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My Home Theatre Room Challenges - Is It Worth It To Upgrade Speakers

I have a very nice 2-channel stereo room where I love to listen to music by myself.  I am happy with the equipment and set-up in this room (at least for now).

Our family room (on the other side of our home) serves as our Home Theatre room and my wife and I watch a movie in this room together almost every night.  We recently upgraded to a Sony 83" A90J television and we love the picture quality.  

I consider sound quality to be just as important as picture quality when it comes to watching a good movie.  The 5.1.2 sound equipment in this room currently features:

  • Yamaha RX-1080 Surround Processor
  • Paradigm Prestige 15 Front Speakers on stands 
  • Martin Logan ESL Center Channel
  • Polk PSW1000 Powered Subwoofer
  • Paradigm Millenia 1 Overhead Speakers
  • Polk In Wall Rear Speakers
  • Room size = 20' wide X 18' deep (no rear wall)
  • Ceiling Height = 20' tall

The room has two big challenges:

  • WAF is critical - this is our family room, having front speakers that sit 4' out into the room is not going to happen
  • there are two couches that sit directly between the Front L&R speakers and our two primary listening chairs.

I would love to make a big and impactful improvement in sound quality in this room. I am currently considering replacing my two front main speakers (Paradigm Bookshelf 2-way speakers with 6" drivers) with full-sized speakers.  I am considering speakers, like perhaps a nice used pair of B&W 803 D2's, with the intent to dramatically improve base and be able to better fill the large room with sound.

Question:  Will the two couches block the sound improvement that I am trying to achieve?  (Right now my bookshelf speakers sit on stands which allows the soundwaves to not be blocked by my couches.)   Does this upgrade of front speakers in my large room seem like a logical first step?  I would love to hear from someone else who possible made some similar changes.

Thanks!

hikerneil
ghdprentice
6,969 posts
 

OP,

 

Great room… great to see what you are working with.

 

Sounds like your planned steps are good choices. 

hikerneil OP
36 posts
 

WAF is very important in this room - if it was 100% about sound quality I would go with some big full-sized speakers, add some huge subs, and add acoustic treatment - but that is why I have my 2-channel room.

 

ghdprentice
6,969 posts
 

OP,

If you have your two channel room… then your plan is even better. Sounds like this will bring your home theater to a great place… and future expenditures can be on your 2 channel system. HT is about credible sound with good bass punch for explosions and special effects. I think your plan gets this. 

maxwave's avatar
maxwave
978 posts
 

Acoustic treatment , first

Speaker calibration , second

 

 

hikerneil OP
36 posts
 

One more question:  I am zeroing in on adding the REL T7x sub to my system.  This sub has the ability to be wired with both High Level wiring (to speaker outputs) and also the LFE channel.

Should I add this sub to my Center Channel outputs, or the Front Right / Left outputs?  It seems like if I add the High Level wiring to my Center Channel that I would capture deeper voices etc on the center channel, while if I added it to my Front Left Right's I would hear it more on musical tracks.  Is that a simple way to look at it?

Since I only use this room for Movies and TV I am leaning toward adding it to my Center Channel.  In either case I will also hook up the LFE as well to take advantage of high impact sounds while watching movies.

Advice?

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