Realistic minimus optimal setup for home theater experience

[Harrybarry]

Hello,

For a couple of years i read with a lot of love the enthousiam shown on this forum the opinions of the realistic minimus 7 speakers. I took these speakers from my dad when I got my first jvc boombox, teenage stuff.
I always kept the speakers and a couple of years ago I was fedup with my JBL 2.1 set. And for a small amount of money I bought a Harman Kardon receiver AVR 630, attached the little monsters and fell in love again. But thing changed in my setup with the introduction of a HD beamer. I now want to go for a 5.1 setup.

So here comes my question: I currently have 4 minimus 7 speakers (Japan) and probably will buy a set of minimus 11(Japan) to use as front speakers and use one set of 7 to use as rear speakers.
The other set I would like to combine and use as the center speaker. So my question to you experts, is this setup really stupid? Or any tips to get a better experience? Also I am touching in the dark for what the best speaker would be to use as a subwoofer. Any insight is welcome!

 

[seamas]

I had a 5 channel minimus 7 speaker setup for home theatre.While that was ok,I have since upgraded to jbl l820's and an lc2 center.

 

[the skipper]

I started with an all Minimus 7 5.1* home theater years ago when DPL was all there was. It was fine for low/moderate levels but it really couldn't handle the ultimate peaks that a dynamic HT demanded. Still, I'd take them over a Bose system.

What might help is to use your 4 7's in the front/rear right/left positions and simply get a better
center channel.

Assuming your receiver has bass management with an adjustable high pass, 'i'd shoot for a 100 - 120 high pass setting. Naturally, set all speakers to "small". The little 7's don't really like powerful lows and will let it be known. Likewise, keep that in mind when choosing a sub.

FWIW, the 11's ain't all they are cracked up to be,

* the ".1" was a sub, not a mini 7

 

[TPettenati]

For your front speakers look for a pair of Minimus 77's. Same tweeter as the 7 with a larger woofer. But the 77's will likely need new foam as they are prone to rot.

 

[willyrover]

I think the enthusiasm comes from the fact that Minimus 7s can be had for less than $20 (and often less than $10 a pair) and they are such a solid and compact speaker. I pick them up whenever I see them for that price. I have four pairs of 7s and a pair of 77s...but...they are sitting unused.

The sound is disappointing every time I hook them up. I have a Realistic System 7 receiver with a contour switch designed especially for the Minimus 7s. It's 10-15 watts per channel, and while they sound decent in this system, they don't exactly play loud. Fine for a small office maybe?

They also seem to be horribly inefficient. Back when chip amps were all the rage, I had one that could power a pair of Polk Monitor 5s easily, but when hooked to the 7s, even fully cranked it struggled to reach a decent volume.

Not sure what kind of power your Harman/Kardon provides, but I'd be concerned you aren't going to get the kind of volume or dynamics you'd expect for home theatre - unless you're in a very small room, or an apartment when you can't play it loud anyway.

Nice thing is, the 7s are cheap enough to give it a try! (And as said in previous post, the 77s would be a better match)

 

[onwardjames]

At my office, I have a pair of Minimus 77's I refoamed and recapped with poly caps. Powered by a Lepai, the sound is VERY good by any litmus.

Recap those, choke that bass, and enjoy them for what they are, would be my advice.

 

[Harrybarry]

Wow, that's excellent advice from you all. And indeed I am very limited to crank up the volume because I live in downtown Amsterdam in an appartement, which is in an old brick house from the 16th century.
The output of the receiver is 70 watt per channel and is very adjustable.
So it seems I need to be patiënt and wait for a pair of 77's. Could I use some horn speakers to support the home theater peaks?

 

[d1dxr02]

What room size? In a very small room my set is able to play basically "flat response" (or as close as is reasonable, not sure what the + - is) with minimal tuning (with the sub doing the work below 100hz) from at least 100hz to somewhere above 16.5khz at a volume level with 100+ decibel peaks. Again, 100hz sub crossover. They have the litekeys ebay crossover kit with 55-1856 woofers which are probably critical for that. The 55-1856 drivers are able to handle a lot more bass than the stock minimus 7 drivers. I also suggest you try to obtain the "original" minimus 7 design from the 1970's for the best high frequency output as the sd-13 tweeters in my experience sound better than the sd-50 and sd-60's from A, B, or C models. If you can't get original minimus 7 the A or B is better than the C model which will have sd-50 tweeters. If your room is medium to large, I can't guarantee these would work as I've got the volume cranked at least 2/3rds up on my Onkyo TX-SR308 receiver to achieve this in my small room setup. Stock minimus 7's or ones with stock woofers might still work but they'd probably need a higher crossover, maybe 120 or 150hz depending on how loud you want to push them.

 

[SpruceMoose]

I ran four of them for years in a home theater setup, with a 12” sub under the house. They sounded great, but as mentioned, they couldn’t handle the high volume of action movies. That said, I’m still using them as side and rear speakers with my double advent fronts and center.

 

[Bill Ferris]

FWIW, I have been successfully using 2 per surround channel for the side & rear channels, stacked vertically to get 4 ohm`s for the 2 Crown D-150`s powering them and their acoustical output in my living room`s HT since the early nineties..

And after proper menu setup & calibration via the Integra A/V/P in current use, in my case, the eight bone stock (mid ~ late eighties purchased) Min. 7`s have no problem doing a very good job of keeping up with my Mac XRT 30`s front speakers tri-amp`d with 4 mono`d Mac MC 275 VI`s, and 2 Mac MC 1201`s, with a restored MC 60 feeding the matching for the XRT 30`s, Mac center channel speaker, under all movie`s sound track`s and sound very good, IMHO,with the surround tracks from Pure Audio music BluRay DVD`s as well..
I had a pair of the 77`s at one time, but because of the foam speaker surrounds, didn`t wish to go that route for HT, though probably would have been a better sonic choice, but I`m happy with the performance of the 8 Minimus 7`s in use.

YMMV.
Kind regards, OKB

 

[StimpyWan]

They also seem to be horribly inefficient. Back when chip amps were all the rage, I had one that could power a pair of Polk Monitor 5s easily, but when hooked to the 7s, even fully cranked it struggled to reach a decent volume.

I agree. I used to have Minimus 7s, hooked up to a NAD 3140 integrated amp. When watching The Empire Strikes Back, on laser disc, an Imperial Walker stomp peaked near 40 watts, on the 3140 peak meters. That was with the nominal peaks at less than 5 watts. Usually around 1 watt. Though, it didn't sound bad. Minimus 7s were good starter speakers. But, if I wanted similar and better, I'd go NHT Super Zeroes.