Artsfols
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A little more than a year ago I began to look seriously at upgrading from a 3.1 configuration to 5.1.
First I wanted to determine if this would be a worthwhile endeavour, and started this thread.
www.audiosciencereview.com
Once I was convinced that it would be, the search for a speaker and configuration was on.
www.audiosciencereview.com
To recap, my 3.1 system consisted of a Denon X3700 receiver, Totem Arro on L and R, ELAC DCR52 mid-channel and Totem Tribe subwoofer. Lots of content source equipment not relevant here.
I took some of the advice to heart from these threads.
First I followed the advice to ensure the L and R and surrounds were all in the same horizontal plane. Thus I rejected wall mounted side or rear speakers as these would need to go high on the wall.
And I wanted speakers that had been recommended on this forum.
Choices included the KEF LS50 meta, ELAC UBR62, or additional Totem Arro's.
Somewhere someone posted the KEF Q line was sonically almost up to the LS line of speakers and that appealed to the Dutch roots in me. I also liked the idea of a 3 way speaker, so I purchased a pair of KEF Concerto Q speakers with the stands.
Here in Canada, the KEFs cost $2000 CDN inclusive of stands, versus $3000 CDN for additional Totem Arro's.
The next decision point was whether to use the Totem Arro's or the KEF Concerto Q speakers a surrounds. I did not have much space for the surrounds. They sit at the left and right extremities of the room about half way between my couch and the opposing wall. (More on this in the previous thread, if you're interested in 5.1 in a small space, generally speaking.)
The Concerto Qs were much larger than expected. See the photo of the two speakers, so that more or less decided the issue. KEF Concerto at the front; Arro to the side surround position. But were the KEF Concerto Qs better in that position?
I wanted to determine this question, and also position in the best way possible for the room acoustics. I purchased a Behringer ECM8000 microphone which is supposed to be fairly linear without calibration specs. I know this raises all kinds of questions, and I did take all kinds of measurements with both sets of speakers. The number 1 thing I learned is that differences in speaker placement and room acoustics had a much greater bearing on sound quality than differences between the two sets of speakers.
Also, a couple of gotchas if you go this route for measurement. You may want to skip this section.
Gotcha 1. Make sure you have a mic amp that provides phantom power, and use a balanced connection to the mic, or it will receive none of the power. Probably obvious to anyone who works with microphones. I do not.
Gotcha 2. I wondered why my measurements with Audyssey on versus off were coming out identically. The reason is that the computer I was using provided a signal to my television and then out through an eARC port into the Denon Audyssey amp. If you come in through eARC, the Audyssey equalization is not applied. Okay, that came from AI, might be suspect, but when I reconfigured to go straight from the computer to the amp, the problem disappeared.
What I did learn from this measurement exercise, surprise, surprise, is that the Totem Arro's are brighter than the KEF Concerto Q's. I mercifully provide you with only one graph that shows this, a comparison of a single speaker with the mic on-axis placed about 6 feet from the speaker, vertical with the center of the cones.
Subjective assessment of the two speaker models, the final configuration and the present day state of 5.1 recordings.
The best configuration in my room is that the two KEF Concerto Q's sit at either end of my equipment cabinet about 8 feet apart. They are toed in 15 degrees, that made a significant difference; no toe in on the Arro's when they were front speakers. The Arro's as mentioned are in the middle of the two side walls but out wider than the fronts. They are about 20 to 30 degrees off parallel to the wall facing toward the listener.
When I first played the Concerto Q's I was a bit disappointed, but the issue was that they needed just a few hours of play in time to smooth the sound. The well known complaint about the Arro's, that they are bright, and that this tires the ear, proved correct. The Concerto Qs also sound fatter, like they are moving more air. This is subjective so I don't know if I am using the right words. On pop and rock, that's a plus; classical not so much.
Okay, I had played around with the speakers, determined the best position, now it was time to see what the better half thought with a good 5.1 sound source. I selected the Taylor Swift (stay with me now) Evermore live recording on Disney+. It is terrific, imo, and the first time I listened seriously to this pop star. My wife immediately noticed that the sound was more restful to the ear, better more pleasing midrange. That's with both sets on, of course, but the Concerto Qs were doing most of the work.
The Totem Arro's are not only brighter but they have wider dispersion of the higher frequencies (proved this) so sound great even though not pointed at the listener the way the front speakers are.
In summary, I would use the Totem Arro's as mains only if space constrained. You can see from the photo how much smaller they are, and they served me well for two decades. But the KEF Concerto Qs are a bit better all the way around.
Oh, and the upgrade in general has been well worth it. The most surprising implication was that my extensive, but now obsolete, performance BluRay and DVD collection, has come back to life because of the excellent 5.1 sound tracks on them. I have all seven Clapton Crossroads' sets, for example. Night and day compared to stereo/ 3.1.
Youtube videos are always stereo but they sound better on the KEFs than on the Arro's.
Dolby Atmos soundtracks on Netflix, Disney, et cetera, the results are uneven. To me, Atmos on streaming TV shows and movies on 5.1 are not much better than 3.1 But there are significant exceptions. I was blown away by the soundtrack on the re-released Beatles' Anthology series on Disney. I have to get some of the Beatles albums that were remixed for 5.1. I bet they sound fantastic.
Also, my Berlin Philharmonic streaming subscription can sound good in Dolby Atmos. But I don't understand what they are doing. Their performances are released in stereo on day of, but the Atmos mix is added months later. And sometimes they are significantly messed up. (On one violin concerto, the violin lead largely disappears, for example).
I wish more decently mixed 5.1. sources were available. For the classic 70s prog rock I love, you often have to purchase a 10 CD collection for multiple hundreds of dollars to get the one disc with a 5.1 mix. Thus, the DVDs and Blurays do take precedence.
[Will edit this later for grammar and clarity]
First I wanted to determine if this would be a worthwhile endeavour, and started this thread.
Rear speakers - what do they add?
I currently have a 3.1 system and am reasonably happy with it. 2 Totem Arro's left and right, an ELAC centre channel and a Totem Tribe sub. The sub has its own amp; the rest is driven by a Denon 3700 amp. The proposal I am entertaining is to replace the Arro's with KEF LS50 Meta's then move...
www.audiosciencereview.com
Once I was convinced that it would be, the search for a speaker and configuration was on.
Surround speaker options in a small room - case study
This is a follow on to an earlier thread I initiated: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/rear-speakers-what-do-they-add.63610/ Now that I have decided to add 2 surround speakers (sadly, I incorrectly referred to them as rear speakers in the earlier thread), I have found...
www.audiosciencereview.com
To recap, my 3.1 system consisted of a Denon X3700 receiver, Totem Arro on L and R, ELAC DCR52 mid-channel and Totem Tribe subwoofer. Lots of content source equipment not relevant here.
I took some of the advice to heart from these threads.
First I followed the advice to ensure the L and R and surrounds were all in the same horizontal plane. Thus I rejected wall mounted side or rear speakers as these would need to go high on the wall.
And I wanted speakers that had been recommended on this forum.
Choices included the KEF LS50 meta, ELAC UBR62, or additional Totem Arro's.
Somewhere someone posted the KEF Q line was sonically almost up to the LS line of speakers and that appealed to the Dutch roots in me. I also liked the idea of a 3 way speaker, so I purchased a pair of KEF Concerto Q speakers with the stands.
Here in Canada, the KEFs cost $2000 CDN inclusive of stands, versus $3000 CDN for additional Totem Arro's.
The next decision point was whether to use the Totem Arro's or the KEF Concerto Q speakers a surrounds. I did not have much space for the surrounds. They sit at the left and right extremities of the room about half way between my couch and the opposing wall. (More on this in the previous thread, if you're interested in 5.1 in a small space, generally speaking.)
The Concerto Qs were much larger than expected. See the photo of the two speakers, so that more or less decided the issue. KEF Concerto at the front; Arro to the side surround position. But were the KEF Concerto Qs better in that position?
I wanted to determine this question, and also position in the best way possible for the room acoustics. I purchased a Behringer ECM8000 microphone which is supposed to be fairly linear without calibration specs. I know this raises all kinds of questions, and I did take all kinds of measurements with both sets of speakers. The number 1 thing I learned is that differences in speaker placement and room acoustics had a much greater bearing on sound quality than differences between the two sets of speakers.
Also, a couple of gotchas if you go this route for measurement. You may want to skip this section.
Gotcha 1. Make sure you have a mic amp that provides phantom power, and use a balanced connection to the mic, or it will receive none of the power. Probably obvious to anyone who works with microphones. I do not.
Gotcha 2. I wondered why my measurements with Audyssey on versus off were coming out identically. The reason is that the computer I was using provided a signal to my television and then out through an eARC port into the Denon Audyssey amp. If you come in through eARC, the Audyssey equalization is not applied. Okay, that came from AI, might be suspect, but when I reconfigured to go straight from the computer to the amp, the problem disappeared.
What I did learn from this measurement exercise, surprise, surprise, is that the Totem Arro's are brighter than the KEF Concerto Q's. I mercifully provide you with only one graph that shows this, a comparison of a single speaker with the mic on-axis placed about 6 feet from the speaker, vertical with the center of the cones.
Subjective assessment of the two speaker models, the final configuration and the present day state of 5.1 recordings.
The best configuration in my room is that the two KEF Concerto Q's sit at either end of my equipment cabinet about 8 feet apart. They are toed in 15 degrees, that made a significant difference; no toe in on the Arro's when they were front speakers. The Arro's as mentioned are in the middle of the two side walls but out wider than the fronts. They are about 20 to 30 degrees off parallel to the wall facing toward the listener.
When I first played the Concerto Q's I was a bit disappointed, but the issue was that they needed just a few hours of play in time to smooth the sound. The well known complaint about the Arro's, that they are bright, and that this tires the ear, proved correct. The Concerto Qs also sound fatter, like they are moving more air. This is subjective so I don't know if I am using the right words. On pop and rock, that's a plus; classical not so much.
Okay, I had played around with the speakers, determined the best position, now it was time to see what the better half thought with a good 5.1 sound source. I selected the Taylor Swift (stay with me now) Evermore live recording on Disney+. It is terrific, imo, and the first time I listened seriously to this pop star. My wife immediately noticed that the sound was more restful to the ear, better more pleasing midrange. That's with both sets on, of course, but the Concerto Qs were doing most of the work.
The Totem Arro's are not only brighter but they have wider dispersion of the higher frequencies (proved this) so sound great even though not pointed at the listener the way the front speakers are.
In summary, I would use the Totem Arro's as mains only if space constrained. You can see from the photo how much smaller they are, and they served me well for two decades. But the KEF Concerto Qs are a bit better all the way around.
Oh, and the upgrade in general has been well worth it. The most surprising implication was that my extensive, but now obsolete, performance BluRay and DVD collection, has come back to life because of the excellent 5.1 sound tracks on them. I have all seven Clapton Crossroads' sets, for example. Night and day compared to stereo/ 3.1.
Youtube videos are always stereo but they sound better on the KEFs than on the Arro's.
Dolby Atmos soundtracks on Netflix, Disney, et cetera, the results are uneven. To me, Atmos on streaming TV shows and movies on 5.1 are not much better than 3.1 But there are significant exceptions. I was blown away by the soundtrack on the re-released Beatles' Anthology series on Disney. I have to get some of the Beatles albums that were remixed for 5.1. I bet they sound fantastic.
Also, my Berlin Philharmonic streaming subscription can sound good in Dolby Atmos. But I don't understand what they are doing. Their performances are released in stereo on day of, but the Atmos mix is added months later. And sometimes they are significantly messed up. (On one violin concerto, the violin lead largely disappears, for example).
I wish more decently mixed 5.1. sources were available. For the classic 70s prog rock I love, you often have to purchase a 10 CD collection for multiple hundreds of dollars to get the one disc with a 5.1 mix. Thus, the DVDs and Blurays do take precedence.
[Will edit this later for grammar and clarity]
