Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners New HT Room Advice

Dean, are you using the Onkyo remote or a universal remote?

I ask because I am 95% sure that my Onkyo 805 has discrete codes to go directly to a sound mode, but not via the factory remote, only through a programmed device (MX-700).

Thanks Tom that’s a good call. And no I haven’t reprogrammed my Harmony remote yet as I was waiting for the last piece of new equipment the HDTV so I didn’t have to do it more than once. I will look to see if there are discrete codes and program it to jump right to my favorite mode if it does.

Brian, for movies I’m still on the fence about which mode I like best. 5.1 sources don’t allow Dolby PLIIx or PLIIz and Audyssey DSX to work together so if I want to use Audyssey and get the back channels I have to use Neo:6, but or just get the height channel by using PLIIz w/o Audyssey DSX. I’ve always preferred the Dolby in the past but with a single back speaker like I have not I actually prefer Neo:6.

I still however prefer direct or pure direct for well mastered studio recordings. They just don’t sound as “real” when PLIIx is pulling out the ambient sounds and routing them to the surround and back speakers. Though I do use it more than I use to for some ambient music.

My Panasonic AE 4000 just reached the 1000 hour mark. The lamp is definitely showing signs of age. I mentioned before that there was noticeable dimming around the 150 hour mark which has continued steadily. I’m now finding that for some material switching from “cinema 1” to “normal” mode not only brightens the picture but improves the colour balance. Still running in eco-mode but now there is a noticeable increase in brightness when switching over to normal whereas before it was hard to tell the difference.

Part of the reason the dimming has become more noticeable is that about I month ago I picked up a Samsung LED to replace my aging DLP. The LED being much brighter than both the DLP and the projector makes the dimming more noticeable. However when the room is dark (and the LED isn’t on for comparison) the AE4000 is still more than bright enough to fill the 134” diagonal screen and look great. Still I feel an upgrade coming by next year.

By buying the Samsung LED for a backup display and primary computer monitor I went from averaging 75 hours/week on the AE4000 down to 20. The old DLP had just gotten to painful to look at so I was hardly using it at all.

I also got off my lazy butt and finished running all my wiring. It’s only been 11 months, 4 of them with 12 sets of speaker wire 3xHDMI cables, 2xVGA cables and a subwoofer cable running across the floor. No one has ever accused me of being anal. One important tip. If you plan on running wire through conduit (PVC pipe in my case) don’t forget to buy fishing line. Instead of being able to pull the wiring I ended up having to push it which probably doubled the time it took and made it much more difficult. I was actually able to fit 2xHDMI, 1xVGA, and 4x12 gauge speaker wires through the PVC pipe despite having to push it.

A couple nights ago I drop tested one of my QS8s from 5’. One grill didn’t survive but the speaker did. They sure are solid little buggers. Maybe tonight I will do some tweaking to decide where and how I finally want to mount the QS8 surrounds so I can finally get them off the floor since my other plans fell through. Might also run Audyssey again to see how things sound with/without it now that all the curtains are up.

I was planning to watch a couple Blu-ray’s from Netflix tonight but looks like the weekend letter carrier put all my movies in the wrong mailbox again. I guess life’s good if you biggest complaint is not getting your Netflix movies.

Cheers,
Dean

What size LED Sammy did you get, Dean?

I be needing those codes, to see if they will work with my 706,and I'll add them to the harmony's. donde esta?

It’s just a 40” 6000 series Samsung UN40B6000. I had tried to other a 24” and a 46” other brands but don’t remember which off the top of my head. I finically settled on the Samsung because it was on sale and it’s size made it easily portable for me which I needed to be able to get it out of the way for critical movie watching/gaming since it’s sitting on a stand in front of my left seat.

I wouldn’t get one unless it’s on sale otherwise the price it to high compared to other stuff out there. Also not sure if it’s typical of LED-LCDs but the off angle image quality drops off quickly. Not a problem for me since I’m the only one looking at it. Otherwise black levels, contrast and colour all seem very good. Some reviews complain of uneven backlighting but I haven’t noticed it but then I mostly use it as a monitor not for movies. Most importantly, for computer use, the image very sharp.

I use it as a primary computer monitor and a backup display. I need something to both keep the hours from piling up on my projector lamp and to make the computers play nice with the projector. For some reason the AE4000 will not properly display 1920x1080x60 over VGA. The image shows but it’s squished in to fit the size of a standard 4x3 TV screen. I’ve updated everything possible and tired every combination of cabling but the only way the AE4000 comes close to properly displaying (still wont fit side to side perfectly) over VGA is when another display is also hooked up when the computer is boot up.

The reason I’m using VGA is to use my KVM switch since I do a lot of switching between computers and it makes that easy. I have also hooked up my HTPC and Gaming machine via HDMI but I have to use a remote to switch between them rather than just the keyboard which is a pain. IsoGear has a 4 port HDMI KVM switch but at about $300 from Amazon it’s a bit steep and who knows if it even works. The only HDMI switch I could get to play nice with all my equipment in the past is the Monoprice one I have now. I’ve never looked up Amazon’s return policy to see if I ordered it and it didn’t work if I could return it. That’s one thing I’ve liked about Fry’s Electronics is they’ve never even questioned me about returning something even when I just returned two TV because one was to small and the other was to big. Unfortunately they don’t sell and HDMI KVM switch yet.

Sorry Jeff I haven’t looked into getting those remote codes yet.

I did some looking around this morning, I don't think they are available for the 706, but I'll keep looking.

You might want to check out the links on this page

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=16549421&postcount=1021

Looken good Dean. But what is up with the white ceiling fan? In that black hole it should light up the ceiling like a flame thrower.

Or, i could just be screwing with you...not sure.

What’s up is lazyness. Right now it’s not hot enough to need to use it and it’s far enough out of my field of view to not notice it much but when running it’s like a flying saucer hovering over my head. In a couple weeks I’m going to be forced to pull the blades off and paint them black. I also have two smoke detectors that so far haven’t bothered me because they are also just at the edge of my upper field of vision. Interestingly I’ve found I’m much more sensitive to things at the edge of my side vision and down than up. Makes me wonder if it’s an evolutionary thing because of where threats are most likely to come from. Could just by my bushy eyebrows blocking the view.

I’ve still got to get a black carpet for across the front the temp one I’m using from my apartment doesn’t fit all the way across. I’m not going to replace the living room carpet partly because I don’t want permanent black carpet (other colours I tested just weren’t dark enough). So I will just have some carpeting bound and made into a throw rug. I’ve already picked the black carpet I want at Lowe’s but am waiting to see if they will have a manufactures sale. That way I still get my 10% military discount on top of the sale price. I got 30% off on my blinds that way.

Speaking of blinds I remember we talked about curtains. Turned out my worries about light leakage were unfounded. Between the blinds, the thickness of the curtains and most importantly where the breaks are there is only one place where light can get through. It’s on top of the arcadia door which is so far back it has no effect. Might be an issue if I ever decide to add a second row of seats but blocking that will be as simple as sticking up some weather striping.

Cheers,
Dean

This was partly in response to something said in this thread:

http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=298000#Post298000

Ok I had the day off and did an unscientific inverted speakers test. Not sure if I hit on what Alan was suggesting but I put the right M80 on top of tote boxes so that it’s tweeters were just about level with the tweeter of the left M80 sitting on the ground. Hooked them up with a switch so I could feed them both a signal at the same time or separately. I also repeated the test with the right M80 sitting upside down on top of the center M80.

With both playing the same mono signal I quickly noticed the mid-bass of the right M80 (inverted and elevated) was weaker. I noticed the same thing when A/B comparing the two M80 sitting on top of each other (inverted/elevated one had weaker mid-bass). Sitting with my ears vertically aligned as close as I could with both speakers tweeters I couldn’t hear any tonal differences except for the drop in mid-bass of the elevated/inverted speaker.

I also noticed that the soundstage of the elevated speaker in both cases sounded more natural. By that I mean more depth, vertical expansion and ambience. As a test I elevated the left speaker on a tote box (about 1.5’ high) leaving it right-side-up while leaving the right speaker upside down on it’s 3 totes. Now both speakers sound identical. Only by A/B comparing them with the switch could I tell that the right speaker sounded slightly more elevated. I also played them in stereo like this and the soundstage sounded normal.

I’ve always like the sound of my speakers elevated to I switch them both to right-side-up on a single tote box and they sounded much better in my seat than when sitting on the ground (note: my seating is high putting my ears on level with the top the M80s when they are on the floor). However, I now noticed a problem. When moving my ears vertically I noticed the tone of the speakers changed as my ears passed the level of each set of drivers with the frequencies produced by those drivers becoming dominant. The farther I was from the speaker the less pronounced but it was very noticeable.

Having never noticed this before (my ears have never passed the plane of each driver pair before) I was curious what was happening. I got the idea to push the reclining backs of the chaise lounges down and surprise the “beaming” effect from each driver pair disappeared. There is still a slight tonal difference (more natural sounding voices) with my ears on level with the mid-range drivers rather than the tweeters but it is now very subtle. And the soundstage opened up like I haven’t heard since moving my bed out of the living room for “real” furniture. I’ve known since buying the “acoustic black hole” futon in my apartment that furniture has a big effect on room acoustics but this experience was striking.

This, however, left the center M80 sounding meek still sitting there on the ground. Since I cant elevate it more than a few inches because of the screen I tried tilting it back so that the mid-range drivers rather than the tweeters were pointed at ear level. It now seems to blend seamlessly with the elevated mains. I tested it with a few movie scenes and didn’t notice any vertical or tonal shifts while sounds were panning. It also gave me a better tonal balance in the vocal range than I’ve ever heard before.

In summary I found that elevating the M80s 1.5’ off the ground while right-side-up or upside down 4’ off the ground had the same effect on the soundstage, as long as the tweeter/mid-range drivers were roughly on the same vertical plane (within a couple feet of each other). Elevating the M80 off the ground (more than 1’ in this case) noticeably reduced the mid-bass. Elevating the tweeters and mid-range drivers above the rooms seating backs improved the soundstage for 2ch music by increasing it’s depth, vertical expansion and ambience. This also greatly improved the main’s integration with the surrounds creating a more seamless surround soundstage. Tilting the M80 back to aim the mid-range drivers at the ears slightly improved voices and simulated elevating the speaker at least in the mid-range frequencies and up.

Cheers,
Dean