thoughts on Home Theater pls (sunfire cinema ribbon) or other

[aaronz28]

Greetings -

I'm looking to install some home theater speakers in my basement -

the room doubles as my hi-fi listening area - but I do not intend on using the system for both.

The room is about 9' wide - and I have a screen that takes up about 7 1/2' - so that leaves approx 6-10" on each side of the screen for wall mounted speakers.... OR - some small bookshelfs that could sit atop my main Hi-Fi speakers.

The main HI-FIs are old JBL Soveriengs - which are on stands elevating and pitching them up. Between the jBLs are the tube amps for them - but there is room above them to mount a center speaker right below the screen - (maybe 2 1/2' wide)

The room depth is the entire width of the basement - so 2.5x longer than it is wide.

My reciever is an Anthem MRX710 (couple years old - but still fantatic)

The ceiling is open rafter and only about 7' tall - floor is concrete with a bunch of throw rugs - walls are panel over concrete block.

I had been considering a used set of Sunfire Cinema Ribbons - but they might be overkll in such a small space - maybe not - but they can be wall mounted right next to the screen - and virtually disappear.... or the smaller versions that could effectively sit on my JBLs.

Another thought would be just to have towers sit out in front of the jbls - but i really don't want to keep moving them in and out when I listen to Hifi or a movie.... the bigest issu is that whatever speaker I go with - will literally be right up against the side walls....

Any advice? I am looking at used stuff to try to keep the R/C/L speakers at or under 1k if possible as i also want to replace my sides/backs and subs with something that matches.

Thanks

 

[damacman]

Is there a particular reason that you can't use the JBLs as both your 2ch mains and your L&R for HT?

 

[aaronz28]

Becuase they are wired into tube amps and a tune pre - unrelated to my HT reciever

 

[KevinJS]

Sounds like a golden opportunity to buy 3 identical speakers for L/C/R and mount them behind the screen. The advantage with this is that the speakers won't be seen, so it doesn't matter how big and ugly they are. I've seen this approach used many times on home theatre forums. You should be able to find room for a couple of subs too, placing them between the L/C/R speakers.

 

[swechsler]

Becuase they are wired into tube amps and a tune pre - unrelated to my HT reciever

This issue could be gotten around with by using a 12V 4PDT (4 pole, double throw) relay connected to the trigger output on your Anthem. Use the NC contacts to connect the speakers to your tube amp, and the NO contacts to the Anthem. The common contacts go to the speakers and the trigger goes to the coil. When the Anthem is turned on the relay will engage and switch the speakers from the tube amp to the Anthem.

Or you can use something like this that detects a signal on the B input and automatically switches to it. It's designed exactly for your situation.

 

[jazzmans]

I've got two pairs of those dayton planar tweets that are used in the sunfire speakers, and I'd say based on what those ribbons sound like go get a pair if you can find them for a reasonable price.
They are fantastic sounding tweeters, I'd love to own a pair of the speakers

 

[westend]

Well, you could use a speaker switch but with 5.1 or 7.1 for viewing, it's better to have 5 or 7 equally matched speakers, or two pair with a center "voice" bar, a subwoofer, and the Anthem. I watch with just two channel or two channel and a subwoofer. It's more about my small living space than what I would choose for a good HT experience.

 

[damacman]

Becuase they are wired into tube amps and a tune pre - unrelated to my HT reciever

A tube preamp with HT Pass Thru solves the problem.

 

[c_dk]

Ten years or so ago, Miller and Kreisal, M&K built some of the best home theater and professional mix down theater systems available. All were based on theater LCR main speakers and were available in all price points. The consumer products imploded in think 10 years ago but Ken Kresial I believe is still building pro systems.

Reviving one of these now legacy systems or replicating one with current LCR designs would give you a excellent system.

 

[StimpyWan]

Ten years or so ago, Miller and Kreisal, M&K built some of the best home theater and professional mix down theater systems available. All were based on theater LCR main speakers and were available in all price points. The consumer products imploded in think 10 years ago but Ken Kresial I believe is still building pro systems.

M&K speakers, subs included, are very nice. SOTA. The first brand with a sub-sat system (I believe). Also, while Ken Kreisel still designs products for Kreisel Sound, M&K is still marketing consumer products. There was a power struggle between USA M&K vs. their EU distributor (along with the Chinese factory building certain M&K models). Long story short, M&K closed their US operations, declared bankruptcy, and the EU distributor bought all rights, and still markets and sells their version of M&K. The new M&K gear continues to get positive reviews. It's just the politics of the situation that irked me.

 

[c_dk]

M&K brought in a new marketing manager who insisted they needed 5 or 6 different finishes for their speaker cabinets, so of coarse they never had what you needed in stock.

That said they knew how to do center channel based theater correctly and were slouch when it came to stereo also.

They made much of their connection to many well known movie production houses in the advertising that we could therefore not help promote also. A local client called me on it, had a buddy of his whose job was being on call 24/7 to keep the digitizing machines functioning converting film to digital files. Asked his buddy to report back next time he was in a production house repairing a encoder. They had almost a dozen M&K systems on various mix down stations. A check was soon received for a complete M&K 150 thx system.

I can not remember what their little itty bitty system was called anymore but I do have one stashed away in closet somewhere that my kids used to use. For somewhere around a $1000.00 was a quite impressive little 6 speaker system.