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Anybody able to successfully incorporate a SET amp/high efficency speaker system in with a home theater system? I plan to use a front projection system with a projector screen in between the main speakers. I love the 2a3 sound, but don't think 3-4 watts is going to be enough for a HT system. For those that have done both, what speaker and amp would you recommend. Thanks.
Follow Ups:
I tried HT with an Art Audio Carissa, and it clipped on the more bombastic soundstracks. I believe it provided about 26w/ch and lots of current.
Here is my old system. I've replaced the VOTTs with Edgarhorns. The amp is a 6SN6/26/300B I got from njjohn. The frame is a peice of art I created. Cheers.
Seems like two very good choices for speakers. I'd swap for your vott's if you had them. I'd like to hear the Titans(?)
Hi John, glad to hear from you. Yes the VOTTs sounded great and in some respects I liked them better than the Titians. It is a great amp....I run it every day. I am thinking about upgrading the 300B tubes but don't know which ones to go with. I hear great things aabout the TJ and the new WE but have not talked to anyone that has run both for a comparison. Cheers.
Hi doc_stereo,It depends on how big your room is, nn my 9' x 11' room I never clipped any of the 2-3W SET amps augmented by a powered subwoofer. I'm using vintage Jensen Duettes for main speakers. See link for details.
Hope this helps!
JE
HEY!!!! Please give me/us some details on the time pieces. I have a very modest collection of antique pocket watches and a few antique wrist watches so that part of you picture caught my eye even more than the speakers. Sure would like to hear about your collection.
....just a few mechanical Bulovas, Hamiltons and Gruens from the 30s and 40s.Regards,
JE
I remember seeing in a magazine a picture of a room using Klipsch LaScalas for left, center, right. Not sure what amps were powering them.
I use Zu Definitions driven by Audion 845 amps. The Definitions limit vertical dispersion to reduce floor and ceiling effects, while increasing horizontal dispersion for both 2 channel soundstaging in music and movies. The sweet spot is quite wide and DVD viewing from well off axis still yields a good audio experience with dialog anchored to the person speaking. I do not use a center channel speaker.The 845 is a great tube for robust SET sound, and when mated to Zu's 101db/w/m efficiency, the result is impressive, effective and dynamically very convincing.
2 channels are sufficient for HT, and SET can get the job done.
HI,
I use a modified VOTT system, with a Hsu 12" sub. The whole setup is actively crossed & triamped. My 15" 515Gs are driven by a dynaco st35 clone (22 watts P-P) , the 515B are driven by an EL84 /12ax7 Set amp (6 watts SET). The sub has a proprietary plate amp.
The whole setup sounds pretty good...defiitely fills up my rather large family room.
Hope this helps.
grazie
Amante
I'm using my Push-Pull 6B4G amp to power my not very efficient front speakers. The amp puts out maybe 10wpc, more than a 2A3, but not a lot.I use my Outlaw 1050 pre-outs straight into the 6B4G for the fronts when I'm watching a movie. For regular TV watching, and the way it is usually connected, I have the Outlaw tape-outs going into my Aikido pre and using that to control the volume. Satellite and DVD optical outputs go into the Outlaw for the DAC, although I can bypass the Outlaw completely as well by using the stereo line outs from them.
When a DVD is in, I usually also turn on the subwoofer, a rather large SVS with a 200w amp. With my setup this way, I can turn it up as loud as I ever want it to be and I don't feel like I'm missing a thing. It's a small room. Using the sub protects my speakers and amp as neither has to use much power for the bass. For music, the sub is off. My main speakers go very low on their own, down to 28hz, which is plenty low.
I'm always amazed by how much better the setup sounds when I use the Aikido as the pre instead of letting the Outlaw control the volume even though I use the Outlaw for the DAC. All the graininess disappears, the space comes back, the bass has a thwack and you can hear them plucking the strings.
My impression is that sets offer the best possible home theater sound. My goal was for the most natural and realistic sound possible and I feel like I achieved it with the sets along with a few other ideas.I started the home theater experience a few years ago. I started with a good pioneer home theater amp/processor hooked up to my speakers. When I switched to using the amp ouputs to basically some old garbage vintage tube amplifiers, I think it was about a fourfold(400 percent)improvement in the sound. When I switched to a preamp processor only, not the amp processor, the sound again improved. When I switched to set amps, I reached a very satifying naturalism and realism. When I dumped the processor altogether, and found a dvd player with an onboard processor, the naturalism/realism greatly increased.
I basically stopped there but I may have to eventually rethink it as I switch some from dvd movies to watching HD tv, and now wanting to hook that up to the set amps.
The choice of set amps, the output tubes, depends on the speakers you have to work with. You really don't need as much power in each speaker situation as you normally would for stereo since there is a cumulative effect of sound from all the speakers.
I have a 5 channel set-up. You certainly could use 2a3 in any channel/s depending on the effeciency speakers you have.
I just have a 61 inch rear projection hd tv. I have quite a few good quality klipsch mid range speakers for center channel. For left and right front I use to have the paradign studio 100's v.2 which have very good soundstage, but I switched to the f200a single driver speakers built by Kloss because I had them in the house. For rear left and right, I have overkill speakerlab k-horns. I also have a monsterous fried 250 lb subwoofer which can rattle the house and the neighborhood. Iuse a denon dvd player which I greatly prefer over pioneer.
For set amps, I have a 10y/300b for center. I choose a set amp with the good clarity for that situation. I use an 845 amp for left-right front, and 6sn7/45's for the rears. For the sub, i just use one of the inexpensive vintage amps like a bogen or something like that. I made those selections a while ago. I guess I could review/change the choice of amps at this point to maxemize the sound, if I had a chance.
For many a movie that I have played, the best compliment I could give it is that I forgot about the sound. It was so natural that I never thought about the sound as a seperate entity from the movie, As you can get immersed in a movie, you can just get immersed in the movie/sound. This is quite a bit different than getting into the special sound/effects of home theater sound where you may go 'Wow' to the effects. Rather naturalness is more important to me. I'm not trying to achieve a "good sound" either; I'm trying to achieve an in the room you are there naturalness, using the home theater effect too to add on to the dimensionality and three-dimensional sense of set sound.
Sorry I only had a few minutes for this post and had to run it off.
John,You have a very impressive HT setup. My setup is similar, but downscaled quite a bit. A projector is projecting between the main stereo speakers, and the DVD (cheapest Walmart Pioneer - sound is mediocre, but it plays EVERYTHING, from burned discs to scratched ones) is hooked to the main stereo chain. The sound of the DVD player was tremendously improved by adding tiny Zentih 6bq5 PP OPTs. This cuts the gain a lot, so I cannot listen at ear-damaging volumes ;), but it makes the sound an eniterly different league. The dynamic range is still lacking, and it is not super-hi resolution, but so natural sounding. Hard to beleive its digital.
There are no subs, no extra channels, I stick to two channels for HT. I watch a lot of movies, and realized that the extra channels distract from the movie. The story is going on the front channels, from the rear ones come the door creeks, submarines landing on ice fileds and other annoying noises. I am more than happy not to overemphasize those. Also noticed that with two channels only I get much better stereospace than with a miriad of speakers. The dialogues are easy to understand, on quality DVDs you can hear that the person at the rear of the screen is also talking from behind. For main speakers, I use single driver ones, that have nice stereo-imaging.
However, I am thinking about using the Dyna PAS as a preamp, because the dynamic range is still way too big. When the conversation is at normal levels, the special effects blast the place.
Using SETs for HT truly has the benefit, that you forget about treating the sound as something artificial and fake. You forget about it, because it is natural, makes you feel at ease, and it lets you enjoy the movie, without hurting the ears.
Long live DIY!
Janos
Wow, thanks for the great replies. Now I'm excited about the whole thing. I'll keep everyone updated as the process goes on.
Two things I did not mention. One is the importance of having volume controls on the amps themselves so as to control the volume independent of the processor when you are using the processor on the dvd player which I don't think has volume controls for the seperate channels.The second is that if you have an additional stereo channel outputs, you can have a pair of dangling interconects which you can hook to any of the amps, or first to your favorite dac. The dvd processor in stereo mode will use the front right and left speakers and amp, but you could shut that amp off and use the center front channel or the rear speakers instead. Or you could use a combination of the front right and left and the center or rears.
So you can basically enjoy three seperate set systems or a combination of them with one system. If you hooked up the 2a3 for the rears and that was you favorite stereo system, you could enjoy that and still have what is best for the home theater sound.
That's the way it is for me. The stereo front and left with the 845 amp does sound real good as a stereo, but I really enjoy the 45 amp through the rear speakers. And it's kind of interesting to compare all of the systems right there so easily by unplugging the normal interconnects to any of the amps and just using the extra stereo interconnects.
...with 22-Watt Antique Sound Lab AQ1006/845s, the new vertical version.
I'm currently using an Eminent Technology center-channel speaker and custom-made-and-built-in, full-range, diffuse-sounding surrounds, all driven (plus the 2 12" woofers in the main systems) by an Outlaw 770 7-channel poweramp.The system is very dynamic and also gorgous sounding on multichannel and 2-channel music.
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
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