Living Room / Home Cinema / Audioholic Room

A room for great audio reproduction and enjoying movies in reference level

Description

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For a house, bought shortly a high-end Home Cinema with Audiophile qualities shall be built.
Controllable via Siri, Google Home and Home Automation System.
The aim is to enjoy a great surround + atmos experience (7.4.4), uniform bass response, very low distortion up to reference gain at the listening position + a coherent sound field all around in the room, matching perfectly with the multi-room loudspeakers in the adjacent rooms.
All shall be realized without limiting the living room/day time usability to any circumstance, minimizing acoustic treatment to a minimum.
I love the sound of my studio monitors, I've formally used for recording purposes, so the already existing active loudspeaker setup stayed in the equation.

The room is not rectangular, there are no parallel walls, nor a uniform ceiling. Height varies between 2,4m and 5,6m, Room Dimension from 8 -7 m in width, 8-7 m in length.

In Step 1, the ground stack was built, realizing a 7.2 system, controlled by a Digital Strom Home Automation, a Harmony Elite, all integrated with google home and Siri.
Audio Chain:
Preamp: Yamaha A5100, 7 x Mackie HRS624 MK2, 2 x SVS PB4000 + 2 x SVS SB13, Mini Dsp HD 4x10, Mini Dsp Dirac Live 88A - APC1500 VA Battery, Panasonic DXW904, Apple TV4K, Panasonic UHD Player, Sony Blu-Ray/SA-CD Player, Google UHD Chrome Cast
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Phase 1
My first quick and dirty approach, checking out the SVS Sub Array with the YPAO from the Yamaha pre-amp was not a big success.
The modal distribution in the room was really bad, leading to resonances around 50Hz of up to 20db, leading to complaints, even at the neighbour's house (peaks at 50Hz up to 126db SPL at the listening position).
SPL was phenomenal but the bass below 125Hz was all than neutral.
A lot of problems due to room acoustics, especially in the high range was not tackled properly by the preamps correction capabilities.
That leads to non-balanced sounds, with dips and bumps across the frequency range (15Hz - 20Khz)

Getting the issue tackled, I've organized more processing power, anticipating my calculation, eliminating the resonance with absorption would break the bank, making it impossible achieving wife compliancy.

Phase 2
The subs are all connected to the MiniDsp 4x10, this is connected to .1 output of the MiniDsp 88A, running in 7.1 modes, connected to the preamp with symmetric microphone cables, bundled in a multicore with XLR plugs.

In Phase 2 all subs were aligned with the Mini DSP 4x10 (working as Subwoofer Processor) based on filters derived from REW.
Than the Input Channel of the Subwoofer-Processor was connected to the MiniDSP 88A Output running DIRAC Live.
Finally, achieved results were quite impressive, taking into consideration that no acoustic treatment vs the initial state was brought to the room. Especially I'd like to note the distortion figures changed positively. Only a reflection caused problem zone around 8Khz is still noticeable.
From my subjective listening experience, the result is astonishing.
All negatively noticeable boominess and colouration of instruments, and voices were gone.
Precision and placement of instruments in songs changed significantly.

While playing movies not only I've realized less sensation due to the absence of resonances, but a boost of precision, clarity and punch was delivered.

Hopefully, could I gave you some useful insight to upgrade cost-efficient with less acoustic treatment, having a wife grade living room.

Check for response changes measured the gallery section.

Stay tuned for updates in phase 3.

In Phase 3: I plan to upgrade a ceiling stack of 4 x 3-way speakers, bi-amped with a Crown 8CH Amp.

Thanks for providing feedback on how you've like my first showcase, helping me providing more relevant information for the AV community.

Comments

I doubt you'll ever sort out the LF response with DSP alone. Only absorption in the right places and correct speaker placement will tame those room modes.
 
Definitely speaker placement is a must. Acoustic treatment is a plus, DSP mandatory if you don’t want to have tons of acoustic treatment in the living room. Check out the results in the gallery section.
Bass problems are reduced by almost 50%
 
I run sealed versions of your sub... incredible pieces of equipment! Do you have a favorite reference flick?
 
By placing the subs next to eachothers like that you maximise room resonances. You should put the other sub on some other wall or a corner.
 
By placing the subs next to eachothers like that you maximise room resonances. You should put the other sub on some other wall or a corner.

Hi, they act as one enclosure at the frequencies they are operating. In a non rectangular room having occupied spaces are no corners available. So you habe to find the best compromise in room usage and placement.
 

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