"Home Theater" Speakers

[echopraxia]

Or you could just work backwards. Determine which sub(s) you want, and just make sure they give you a reasonable response. Perhaps 3 realistically-specified subs for smoother bass? I would guess that smoother response is more important than any 115 db transient peak.

Just my 2 cents, of course.

Yeah working backwards is not a bad idea if only because I really don’t want to have to deal with the logistics of moving around 250lb subwoofer(s).

But on the topic of compromises ... I still don’t get why it’s a better to compromise reference level SPL peaks at 30-40hz in favor of flat extension down to 10-20hz, when most of that is diminishingly audible anyway (if audible at all). For example, we know that a 20hz tone requires MASSIVE gain to sound as loud as a 40hz tone, to perfectly healthy human ears! (I suspect this is why THX reference requires LFE channel is required to reach 115db, whereas all the other channels are required to reach 105db.)

So, trying to achieve deep extension for movie playback is the opposite of cost-effective in almost every way.

So if I’m going for a reasonably cost effective solution here (and I kind of am, to some definition of “cost effective” that would be seen as absurdly expensive to most, I realize), best results will be yielded (as far as I can tell) by ensuring 120db capability down to 30hz/35hz, even if 20db is down by a one or two dozen decibels!

Let me put it this way. I have watched movies with capable towers a plus dual Rythmik F18 subs at near reference levels. For some reason, the JBL SRX835P’s on their own with no subs seemed to create a better experience with more impactful explosions etc. I suspect this is the same reason as others have said: it is better to achieve reference level at 30hz (for those explosive bass peaks etc.), than compromise to reference peak SPL capability — because reaching down to 10/15hz (as my above mentioned Rythmik system does) is mostly just not audible! For enjoying music as completely and accurately as possible, it’s great. But for home theater where the impact (e.g. peak SPL) of those explosions matters a great deal, a great deal of energy and subwoofer cost is being “wasted” on diminishing returns.

 

[Chromatischism]

At the SPL level they will be operating in a HT room, would some of the issues, for exemple , port shuffling be noticed? I mean, with a sub s capable of 130 dB at 40 Hz in a room, even with a 24 dB/octave cut-off, it will still be producing 106 dB at 1 meter and this before, any room...er ... boost

My concern is running a subwoofer driver unloaded, below its port tune frequency. That is normally not recommended for any use case.

 

[echopraxia]

My concern is running a subwoofer driver unloaded, below its port tune frequency. That is normally not recommended for any use case.

I wonder to what degree the SRX subs are self-limiting (if at all), and if that would be capable of protecting against any issues here?

I wonder if a SRX 18” sub could safely be EQ’ed flat to 30hz? I do agree that it feels wrong to try to push it to 20hz at high SPL, without knowing the exact capabilities of digital self protection.

 

[echopraxia]

The issue is that you are planning for 115-120 dB peaks, which, by definition are transient. And this is at "reference level". It just forces the law of diminishing returns to attack with vengeance. Perhaps a more realistic goal? Say 105-110 db peak? Surely that is well-beyond any realistic need? And, of course, the subs will probably push the 115 dB peak, just with more distortion than desired. But again, it is transient.

Edit: Actually, I’ve moved my reply here to this discussion thread already specifically discussing the topic of home theater bass extension.

Hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience to move this discussion of bass extension there. I think it’s for the better, since this way we can leave this thread to discuss the actual speaker and subwoofer model choices.

This discussion of HT bass extension is really fascinating though and I look forward to seeing if there’s any consensus from that discussion thread.

 

[Rick Sykora]

Might want to check with @Jon AA

I recall he had some of the diysoundgroup home theater speakers and lived close enough for Amir to test. I think his plans got delayed due to the pandemic though.

 

[Zedly]

Would my pair of F18’s be enough?

A pair of F18s will definitely shake your whole house!

 

[Sancus]

The review mentions they sound bright, which is concerning. It’s weird it doesn’t show up in frequency response, but the waterfall plot does show severe “ringing” at a number of treble frequencies. Perhaps waterfall plots are useful after all?

It shows up in the PIR. I think waterfall plots are controversial when you rely solely on them and because it's hard to tell what time scale you should graph/pay attention to. But to confirm issues they're OK. I dunno what the exact cause is with the SVS Ultras, but the beamwidth/contour plots show uneven directivity with the widest point(above lows) at 3 to 7khz. Whatever is causing that, it's creating excess energy in that region.

The tower version probably gets louder, at least. But as you said, it is kind of hard to tell just how far you can push the passive designs without risky trial and error.

 

[Speaker-Inquisitor]

Measurements of the 815, 828 and 835 active speakers. Non-german speaking readers use deepl for translation.

 

[Snoochers]

The review mentions they sound bright, which is concerning. It’s weird it doesn’t show up in frequency response, but the waterfall plot does show severe “ringing” at a number of treble frequencies. Perhaps waterfall plots are useful after all?

But also, they’re not likely in the same league as the JBL SRX835P’s in terms of SPL, since the JBL is an active 3-way with 15” woofer capable or pushing 137db. This provides immense headroom to EQ. The SVS in contrast is a passive speaker with no max SPL specification (as is the case for most passives unfortunately), so I can’t know how far it’s woofers can be pushed — but am quite certainly it’s less than the JBL simply due to woofer area and bass extension tuning differences.

So as a passive speaker, pushing the SVS limits is a bit less comfortable/safe. It’s probably a great choice for many people though, but I am just a fan of active speakers with lots of headroom — and the SRX835P achieves this for a similar price (if you find a dealer that will discount). It’s nice knowing the JBL SRX835P will pretty much never reach its limits or start to distort at any frequency 40hz+ when playing reference level content in a home theater, even with a strong bass boost. The peace of mind is nice. And I’ve heard them, and know they sound excellent even for music.

You're willing to spend 2-3x as much to be more comfortable that they'll handle the SBL? How loud do you really need these to go? Reference levels in a home theater causes hearing damage so I don't know how high you need to go. You could do the SVS even and simply return them for free if they're not loud enough.

I'm playing devil's advocate. If you got the money I suppose there's no reason to start off smaller.

 

[echopraxia]

Measurements of the 815, 828 and 835 active speakers. Non-german speaking readers use deepl for translation.

WOW, thank you so much for finding this!

These measurements look quite good, unless I'm misreading them... narrow directivity (as expected), but pretty well controlled:

The slight horizontal directivity dip around 4khz might explain why I measured/heard a spike there on the one of them that was positioned next to the most reflective side of the room. It's not 100% perfection, but what I'm seeing here looks to be correctable with some EQ and/or sidewall treatments.

Hard to tell at-a-glance how this compares to JTR measurements from here (since such different scales and colors are used), but the JBLs certainly look good to me for their price.

 

[echopraxia]

You're willing to spend 2-3x as much to be more comfortable that they'll handle the SBL? How loud do you really need these to go? Reference levels in a home theater causes hearing damage so I don't know how high you need to go. You could do the SVS even and simply return them for free if they're not loud enough.

I'm playing devil's advocate. If you got the money I suppose there's no reason to start off smaller.

I'm not sure where you're getting "2-3x" the price from. The SVS Ultra Towers cost $1000 per speaker, and that's a passive speaker with no amplification or DSP. The JBL SRX835P costs $1500 MSRP (and is possible to buy significantly discounted if you negotiate with a dealer), and includes amplification, powerful DSP, some mixer features, etc. etc. all in one box. In fact, the built-in DSP is more powerful than my Genelec's, in that it also has the ability to configure a simple mixer (two inputs, two outputs), and built-in compressor you could use to program safe SPL limits to protect your hearing (and/or the speaker) in the event of accidental excessive signals, in addition to something like 100 store-able DSP presets (not that I'd need that many).

So yeah the JBL costs ~20% more, but you're getting a lot more power and features for the price.

 

[Sancus]

Here's a bigger question though, with the JBL SRX835P, what do you use for center/surrounds/heights in the case where you have practical limitations that prevent a 39"x21"x19" 85lb monster from going in that location?

E: I guess the SRX812P is somewhat smaller, but still pretty huge especially for a height speaker.

 

[Snoochers]

I'm not sure where you're getting "2-3x" the price from. The SVS Ultra Towers cost $1000 per speaker, and that's a passive speaker with no amplification or DSP. The JBL SRX835P costs $1500 MSRP (and is possible to buy significantly discounted if you negotiate with a dealer), and includes amplification, powerful DSP, some mixer features, etc. etc. all in one box. In fact, the built-in DSP is more powerful than my Genelec's, in that it also has the ability to configure a simple mixer (two inputs, two outputs), and built-in compressor you could use to program safe SPL limits to protect your hearing (and/or the speaker) in the event of accidental excessive signals, in addition to something like 100 store-able DSP presets (not that I'd need that many).

So yeah the JBL costs ~20% more, but you're getting a lot more power and features for the price.

Oh my bad. I looked at pricing in Canada and maybe I found a poor deal here. Makes a lot of sense! I haven't had a chance to read all 10 pages of this thread.... does the SRX835P have solid spin data?

 

[echopraxia]

The SRX835P itself looks capable of 110db down to 30hz, and >115db from 40hz and upward (which is well in excess of 'reference level' requirements for LCR):

Interestingly, the dual 18" subwoofer (SRX828SP) is capable of 115db at 20hz with 10% distortion:

At MSRP of $1900, this outperforms the output capability of most subs @ 20hz on data-bass (including the $2600 Rythmik FV25HP), until we get into the much more expensive JTR Captivator series (~$3500+).

What I'm curious about, however, is how 'safe' it would be to EQ it flat down to 20hz. From this chart, it seems to be capable of the SPL, but are there any other downsides or dangers if attempting such a thing?

 

[echopraxia]

Oh my bad. I looked at pricing in Canada and maybe I found a poor deal here. Makes a lot of sense! I haven't had a chance to read all 10 pages of this thread.... does the SRX835P have solid spin data?

Thanks to @Speaker-Inquisitor just now above, we have data that's pretty close to it now. For a very narrow directivity speaker, it looks pretty good to me. I think JTR's products may be better from what I'm seeing (though that contradicts with someone's subjective impressions who posted here having owned both), but the differences I see don't look huge -- and the JBL SRX835P costs much less (e.g. ~half the price) than comparable 3-way JTR speakers.

 

[Snoochers]

Thanks to @Speaker-Inquisitor just now above, we have data that's pretty close to it now. For a very narrow directivity speaker, it looks pretty good to me. I think JTR's products may be better from what I'm seeing (though that contradicts with someone's subjective impressions who posted here having owned both), but the difference isn't large -- and the JBL SRX835P costs much less (e.g. ~half the price) than comparable 3-way JTR speakers.

Very interesting.

I'll likely be buying some LCRs for a home theater in about 6 months. Doubt there will be much new before then so I'm trying to do some research now

 

[echopraxia]

Here's a bigger question though, with the JBL SRX835P, what do you use for center/surrounds/heights in the case where you have practical limitations that prevent a 39"x21"x19" 85lb monster from going in that location?

E: I guess the SRX812P is somewhat smaller, but still pretty huge especially for a height speaker.

I never thought high SPL from those kind of surrounds was very important, but maybe I'm wrong? I would assume just about any well-measuring reasonably priced passive speaker there (e.g. SVS, or others) would suffice.

Anyway, I'm starting first with the idea that once I find good LR speakers and subs I really like, then I'll fill out the rest accordingly (matching center, not necessarily matching surrounds, as space permits).

 

[Sancus]

I never thought high SPL from those kind of surrounds was very important, but maybe I'm wrong? I would assume just about any well-measuring reasonably priced passive speaker there (e.g. SVS, or others) would suffice.

I agree SPL requirements on surrounds are less. I suppose it depends on how much you care about matching timbre but I can imagine it might be difficult to use any random surrounds, even if they measure decently, because the dispersion is going to be very different with how narrow the JBL horns are. Also, that super narrow dispersion may end up being rather less than ideal for the center even if you can fit an 812 or 815 there.

E: JBL does make some Cinema speakers that might be suited to this.

 

[echopraxia]

I agree SPL requirements on surrounds are less. I suppose it depends on how much you care about matching timbre but I can imagine it might be difficult to use any random surrounds, even if they measure decently, because the dispersion is going to be very different with how narrow the JBL horns are. Also, that super narrow dispersion may end up being rather less than ideal for the center even if you can fit an 812 or 815 there.

E: JBL does make some Cinema speakers that might be suited to this.

Oh yeah, good point, I forgot about that! The JBL Cinema speakers look like perfect surrounds to pair with these I think, when I get to that point. In case you're wondering, I never considered the JBL Cinema ScreenArray products for LCR because they're just WAY too overkill for a home theater (if you think the SRX PA speakers are overkill, just take a look at this). But their smaller speakers as surrounds look like they'd fit in really well.

Regarding directivity, the SRX835P don't seem all that different in dispersion width vs e.g. JTR's speakers, and everyone with JTR home theaters seem to be thrilled -- so I can't really imagine it will be too narrow for home theater use. It seems like a 40-60 degree beam width like this might actually be preferred for home theater (with much smaller rooms than a large movie theater room), because you'll get more precise pinpoint imaging from L vs C vs R. If you consider three beams of 40-60 degrees width each for LCR, it seems like the coverage and beam overlap would be just about perfect, without excess smearing of the imaging around the room (as is the case with ultrawide dispersion speakers I have).

And anyway, I kind of intentionally wanted to experience the narrow directivity flavor here vs my other speakers. All I can say is that in the brief time I tried them as rental, they sounded perfect for movies -- and that was with just two, no center channel.

 

[Speaker-Inquisitor]

The maximal SPL is measured in full space. For half space, which is just the sub standing on the ground, you can +6dB capacity.
In a room, boundary gain is even higher.