Take a look at VTV or Apollon for US based makers of multichannel Hypex or Purifi based amps. You could have them customize exactly what you want - 500 watts for bass, 250 or 125 for tweeter sections, etc. But you’re probably gonna need to use Wisdom’s SC2 and/or SC3 preamp/crossover which are proprietary and equalized for the speakers.
Finally found THE SPEAKER!!!
I have been a HiFi guy starting at 12 years old with my father passing along the love. We would spend almost every weekend auditioning speakers looking to find the perfect system. We purchased many speakers over the years and they all had their pros and cons, but the trade off always seemed to be nuanced and delicate vs. dynamic and punchy. When auditioning speakers people would always ask what kind of music do you like to listen to? Rock, female vocals, classical, etc... We had/have eclectic taste and would listen to it all. Why could't a speaker just play all of it?!?! Anyway my love for music, sound, etc... became my profession as I am now an Oscar nominated Supervising Sound Editor with well over 150 movies under my belt.
For the last 5 years I have been looking for speakers that can play films at reference levels with all the detail and punch, yet when I want to listen to music can give that nuanced and detailed imaging, space, air, articulation without being harsh and fatiguing. I have listened to SO MANY speakers and spent hundreds of hours auditioning everything I could find. I would fall in love with something for music and then try play one of my films at reference level and it just never gave me the impact I was looking for. I get it - hard to move a lot of air and still be nuanced and articulate. There are some excellent compression drivers/horns that can do the impact stuff, but for me they always have that harsh edge when it comes to music. The flip side with dome type tweeters I have found things have to be pushed to the edge to try to give that theatrical impact. Looking for the quick transient response of an electrostatic, with the punch of compression driver type of system.
Then a dealer recommend I listen to some speakers from Wisdom Audio. I have to admit I was pretty skeptical at first. I read about these and it all sounded like marketing to me, but the dealer I was talking with said he was blown away by them. So I reached out to the company and setup a demo. They use planar magnetics which is not exactly new, but is very difficult to manufacture. I asked them to have one of my films available to listen to. I chose one that I knew extremely well that has a LOT of dynamic punch as well as subtle nuance. I live in Los Angeles and the company is in Carson City, Nevada. I bought an airplane ticket and I was off. I was treated to a tour of the factory and shown how the speakers were made. USA manufactured!! Then we spent a few hours listening to all types of music on different ranges of speakers. I LOVED what I was hearing with the music part of the audition. Then I asked to hear my film in their theater. I expected to be disappointed based on what I had experienced in the past. Then it happened... I heard the film play and it sounded AMAZING! These speakers could do it all!!! No compression, no fatigue, HiFi sound and still able to play theatrical film tracks as they are meant to be heard. In fact - better! I called my wife in disbelief that my search for "The Speakers" was finally over! I even called my father to tell him what I had just heard. It was the impressive! I remind you - I do this for a living!
Since we are undergoing a major remodel at our home, my wife expected that the family room was going to be filled with big speakers as she has become accustomed to living with me. With some of these Wisdom Audio speakers, they are actually designed to be flush mounted in the wall. I thought there is no way a wall mounted speaker could ever sound as good as a traditional speaker. I was so wrong!! So not only did I find the perfect speaker, but not big boxes in the room 3 feet away from any walls! My wife was thrilled.
If you have never heard speakers by Wisdom Audio you need to find a dealer where you can audition them, or fly to the factory for a private demo!
Best,
Andrew
For the last 5 years I have been looking for speakers that can play films at reference levels with all the detail and punch, yet when I want to listen to music can give that nuanced and detailed imaging, space, air, articulation without being harsh and fatiguing. I have listened to SO MANY speakers and spent hundreds of hours auditioning everything I could find. I would fall in love with something for music and then try play one of my films at reference level and it just never gave me the impact I was looking for. I get it - hard to move a lot of air and still be nuanced and articulate. There are some excellent compression drivers/horns that can do the impact stuff, but for me they always have that harsh edge when it comes to music. The flip side with dome type tweeters I have found things have to be pushed to the edge to try to give that theatrical impact. Looking for the quick transient response of an electrostatic, with the punch of compression driver type of system.
Then a dealer recommend I listen to some speakers from Wisdom Audio. I have to admit I was pretty skeptical at first. I read about these and it all sounded like marketing to me, but the dealer I was talking with said he was blown away by them. So I reached out to the company and setup a demo. They use planar magnetics which is not exactly new, but is very difficult to manufacture. I asked them to have one of my films available to listen to. I chose one that I knew extremely well that has a LOT of dynamic punch as well as subtle nuance. I live in Los Angeles and the company is in Carson City, Nevada. I bought an airplane ticket and I was off. I was treated to a tour of the factory and shown how the speakers were made. USA manufactured!! Then we spent a few hours listening to all types of music on different ranges of speakers. I LOVED what I was hearing with the music part of the audition. Then I asked to hear my film in their theater. I expected to be disappointed based on what I had experienced in the past. Then it happened... I heard the film play and it sounded AMAZING! These speakers could do it all!!! No compression, no fatigue, HiFi sound and still able to play theatrical film tracks as they are meant to be heard. In fact - better! I called my wife in disbelief that my search for "The Speakers" was finally over! I even called my father to tell him what I had just heard. It was the impressive! I remind you - I do this for a living!
Since we are undergoing a major remodel at our home, my wife expected that the family room was going to be filled with big speakers as she has become accustomed to living with me. With some of these Wisdom Audio speakers, they are actually designed to be flush mounted in the wall. I thought there is no way a wall mounted speaker could ever sound as good as a traditional speaker. I was so wrong!! So not only did I find the perfect speaker, but not big boxes in the room 3 feet away from any walls! My wife was thrilled.
If you have never heard speakers by Wisdom Audio you need to find a dealer where you can audition them, or fly to the factory for a private demo!
Best,
Andrew
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- 135 posts total
@dukeofdoowop I have too have a less than stellar setup for audio! It is what it is! Well if the DX is low overall, I would simply start by raising the center channel around 3dB. This should make an immediate improvement. If you add some mild compression you might find things falling into a much more comfortable place for you and others. I don't know for sure, but it is possible that if we adjust the center channel level manually (within the preamp) it might turn off Audyssey. Hmm. According to the manual, you should be able to see on the front panel if the DYNAMIC EQ and DYNAMIC VOL are lit up - hence engaged. You should be able to adjust these settings directly from your remote. I couldn't find a way to attach photos so if you look on your remote the #9 key will have DYN EQ/VOL above it. By pressing this it will change the settings accordingly: 1.DYNAMIC EQ: OFF DYNAMIC VOL: OFF 2. Dynamic EQ: ON Dynamic Vol: Heavy (most compression) 3. Dynamic EQ: ON Dynamic Vol: Medium 4. Dynamic EQ: ON Dynamic Vol: Light (least amount of compression) 5 Dynamic EQ: ON Dynamic Vol: OFF This should easily and quickly adjust these setting from your remote without having to dig deep into the menu settings and try a setting that might help you. The #8 on your remote will get you directly to the channel level settings. There you should be able to scroll down to the Center channel and hit select it and bump it up 3dB. My only concern with this adjustment is whether it will disable you Audyssey calibration or not. Hopefully not, but I can't say for sure as I am not familiar with this preamp I couldn't find the info in the manual as to what it might do. As for you speaker setup in a room 30x15 I guessed 10' heigh for ceiling and doing a quick look using REW software. (https://www.roomeqwizard.com) Your one subwoofer in the corner is actually a reasonable spot based on your room dimensions and your listening position. One sub is actually always difficult to get the smoothest curves and it shows you will have significant bumps at 37.7Hz, 52.9Hz 67.5Hz, but assuming you using the Audyssey crossover at 80Hz the dip I see at 107 Hz shouldn't be a problem. Audyssey should have made the appropriate EQ adjustments to tamp down the bumps. Of course the best instrument we have is our ears! These tools help us get a good idea of what is going on, but listening is the ultimate test! Let me know if this helps. Like I said - I would definitely tweak the system you have before feeling the need to buy new speakers! |
@drewde -- Great thread and -initiation. I must say that I cherish your insights and where you come from, not least also in regards to your extensive background in the movie sound mix industry, and how I believe this to relate to my own approach and preference with sound reproduction in a domestic setting. A lot to process for sure in what has unspooled in the posts so far, so this, as an outset at least, will be a condensed or fragmented contribution of mine. I've heard of (but never actually heard) the Wisdom Audio speakers that you've come across with their, per your take, favorable ability to bridge the "nuance and delicacy vs. dynamics and punch" chasm expressed by you. To many an audiophile I'm guessing this is not a dichotomy at all, being the latter part of the "equation" (i.e.: dynamics and punch, certainly as called for with the more uninhibited home movie sound reproduction) isn't that important to them: "There's no way I would subject a good pair of speakers designed to reveal separate instruments in an ensemble or do justice to a folksinger plus guitars, banjo, string bass, and so on." No offense, but this in a nutshell expresses my frustration over the many years of listening to loudspeakers. Why not have a speaker that can deliver everything? Every single speaker that I have heard in the past that supposedly were intended to deliver the nuance of an ensemble, etc... well they couldn't even play at a level that remotely came close to what an orchestra can reproduce in those moments I wanted to listen to them, let alone playback rock, country and forget about film. Completely agree with your response. My 2.2 channel set-up is one to take duties of both music (HDD-based and Tidal Hi-fi) and movie playback (Blu-ray's/UHD's) - sans surrounds and center channel, that is, and this is because it's first and foremost and music system through-and-through and dialed in as such, though very closely followed as a HT ditto. The great thing in this specific situation is that one doesn't exclude the other, meaning its qualities into music reproduction complements the sound I'm looking for with movies as well, and that's going by references of live venues (acoustic as well as amplified) and cinematically more akin to IMAX theatres than regular cinemas. This is realized with main speakers that are 2-way pro cinema speakers from Electro-Voice with a horn MF/HF and dual 15" woofer/mids, and two subs that are 15"-loaded tapped horns (20 cf. volume a piece). This may seem brute at first in a home setting, and it is or certainly can be, but the "secret sauce" that makes it a delicate and nuanced performer to boot is careful implementation and a fully active configuration. Active really makes it more resolved, transparent and less signature sounding - a win-win, if you ask me - and ample displacement and headroom translates sonically into ease and a visceral quality rarely if ever heard with smaller and lower efficiency speakers. Where I've sacrificed a bit with movie playback is giving up on the 10-20Hz range, which may seem preposterous to some, but given select movie titles (and there are not few of them) and very potent sub set-ups with huge displacement and amp power this very low octave can produce shudder effects and pressurization that can be very much felt. Tuning a sub set-up that low however, subjectively at least, takes away some of liveliness and impact of the central bass region, which is enormously important for music as well (hence this being a music set-up predominantly). Still, reproduction down to 20-25Hz at full click is no slouch by any stretch of the imagination. The dynamic range of movies is something I cherish wholeheartedly, and I find it to be an important test for one's set-up also in regard to music playback. I'm dialing in the ref. volume with dialogue and where it sounds naturally present, and the rest of the sound spectrum simply revolves around that in a way that makes a movie breath sonically - be it quieter titles or more action laden ones. With Mr. Nolan's latest 'Tenet' offering that's truly LOUD when the action kicks in, and in my listening space boarders "saturation" levels throughout the movie at ref. (per dialogue) volume. I adore Nolan's very conscious approach to sound mixing hearing it really take off as such from 'The Dark Knight' and onwards, and while my adoration includes 'Tenet' it's at the brink I find in its sheer loudness that's more suitably compatible with bigger spacings; at the digital IMAX theatre I saw it the first time around the sound level span seemed to benefit a bit from the large auditorium. At the other dynamic range scale with have most of Disney's home video Blu-ray and UHD releases these last years that are mixed with low ref. volume, timid dynamics and weak bass response - a travesty, really. Any insights on why they've been going this route almost consistently for years now? It may keep soundbars from blowing up, but it sure as h... is an unfortunate benchmark for those of us who care much more about proper dynamic swings, overall presence of presentation and LF prowess. Uninhibited dynamics are utterly important with music and not least movies. I own Criterion's Blu-ray of the David Fincher's 'The Game,' and it sports a near field and theatrical mix. I prefer the latter as the more expansive mix that breathes more naturally to me, and therefore I'm happy that they left it there for us to savor in addition to the near field mix. I hope we won't see diminishment with regard to dynamic range to cater, if you would, to the lowest denominator, but will at least uphold the theatrical mix- if nothing else as an option. |
@snbeal Thank you for your input. Yes I loved the Meridians. Beautiful speakers! I too "dabbled" with Thiel back in the day so not as much recently. I also enjoyed some Revel speakers for a bit too. To get that level of sound that doesn't need to take up floor space really won my wife over! Which of course is a huge win for me!!! You are right about needing processor with an active crossover and also needing a lot of amps with a lot of power. Do you have any recommendations for amps using the Hypex modules? Trinnov is definitely on the short list of processors as is StormAudio. For a while Datasat was going to be it, but... Thank you for your thoughtful responses!!! Much appreciated! Drew |
- 135 posts total