the LP and the front wall
• D is the distance between speaker cabinet and front wall
• E is the distance between speaker cabinet and side wall

A = C / 2.4​

B = A x 1.4​

C = L(room) - D(LP-to-backwall)​

D = C - A - Dspkr​

E = [ (Wroom - B) / 2 ] - ( Wspkr / 2 )​

​

where Dspkr = 1’ 10” = 1.83’​

and Wspkr = 1’ 2” = 1.20’​

​

Long-wall Setup (favors audio reproduction?)
Wayne’s SS&I Starting Points Simple Method
[1] Pick LP 4’ off back wall
[2] C = 11’ long room - 4’ backwall clearance = 7’
[3] A = C / 2.4 = 2.92’
[4] B = A x 1.4 = 4.09’

Short-wall Setup (favors video presentation?)
Wayne’s SS&I Starting Points Simple Method
[1] Pick LP 4’ off back wall
[2] C = 17’ long room - 4’ backwall clearance = 13’
[3] A = C / 2.4 = 5.42’
[4] B = A x 1.4 = 7.59’

My theoretical long-wall setup positions the speakers only 4’ apart and roughly 3’ in front of the listener, though they are afforded a generous 5’ sidewall clearance!! That rubs against the grain of all my prior knowledge.

Likewise, short-wall results set off another feverish round of head-scratching. In this case, the 1.2’ wide Revels have a more traditional 7.5’ spacing about 5.5’ from the LP, but are jammed only 0.5’ from the sidewalls!!

Now, these relationships seemed odd compared to other speaker positioning methods I’m familiar with. Until I dived deeper into the thread, that is.

Wayne explains here (my emphasis):
“This all works out in most rooms anyway. We suggest always keeping the speakers at least 3 feet from the side walls, so in some smaller rooms the A, B, and C values must be reduced, keeping the same ratios, until that 3 feet guideline is satisfied.”

Another ‘doh’ moment on my part. Wayne also explains there are other options to arrive at the speaker starting positions. One method assigns LP location based on room length. Another works “backward” from fixed speaker or fixed LP locations. My focus will now be on finding if one of those options yields better results.

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

If all else fails, read the directions. I know, right!
...should have read more of Wayne’s speaker positioning method and options to help clarify my confusion.

Left to my own devices—that is, unless someone recommends otherwise—I plan to try and arrive at theoretical positioning of the LP/speaker relationships before proceeding with the HT considerations we’ve been discussing thus far.

I feel it’s necessary to derive proposed layouts for both the short and long wall configurations so that listening room vs home theater pros and cons can be compared. Is it even a good idea to start planning so far (a year) in advance? I might just be raising my hopes. But then again, the planning and shopping are educational and fun!

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

How often do OPs spam their own threads with their own posts, lol. Back again with another comment while I whittle away at my proposed layouts.

For this next round of tryouts, set room width to 3.13 units. Also set the speaker-wall / speaker-speaker / speaker-wall relationship to be
1:1.618:1 or 0.866:1.4:0.866. That means the proportional relationship ( B/1.4 = Wroom/3.13 )
yields B = 1.4 x ( Wroom / 3.13 ).
Then A and C can be calculated as before.

NOTE => The following scenario is indeterminate because It generated a value for C which was greater than the room length (=11ft).

Long-wall Setup (favors audio presentation?):
Wayne’s SS&I Start Points Complex Method
[1] Set Wroom = 17’ = 3.13 units
[2] B = 1.4 x ( Wroom / 3.13 ) = 7.60’
[3] A = B / 1.4 = 5.43’
[4] C = 2.4 x A = 13.03’
[5] D = 5.77’
[6] E = 4.1’

Short-wall Setup (favors video presentation?):
Wayne’s SS&I Start Points Complex Method
[1] Set Wroom = 11’ = 3.13 units
[2] B = 1.4 x ( Wroom / 3.13 ) = 4.92’
[3] A = B / 1.4 = 3.51’
[4] C = 2.4 x A = 8.42’
[5] D = 3.08’
[6] E = 2.44’

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

Another SS&I speaker set up option is to start with the LP defined according to room length.
Setting C = 2.4 units; B = 1.4 units; A= 1.0 units and ( L - C ) = 1.48 yields the proportional relationship [ (C/2.4) = (L-C)/1.48 ] or
C = L / 1.617

Long-wall Setup (favors audio presentation?):
Wayne’s SS&I Start Points Alternate Method
[1] C = L / 1.617 = 6.80’
[2] A = C / 2.4 = 2.83’
[3] B = 1.4A = 3.97’
[4] D = 2.14’
[5] E = 5.92’

Short-wall Setup (favors video presentation?):
Wayne’s SS&I Start Points Alternate Method
[1] C = L / 1.617 = 10.51’
[2] A = C / 2.4 = 4.38’
[3] B = 1.4A = 6.13’
[4] D = 4.75’
[5] E = 1.06’

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

None of the above speaker layouts are practical for a mixed-use, listening room / home theater. LP-to-speaker distances are too close to accommodate extra reclined seat length. Viewing angles are also not considered. Time to proceed with Wayne's 3rd SS&I setup option which takes other conditions and exceptions into account. I plan to nail down the LP location for sufficient reclining clearance to the speakers' baffle-plane. Speaker -to-sidewall clearance will also be manipulated in an attempt to arrive at reasonable compromises.

 

[NBPK402]

If you put your speakers on the narrow end...won't you have enough room?

 

[1_sufferin_mind]

Yes, Negatron, there's enough physical room. I'm playing with the numbers to see if I can theoretically coax better sound out of the necessary compromises.