Hey all. I've just pulled the trigger on starting to purchase my new system after two months of researching. I have been extremely impressed with the customer service with aperion so I decided to become part of the family. I started by ordering two 5T's (fiancee didn't like the idea of bookshelves as L/R and I wasn't going to argue) and a 5C all in cherry, plus a new Onkyo SR-805. Now 4 days later my fiancee asked why we weren't going to have "rear" speakers and no sub? I quickly got on and finished it off by ordering two 4B's and an 8D. Since we can try it out for 30 days I figured we could send back the sub if we needed something bigger but I doubt it. My question is...is it better to have the sub next to a tower (directly next to) or in the back of the room next to the sofa?  I'll post some photos when I figure out how to do it to find out where is best. I looked through the courses and thought that if the crossover is below 100hz it'll be OK to put in the back? Please let me know what you think.

 

So here is my old setup:

The two speakers were 1960's Pioneer CS-A50's with an old Magnovox Receiver.

 

Here is the area cleaned up for the new system:

I'm putting the 5C right under the TV. The 5T's will go on either side. The Onkyo SR_805 will go below. I can move the DVD rack on the right side of the TV to put the sub next to the 5T or I'll put it next to the sofa (will take a picture soon). The sofa is ~12 feet away from the TV.

Oh!  Those 5T's are going to love that room!  Very nice

I have a suggestion on speaker placement.  Since you are going to be sitting 12' away I would relocate those DVD racks and spread your 5T's a bit wider.  You want the speaker to be farther apart than what you current have them slated to be.  I would set the front left about 12 inches to the right of the wall then put the bravus between the left front 5T and the TV stand. Then just put your front right equal distance from the stand as  your front right.

 

I guess the common rule here is 30-40degrees from the center of the viewing position to each of your mains speakers. 

 

Here is a speaker placement guide that might help further

http://www.aperionaudio.com/AperionU/multichannel.aspx

Hey Dan,

 

Thanks for your input. I've made the necessary modifications and have moved the DVD rack on the left side of the TV and moved the one on the right side a few inches to give me 24 inches for the 5T on that side. Unfortunately  my 4B speaker stands are backordered so I'll have to set up the system with them on the sides of the sofa at approximately the right height. Hopefully I'll have everything delivered by Saturday (except the speaker stands) and will take some photos when I put it all together. The receiver should come today. Can't wait for the speakers now. My one other question based on my readings of the different courses. How important is it for the center speaker to be at the same plane as the L/R? My center channel will sit in that top shelf which extends ~20inches from the wall. so there will be about 12 inches between the front of the center and the front of the 5T behind. Will that result in a negative effect? If so I'll have t push the center into the shelf which means it may have a "tunnel" effect. Please let me know if you think it'll make a significant difference.

Jason:

Hey Dan,

 

Thanks for your input. I've made the necessary modifications and have moved the DVD rack on the left side of the TV and moved the one on the right side a few inches to give me 24 inches for the 5T on that side. Unfortunately  my 4B speaker stands are backordered so I'll have to set up the system with them on the sides of the sofa at approximately the right height. Hopefully I'll have everything delivered by Saturday (except the speaker stands) and will take some photos when I put it all together. The receiver should come today. Can't wait for the speakers now. My one other question based on my readings of the different courses. How important is it for the center speaker to be at the same plane as the L/R? My center channel will sit in that top shelf which extends ~20inches from the wall. so there will be about 12 inches between the front of the center and the front of the 5T behind. Will that result in a negative effect? If so I'll have t push the center into the shelf which means it may have a "tunnel" effect. Please let me know if you think it'll make a significant difference.

Your AVR should allow you to set the distances from your seating area to each individual speaker.  It uses these distances to introduce delays as need to maintain proper sound arrival time.

Cheers

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Russ

Joined you!

Great to hear that. That is going to improve your imaging and soundstage by spreading them wider.  IGive you a wider sweet spot. t also helps prevent soundwave cancellation.  Like Russ said the AVR has distance settings to help out the placement. But 12" difference shouldn't be bad at all.  ? are you also give 12" of clearance from the back of the wall to the 5T's?  If not i suggest giving some space there.

I sit 16 feet away and have my bookshelves about 10 feet apart:

 

 

It's a tall order for those aperion bookshelves to ask them to sound wonderful from 16 feet away but they do an admirable job...When I've got my system in 5.1 mode it kicks some serious but.  It is in my future to upgrade to some towers so I can do some serious 2 channel music listening at these distances

 

Best of luck to you.  I bet you are really pumpled to get that setup in there.  I can't believe the wife told you to get some new speakers, then told you to order a sub and surrounds.  Very Nice...  Women can be reasonable sometimes.  No offense to your old speakers but judging from the looks of them you were due for an upgrade and I bet you are going to be blown away with the sound of this stuff.  Plus you wife is probably going ot love the cherry finish!  Keep us updated. Sorry if I sound to bubbly

 

Hey Dan. Thanks for your reply. I took some more photos to make it more obvious what I was thinking. The "wall" on the left isn't really a wall. Its a small corner that connects to the wall of windows:

Here's the corner again with my two resident monsters in the picture and the new 805 sitting in the bottom (i'll center it once i hook it all up): 

 

  The wall next to it:

The sofa on the far wall:

I'm planning on putting the 4B's on stands on each side of the sofa in the back corners. 

So I took some more measurements. If I put the L 5T up against the wall in that corner it'll be possible to spread them 10 ft apart. However this means that it'll be 12 inches in (so that its flush against the back wall which is a requirement) so that may distort the sound. If I pull it 12 inches off the wall then they'll be 8 ft apart. The sub will go on the left side between the L and TV.  So is it better to push the L against the wall or better to keep it off by a bit? I don't think i'll be able to argue to move the 5T's away from the wall for more than 1 to 2 inches or so as that will not be acceptable. The last image shows a tape measurer which is opened to 10ft to get an idea of distance:

Thanks for all your help! I'm pretty happy she said she'd prefer the fronts to not be on stands. As all of our stuff is in cherry anyway that was only a huge bonus.  I do love the black speakers you have. I thought they'd go better with all the cherry wood we have but alas I won enough battles to release that one to her. Last question in terms of listening to music. I have a regular stereo CD player with L/R output and a DVD player with HDMI output. Both play CD's. Does it make more sense to use the DVD player for CD's? I took the other CD player out as it was pretty cheap and figured HDMI would be better although I haven't been able to support that with any data. I'll get my two 5T's and 5C on Friday and then the 4B's and 8D on Saturday. I figure I'll wait to calibrate everything as the 805 came with a small novel to look through!

Sweet. Those Cherry speakers are just going to complete that room, visually.  Maybe you could take the towers 6" off the back wall??  If you put it to close to the back wall you will get some back wall reflection and sound wave cancellation...I'm not sure If i shared this one with you yet, but If i did i apologize for repeating it:  http://www.aperionaudio.com/AperionU/2-channel.aspx

So if you can find a way to get those towers off the back well then I would recommend it.

 As far as CD players and DVD players go I'm not sure anymore.  Back 10 years ago I know people who invested in really good CD players becuase DVD players audio processing wasn't up to snuff, but now adays I'm not sure.  I've got a PS3 and I use if for everything.  I've heard good things about Oppos to...but other than that I'll leave that question for the gurus.

Well, I'm excited for you.  Just brings back memories of my whole experience with Aperion..Reading about it in forums...Checking em out online. Placing my order. Taking off work so I can great the Fedex man.  Then the released the new lineup so I got to send all my stuff back and upgrade. Oh, yes those were the days.  I hope I get to do it again some day.

I got the towers and the center today! I set them up and they look great. Even you-know-who first sat down and I put in an eric clapton concert video and she first said they don't sound any different. Within about 5 mins she admitted they sounded great....AND she said they looked beautiful! I'll take photos later as my brother took my camera for the day and will post them tomorrow hopefully! I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of my order tomorrow. Even without really tuning the receiver the sound is absolutely tighter than what I had with my older pair. I'll fiddle with the receiver tomorrow after I get everything set up!

 Hey Dan, about the ps3, does it output pure uncompressed bitstream for blurays? I've read mixed answers. I was thinking about getting it for the blu ray and the wireless firmwire updating. Anyway since she loves the look of the speakers i moved the front of the speakers 20 inches from the wall, so now they look like a piece of art. You think that's too far from the wall? ...now if I only had a garage to store the boxes..... :(

Hey Jason, from what I understand about the PS3 and Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio...the PS3 decodes the info internally and can only pass along the info through Linear PCM (HDMI cable) and can't bitstream it.  The receiver, will however, take the decoded audio from the PS3 and process it as the HD sound but will never show the HD light on the receiver since the receiver won't be doing the decoding.  I read something the other day about eventually you may be able to get the HD light on yoru receiver for DTS Master Audio HD through a firmware update but as far as getting the little light for Dolby TrueHD...that didn't sound promising.  I too have a PS3 and was a little bummed to find this out, but as far as having a PS3 for Blu-Ray...I recommend it!

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Do or do not, there is no try.

Hey Jedi. Thanks for your answer. That seems to be the agreement among people regarding the output. Is there any difference between the receiver decoding vs. the ps3? If not its not really any big deal. sound is sound as long as the end result (surround) is equal I don't care who decodes it. 

 

Dan, I've put my system together and here's what it looks like:

there are the two 5T's at 7 feet apart and 20 inches from the wall with the 8D sub.

Since my 4B speaker stands are backordered I made a makeshift stand using the side tables:

 

 

Thankfully its been raining all weekend here so I didn't need an excuse to stay inside. I've been toying with the settings and watching various movies to here the surround and sub effects...etc. I did the Aud calibration twice now and for some reason dialog is still too low. Everything sounds great except whispers are not audible and unless they're speaking loud its hard to hear. Sound effects sound perfect. I've toyed with the center channel a bit and have it as +2db above the L/R which seems high.I suppose I should keep increasing it until the whispers are audible. Do you guys have any suggestions? I've been having trouble keeping the 8D quiet enough as it's got a huge sound to it. Anyway, music sounds wonderful and I will be listening to music much more now thanks to the system on all channel surround stereo. I was hoping somebody would have some advice regarding the center though, its the only thing I really need to tweak. Any ideas? 

Hi Jason.  Those Aperion's in Cherry finish sure are sharp.  I didn't realize they were that shiny. Sweet.  I've gotta get some for my basement one day!

The center channel issue could be a few things.  Area's to check are crossover setting on AVR,, Speaker Size setting on AVR and Seaker Level.  Since you've received a 5.1 setup you should have received an SPL meter.  That SPL meter is a vaulable tool in calibrating your system.  Most likely your speakers levels aren't matching.  Take some time to use the SPL meter to calibrate everything correctly. 

Here is a document on using the SPL meter.  http://www.aperionaudio.com/AperionU/spl.aspx

Another important thing is to get your Sub setup correctly so that it integrates seemlessly.  It should sound like the bass from your Bravus is being produced by the rest of your speakers and not the Bravus.  If your Bravus sounds too strong then it may need to be tweaked a bit.  I would start with the owners manual becuase it does a good job explaining how to do initial setup.

Also do some reading on setting up your subwoofers

http://www.aperionaudio.com/AperionU/how_most_sub.aspx

Having your system calibrated correctly can make or break it especially when it comes to having your subwoofer blend in..  Take some time to get your AVR setup and calibrate your speakers and most importantly your sub.  If you have questions we are here for you and the Aperion Gurus are just a phone call away!

Enjoy that system, I bet it will last you a long time.

 PS...I've noticed a lot of people are liking All Channel Stereo on their Onkyo's.  I have an Onkyo 500 series and I love multichannel music in all channell Stereo Mode...I assume it will rock even more once I get the Onkyo 805 and a pair of 5T's.  Have fun!

Hey Dan. Thanks for your suggestions. Currently I have the AVR set so that all speakers are crossing over at 80 and the sub picks up at 80 as well. I'm not sure if the 5T's should be left full or not, although the manual that came with them suggests keeping them at least to 40-50 I think. The center just seems to be playing both dialog and ambient noise. I thought it was only supposed to play dialog in movies. I'll try to play with the crossovers some more as I found another thread where somebody listed their settings. If not I'll speak with a guru tonight or tomorrow. I haven't had time to really toy with the SPL meter yet and I figured it was better to do after they've been played for a few hrs. 

Try putting the towers and center channel both at 60hz for the crossover since the 5C can hit 55hz +/- 3db's. 

 The center channel will play more than just the dialog for movies, and in multichannel mode for music will play pretty much what the others are playing..

 

The 5c maybe have to be a bit hotter than the 5T's due the fact the 5T's have a better sensivity rating and are 8ohms instead of 6.. no big deal and over time the 5C will break in and it will open up more for you.. I had the same type problem you did with the levels being off and once you get them dialed in your jaw will drop :).

 

Try that crossover first to start with and see if it gets any better.

Ok I'll definitely change those crossover settings. If I move the 5T's and 5C down to 60 should I move the sub also down to 60 instead of 80hz? Also under the OSD from the 805 i can only set the speakers to 6 or 4 ohms instead of 8, is that a problem?

Good point! I remember you were having issue with your center channel as well. 

I am rather unfortunate becuase my AVR does not allow me to set seperate crossover frequencies for each channel.  Going down to 60 for your 5t's and 5c may also help.  Once I get my 805 I won't have that problem.

 Just an FYI...After calibration with an SPL meter my 5c is set 8db's higher than my 5b's.  That's a bit higher.  That's is why I recommend setting up according to SPL meter. You can do the adjustment again a month from now after break in.

 

Good Luck.