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Thread: Can't decide between Horizon LCR, or Sierra 2s LR with Horizon C

  1. #21
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    Default Re: Can't decide between Horizon LCR, or Sierra 2s LR with Horizon C

    Quote Originally Posted by yesplease View Post
    That Rhythmic sub was my choice if I went ported. It's an exceptional performer and great bang for the buck. I wish that Data Bass had tested the current version with the new amp (and driver?).
    I thought I read somewhere that the new amp and I think driver was able to yield 2 or 3 dB more output throughout the frequency response band. But, the new FVX15 is said to have 2 or 3 dB less output than the FV15Hp, which means that the new sub would have about the same as the sub that Josh Ricci measured a few years ago for a cheaper price. That's if what I remember reading somewhere is correct.

    I figured I would share this with another basshead:

    http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=s...d=115&mset=127

    If that Seaton sub doesn't work out maybe you can build this 24" sealed sub. I think this should have enough clean output for you.

  2. #22
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    Default Re: Can't decide between Horizon LCR, or Sierra 2s LR with Horizon C

    NBoros,

    When you moved your couch away from the wall, did you leave the QS8s on the side walls behind the listening position? Or where they on the back wall?

    I may not have time to listen to the whole setup with the qs8s before their return period expires. Right now, having an Ascend model as direct firing surrounds on the side walls about a foot from the rear corner, 6.5-7ft up, facing each other is sounding like an option.

  3. #23
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    Default Re: Can't decide between Horizon LCR, or Sierra 2s LR with Horizon C

    Also considering these: http://www.svsound.com/speakers/ultra-surround

    They are expensive. However, they are very high quality with lots of flexibility:

    Bipole - both sets of drivers in phase.
    Dipole mode - both sets of drivers out of phase.
    Duet mode - each set of drivers receives a discrete signal. For 7.1 with only 2 speakers.
    58 Hz-32 kHz (+/-3 dB)
    18 lbs each.

  4. #24
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    Default Re: Can't decide between Horizon LCR, or Sierra 2s LR with Horizon C

    Quote Originally Posted by yesplease View Post
    NBoros,

    When you moved your couch away from the wall, did you leave the QS8s on the side walls behind the listening position? Or where they on the back wall?

    I may not have time to listen to the whole setup with the qs8s before their return period expires. Right now, having an Ascend model as direct firing surrounds on the side walls about a foot from the rear corner, 6.5-7ft up, facing each other is sounding like an option.
    I moved them to the side walls. The side surrounds should be to the side of you if at all possible. It was much more enveloping than when my couch was up against the back wall. I had them slightly behind the listening position too.

  5. #25
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    Default Re: Can't decide between Horizon LCR, or Sierra 2s LR with Horizon C

    Edited: Reset AVR and reran Audyssey and got a crossover of 90hz for the QS8s. That's good enough for me.
    Last edited by yesplease; 10-25-2015 at 11:39 AM.

  6. #26
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    Default Re: Can't decide between Horizon LCR, or Sierra 2s LR with Horizon C

    Wow! I've spent the last 6 months and many hundreds of hours working on my system. Mainly, researching and A/B testing different placement options, speakers and receivers. Just reread this thread and I can't believe some of the awful ideas that I had.

    Short Version (all IMHO with ascend speakers in my room(s), of course)

    1. Ended up going with a 5.2.4 setup: RAAL towers, Horizon RAAL, HTM-200se for surrounds and tops, 2 SVS SB13 subs, Arcam AVR550 receiver, Anthem MCA 325 amp for fronts, Onkyo 2 channel amps for tops.

    2. Among other things, Audyssey XT32 destroyed the lower bass, center channel and front soundstage in my room(and don't get me started on the awfulness of Dynamic EQ boosting the surrounds and atmos speakers making them too prominent and totally ruining the balance with the fronts). I will never use it again. And this is after reading hundreds of pages worth of tips and tech from multiple forums and trying every mic placement combo I could find with 3 different receivers (4100, 4200, 6200) in multiple rooms. I have to re-watch so many movies again to hear what I missed.

    3. Anthem ARC is very good and so much better then Audyssey, it’s not even a contest. But Dirac Live is definitely better and the results in my room have been nothing short of amazing. What it does for the clarity from the center channel and the front soundstage is some sort of witchcraft and it really does sound like the lifting of a veil. During my A/B testing, using the same scenes that I’ve watched 40+ times already, it was like hearing them for the first time. And the ability to set your own target curves quickly and easily is great. The house curve (default) has worked really well for me so far.

    If you’ve never tried Dirac, you have no idea what you could be missing. I didn’t want to believe it at first, so I did 25+ hours of testing including over 3 weeks including blind tests and getting the opinions of normal non-crazy people. It really was shocking for both me and the normals. And all of this is in a former bedroom with 2 medium and 1 large window and no acoustic treatment. I also cannot place the seating in the best location for sound, which is 18" forward of the current location, because I need to be further away from the TV then most people.

    Another benefit is you may actually want to listen at a lower level because everything is so clear and the sound is no lounger muffled and the soundstage sounds so much bigger. I was listening at -5 to -7db and even reference level for some quieter movies. Now, I’m at -10 to -12 for most movies.

    4. Me before:"Diffuse surround sound is good!" Yea, no... it's not. I will never use a bipole/dipole/tripole/quadpole speaker ever again. It was a night and day difference for me. Now, when I hear diffuse sound it's actually more distracting because it sounds different (muffled or obscured) then the rest of the sound I'm hearing from the fronts. It also clearly ruined the directional sound cues that correlate with the actions on the screen.

    5. I cannot say enough good things about the Horizon with RAAL (and the towers as well). It is the least “speaker sounding” speaker I’ve ever heard. It’s like the voices and instruments are there in the room. Hearing it and the towers for the first time was an experience I will never forget. I haven't heard a speaker that I clearly prefer over it and I can't imagine getting any more satisfaction then I do from this speaker.

    6. Atmos, done right, is 100% worth the trouble. Don’t worry about the lack of encoded Atmos content. The upmixer does a fantastic job. The planes, helicopters, rain etc being overhead is really fantastic, but something unexpected that I really enjoy is the background music effects coming from the tops as well. It really adds some great ambience to the scene. For me, sound from the top is the final piece of the puzzle to create that immersive effect during the movie.

    7. Properly placed 5.1.4 is soooo much better then poorly placed 7.1.4. Also, don’t be afraid to put the surrounds higher then ear level if there are going to be obstructions like seat backs and heads in the way. I was lucky enough that 12” above ear level gave a direct line of sight to the speakers and was right at Dolby’s “don’t go above half the room’s height” recommendation. It makes no sense to have bad surround coverage just to meet Atmos specs.

    8. I also recommend building some stands for atmos speaker location testing. I used 8’ adjustable height tripod speaker stands with a 2x4 across them. These are the stands made for pro speakers on a stage. I then attached the speakers to the 2x4s. This was very useful before making permanent holes in the ceiling. For me, the distance of the speaker from the listening position had a big effect on the sound bubble and whether or not they were overpowering, or had almost no effect. Both my fronts and backs sounded best being much closer to the minimum angles then the max. Front to back/back to front panning is also still very good without having a lot of distance between them.

    I spent so much time researching and testing that I could go on about this for pages and pages, so just let me know if you need more detail or clarification.
    Last edited by yesplease; 04-22-2016 at 10:08 AM.

  7. #27
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    Default Re: Can't decide between Horizon LCR, or Sierra 2s LR with Horizon C

    That's an impressive system! I'd be interested in hearing more about your Dirac setup. That is through the Arcam, right? I was initially confused because of the external amps which lead me to think you had a MiniDSP DDRC-88A in there somewhere. Was the setup process similar to Audyssey? Does the Arcam allow you to modify the house curve?

    Todd

  8. #28
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    Default Re: Can't decide between Horizon LCR, or Sierra 2s LR with Horizon C

    Fantastic write up, yesplease!!! I currently have a 5.2 setup and went with a Marantz AV7701 for my pre/pro (700 bucks on Accessories 4 Less). The AV7702 was 300 bucks more, but I decided I wouldn't be going for atmos any time soon and I didn't think I would need the extra subwoofer EQ because of how fantastic my Rythmik F12's would sound. Well, I was right about the subs (they sound fantastic), but Audyssey XT is pretty darn lacking, and people say XT32 is so much better. Well, this has put the last nail in the coffin for Audyssey for me. I'm really not impressed with the results at all and it's good to know that XT32 isn't much better.

    I was thinking of getting the MiniDSP-88A to add Dirac capabilities to my system, but man, now I'm thinking that saving up for an Arcam, or waiting for Emotiva to release a processor with atmos capabilities. It looks like the immersive audio scene is really getting good enough to finally invest in, especially with Dirac making it's way into more and more products.

    Great information here, thanks for writing this. I agree that the Sierra Towers and Horizon with RAALs are incredible. Mine have brought me a great amount of joy and I can't wait to get a better room to put them in and better room correction software and acoustic treatments.

  9. #29
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    Default Re: Can't decide between Horizon LCR, or Sierra 2s LR with Horizon C

    Quote Originally Posted by sludgeogre View Post
    Well, I was right about the subs (they sound fantastic), but Audyssey XT is pretty darn lacking, and people say XT32 is so much better. Well, this has put the last nail in the coffin for Audyssey for me. I'm really not impressed with the results at all and it's good to know that XT32 isn't much better.
    I think that Audyssey is very much room dependent. Here are some of the results I have had with Audyssey MultiEqXT on my Onkyo 805. Several years ago I was living in a house where my home theater was set up in my living room, that was quite small, only about 12x17X8, with thick carpet, heavy drapes and stuffed furniture that was almost too much for such a small room. When I ran Audyssey several times, I was pretty underwhelmed, to where I didn't really hear much difference at all.
    When I moved to a rental house for about a year I didn't even want to bother with Audyssey, since I didn't think it would do much. In the rental house I was in a very different room, a huge open basement. Bass from my Outlaw LFM1 subwoofer was underwhelming and dialog was sometimes unclear.

    Having moved to another more permanent house, I again have my home theater in a large open basement, close to 10,000 cubic feet it is open to, even though it is finished and divided into rooms. After a couple of years I figured I would give Audyssey a try. Before running it I experimented with different subwoofer placements that were near a corner, to bring some life back into the sub in this enormous space. I wanted to get it close to the corner, where large peaks are okay, but not really any big nulls. Then I ran Audyssey and played with the 0/180 phase switch on the sub. I was shocked at the difference Audyssey made to the sound. While it wasn't able to completely pull down a peak at 65 Hz and 130 Hz (I am guessing that this is a room mode), the bass region from 100 Hz down to 20 Hz is quite flat, checking with sweeps. Also, it seems like my surround setup came to life. The soundstage got larger. I am hearing subtle details that I didn't hear before in soundtracks I am familiar with. Everything sounds balanced now. Also, the 0/180 switch on my sub made a huge difference! Before, there was a big null from 70 to 85Hz, which went away by just flipping the switch and rerunning Audyssey. I checked with sweeps and the null didn't just move, and I didn't get an new peaks, it just kind of fixed the problem.

    I bet MultEqXT32 with SubEq with its higher resolution filters would have done an even better job pulling down some of those peaks missed by MultEqXT. When I upgrade to a couple of more capable subs for my huge space I plan to get a receiver with this more advanced version of Audyssey or possibly Dirac. Though my current sub can't pressurize, my huge space, Audyssey helped be bring it to life while I am waiting for the bigger subs.

    I'm thinking about putting up a wall to get the size of the theater area down and to give me more of a predictable, well studied rectangular room. Also, I will likely play around with absorption and diffusion panels. But, I was shocked at the difference that Audyssey MultEqXT made in my current setup, when it is really just supposed to be a cherry on top, after getting everything else right. If Dirac can improve things even further, then I will definitely keep it in mind for when I upgrade my receiver in the future. But, I wouldn't just write off Audyssey altogether.


    P.S. Excellent writeup Yesplease.

  10. #30
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    Default Re: Can't decide between Horizon LCR, or Sierra 2s LR with Horizon C

    Indeed, the room counts for a lot and the room I have right now is terrible. Vaulted ceiling, open room, untreated walls, sliding glass door, it's not good. Audyssey helped me get my distances and levels right, but I don't notice any difference with having it engaged for room correction. I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the room.

    The other thing is that my subs are fully capable of pressurizing most of the room, but there's a big null right at the listening position because the sofa is about halfway in the big open room. I can't move it forward or back at all, so it really sucks. I'll be moving in 6 months or so and I can't wait to have a dedicated 14x19 room for my theater. I am hoping that Audyssey Mult EQXT has a better impact in that room and gives me some more vertical dispersion and vocal clarity.

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