uudruid74
New Member
First, a bit about myself. I'm new to this forum, but been around pro audio my entire life. Both my parents, a few of my uncles, and even a couple aunts of mine all worked at MXR back in the 70s and early 80s. That meant that the friends of the family were MXR employees and family gatherings were the MXR company picnics. One of those uncles produced an album and became a Nashville sound engineer, another uncle started up ART, and one of my aunts managed bands in the late 80s and early 90s in LA.
So anyway, I'm a little kid at the company picnic and whenever a band wasn't playing, I could hear music being pumped through these huge speakers, even when I was at the far end of the park climbing the hill. They just sounded incredible. The EV Sentry III can't be beat outdoors! The original owner lost them in a poker game to my uncle John, who's wife claimed they were too big for the living room. Guess who got them? Yup! Me! For the cost of shipping! I looked around to see who was top refurbisher at the time, and I heard to take them to Freeman Tuel in Dallas (long gone now) and I happened to be in Dallas! I had the Sentry EQ at one time, but decided the "punchy" bass was better than trying to make them go lower - I'd rather just add a subwoofer, but when you have 15" woofers that go as low as a Sentry III, what do you use for a sub?? So I waited.
I had kept them on the Harmon Kardon receiver they grew up with, but it was falling apart bad, and the channels started to fade and I eventually grabbed a nice H/K PA2200 amp. This MOSFET loved those speakers! That was mated to an MXR preamp for awhile, then a mixing console, and eventually all those things faded and died, the speakers needed surrounds again, and the wood needed a refinish (I was away for awhile someone watered plants on the top of the speakers). OK - so it's time to fix the Sentry's and upgrade everything else. I decided it was time to bi-amp, grab a sub, some surround speakers, and a center!
The surrounds are cheap Sony tower speakers (better than "satellites" or sound bars!), the receiver is a Sony STR-DH770 with the extra 2 channels configured as front bi-amp channels. It seems to block the Dolby Vision to the TV (Vizio m-series ... great stuff). Center channel is a Boston Acoustics micro 90c (nice and clear) that I picked up for $25 or so. The steal was the sub. It's a Klipsch KSW200, a 12" 200W powered down-firing monster that shakes the house! Retail was $650 new. My price was $25 and the gas to get it, just a few blocks from a meeting I was going to be at anyway! The BluRay is a LG UP-970 .. cheapest one that supports Dolby Vision. I use the second "audio" output of the BluRay player to the Sony so I can get the newer, (hopefully) uncompressed audio at the higher bitrates and sampling resolutions now supported by Bluray. Everything else is streamed to the TV (built-in Chromecast Ultra) so the TOSLINK optical output of the TV routes all other audio to the Sony. I had to pull the Sony's HDMI connection to the TV as it would prevent it from listening to the BluRay. The Sony is temporary - I hate it!
Yes, there are problems where I have to do a lot of manual switching which wouldn't be needed if I got a receiver that passed through the Dolby Vision, but that would be cost prohibitive. Instead, I use a $5 Broadlink Blackbean Wifi to IR gateway connected to my WiFi and some home-built software to create my own smart-remote. The remote is in HTML and runs as a web app on anything with a browser and I can make my own buttons in HTML and have them learn and send commands to any device I want, even sequences/macros. I refinished the Sen trys, but I'm still working on the grills. I found a lighter color makes them look smaller. The black just looked bad, so I bought vintage "wheat" grill cloth. I'm still working on the wood frame for the grill.
So anyway, I'm a little kid at the company picnic and whenever a band wasn't playing, I could hear music being pumped through these huge speakers, even when I was at the far end of the park climbing the hill. They just sounded incredible. The EV Sentry III can't be beat outdoors! The original owner lost them in a poker game to my uncle John, who's wife claimed they were too big for the living room. Guess who got them? Yup! Me! For the cost of shipping! I looked around to see who was top refurbisher at the time, and I heard to take them to Freeman Tuel in Dallas (long gone now) and I happened to be in Dallas! I had the Sentry EQ at one time, but decided the "punchy" bass was better than trying to make them go lower - I'd rather just add a subwoofer, but when you have 15" woofers that go as low as a Sentry III, what do you use for a sub?? So I waited.
I had kept them on the Harmon Kardon receiver they grew up with, but it was falling apart bad, and the channels started to fade and I eventually grabbed a nice H/K PA2200 amp. This MOSFET loved those speakers! That was mated to an MXR preamp for awhile, then a mixing console, and eventually all those things faded and died, the speakers needed surrounds again, and the wood needed a refinish (I was away for awhile someone watered plants on the top of the speakers). OK - so it's time to fix the Sentry's and upgrade everything else. I decided it was time to bi-amp, grab a sub, some surround speakers, and a center!
The surrounds are cheap Sony tower speakers (better than "satellites" or sound bars!), the receiver is a Sony STR-DH770 with the extra 2 channels configured as front bi-amp channels. It seems to block the Dolby Vision to the TV (Vizio m-series ... great stuff). Center channel is a Boston Acoustics micro 90c (nice and clear) that I picked up for $25 or so. The steal was the sub. It's a Klipsch KSW200, a 12" 200W powered down-firing monster that shakes the house! Retail was $650 new. My price was $25 and the gas to get it, just a few blocks from a meeting I was going to be at anyway! The BluRay is a LG UP-970 .. cheapest one that supports Dolby Vision. I use the second "audio" output of the BluRay player to the Sony so I can get the newer, (hopefully) uncompressed audio at the higher bitrates and sampling resolutions now supported by Bluray. Everything else is streamed to the TV (built-in Chromecast Ultra) so the TOSLINK optical output of the TV routes all other audio to the Sony. I had to pull the Sony's HDMI connection to the TV as it would prevent it from listening to the BluRay. The Sony is temporary - I hate it!
Yes, there are problems where I have to do a lot of manual switching which wouldn't be needed if I got a receiver that passed through the Dolby Vision, but that would be cost prohibitive. Instead, I use a $5 Broadlink Blackbean Wifi to IR gateway connected to my WiFi and some home-built software to create my own smart-remote. The remote is in HTML and runs as a web app on anything with a browser and I can make my own buttons in HTML and have them learn and send commands to any device I want, even sequences/macros. I refinished the Sen trys, but I'm still working on the grills. I found a lighter color makes them look smaller. The black just looked bad, so I bought vintage "wheat" grill cloth. I'm still working on the wood frame for the grill.
