Q&A # 241 - August 2, 2001

Staff

Q I am looking to upgrade my music system. I have a B&K PT3B stereo preamp and Infinity RS5 speakers. The B&K preamp is hooked up to a B&K Ref 2220 two channel amp. I am planning to upgrade either my speakers or the amplifier. The maximum budget I have is about $3,500. Here are the options that I have been considering:

1) Upgrade the amp to a Proceed HPA2 (250W/ch) or to a LLano Design Trinity 200 stereo amp (200W/ch). Although the Proceed is slightly more powerful than the Trinity, the Trinity is a pure class A to rated power. Also the Trinity seems to be way overbuilt (like two 1.5 kVA torroids, 120,000 microfarads of filter capacitance) and has a tube pre-driver that  would allow me to tweak the sound to my liking. Both options are going to cost me about $3,000. 2) Upgrade the speakers to Vienna Acoustics Beethoven ($3,800/pr).

Now my question is which option would give me a better sound? In case of option 1, which amp would give me a better sound? I use Monster Cable throughout. Do I need to upgrade my cables too for an improved sound? Any other thoughts/suggestions are greatly welcome.

A It depends on how loud you like to listen to music. If it is just medium loudness, upgrade the speakers. If it is really loud, upgrade the amplifier. Both amps are good products.

Q I am currently using a Parasound for the front speakers and a B&K for the center and surrounds. With your knowledge about both of these products, would I be better off using the B&K for the front speakers and center and the Parasound in back? Or is the Parasound better up front like it is now? Specification wise, the Parasound is THX Ultra rated at 125 watts while the B&K is 105 watts conservatively. I listen to a lot of two channel stereo and want the best sounding of the two amps up front for music listening.

A I would say use the Parasound in front, where more power is needed.

Q Our question has to do with the rear speakers for home theater in our bedroom. It measures 18X13X8 with the bed on one end of the 13' side and the rear projection TV and the front and center speakers on the opposite 13' wall. We've narrowed our front speaker choices, in order of preference, to Martin Logan Scenarios, Infinity Preludes, and Definitive Technology 2002tl. Our room will not accommodate normal placement of any of these brands' associated surround speakers. One of the 18' walls is floor to ceiling glass. We have not run across an article on placement of surrounds in a bedroom where the listening position is against the back wall with night stands and lamps on both sides of the king sized bed. Our own thinking is to use ceiling speaker for the surrounds. The major problem is there is no place to demo the options to come up with an ears-on decision like we can with main speakers. Audio stores may have one brand of ceiling speaker, but they are never placed in a position that allows system comparisons. And we can't bring some home and put holes in the ceiling until we get it right.

A Since most people change their bed position in the room some time, I would suggest getting small speakers that can mount in the corner of the room and point downward towards the bed at a 45⁰ angle. Use a wall-mount bracket to hold them in place.

Q I have a Sony STR-DE835 FM Stereo FM-AM Receiver, connected to a Bose Acoustimass 10 Series II Home Theater Speaker System. It gets very poor bass. The Sony receiver has an odd equalization function, but I can't seem to get it to produce much bass at all out of the subwoofer.  Regardless of how I change the settings on the receiver, the bass sounds the same -- poor. I have tried all permutations of hookups, settings, etc., with no luck.

I also have connected to this setup a Sony DVP-S550D CD/DVD player, and DVD movies sound just fine, with a fair bass (subwoofer) output, but again I can't seem to control the amount of bass through the receiver.

Is this normal? Can you suggest anything for me to check or try?

A Modular speaker systems like the Bose pay a price in terms of deep bass, because they use small bass drivers. That is normal. What you need is a good subwoofer, with at least a 12" or 15" driver.

Q I have three rooms, and I want to run a set of speakers in each. Most systems offer two stereo channels for output. Are there any that have three output stages? What is the best way to overcome this problem?

A I would suggest one of the 12-channel amplifiers that are designed for things just like this. Russound, Niles, ATI, LeCroy, and others, make them.

Q  I've owned a pair of Revel Salons for a year, and I've finally decided to finish my 5.1 system. I already own a Velodyne subwoofer, so I just need to buy a center speaker and two surround speakers. My choices for the three speakers are such, the Revel Voice center channel, Revel Salon, Revel Studio, and the Revel Embrace. The Voice is a regular horizontal center channel speaker, while the Embrace is a hybrid bipole/dipole surround speaker. The Studios are the smaller siblings of the Salons and are $5,000 cheaper per pair and supposed to sound very alike except the bass extension is not as deep. I am really confused about what speakers I should get because I've read in your articles, that ideally that you should get five identical speakers. However, my dealer is advising me to buy the Voice center channel and two Embrace speakers. He claims that the Voice would be better than either of the two floor-standers, because it is designed to be in the middle of two speakers. He also says that buying a pair of the Salons or the Studios would be overkill and that the Embraces are more ideal for surround since they are bipole/dipole. I think that the dealer is being very honest, as he would earn about 15,000 more if I bought three more Salons. However, I am not sure if he's really heard how good five identical speakers would sound. Also, if you do recommend that I get five floor-standers, should I buy three more Salons or three more Studios? The difference is about $7,500, so I would like to save some money if possible. Please help me out as this is a very big investment. Space would not be a concern for me, as I would build a bigger room, if having five floor-standers would be better.

A Your dealer sounds like a very conscientious fellow, so I would try his advice. However, see if you can bring some of his demo models home to try it all out. Not all hi-fi aficionados are surround sound fans. At these prices, I am sure he will let you borrow a few of them to see if you like the mixture of sizes or floor-standers in back. Using a matching floor-stander for the center might be a little difficult, but if you can handle it, more power to you. Using a floor-stander in our lab would block the projection screen, but I would love to be able to use an exact matching center channel speaker to the front left/right.

Q I own a Sony STR-DE515 receiver which is hooked up to my CD Player, DVD Player, VCR, television, and Bose home theater speakers (all components Sony, except for the speakers). The system is approximately 3 years old, and I have never had any problem with it. This past week, while watching a DVD movie, the "PROTECT" message appeared on the receiver's screen and
basically shut everything down. I read in the owner's manual that this occurs if there is a short circuit and to correct the problem, fix the short and turn the receiver back on. I initially thought the message came on due to a surge. I unplugged everything from the receiver and also unplugged the receiver from the wall. I waited around fifteen minutes and the "PROTECT" message will not reset. I have plugged everything back in correctly and replaced some questionable speaker wire and all to no avail. I fear there is a short circuit internally and is something that I cannot fix. Is the "PROTECT" message common? Is it fixable? Or will it be cheaper to go out and buy a new receiver (this time paying for the extended warranty)?

A My guess is that one of the output transistors became defective and shorted. This is a repair shop problem. All you can do is take it in and get an estimate. If the estimate is less than $150, get it repaired, because they usually require a $35 deposit or thereabouts which is applied towards the repair if you have it fixed. Otherwise, you lose the $35.

Q My name is Shane and I am from South Africa. I recently bought a digital amplifier but I am having problems connecting my subwoofer to it. My subwoofer has two wires (a "+" and "-") coming from it but my amp has only one plug. How do I convert the two cables into a one cable? I bought RCA plugs and tried to connect the wires to the plugs and plug it into the subwoofer socket on the amp but it does not work. Please help and advise.

A I guess you are lucky you are not wearing a pair of wings at this point. The speaker terminals at the output of amplifiers or on speaker drivers is for high voltage from full power amplification, e.g., 50 volts. RCA jacks are for line-level input and output, e.g., about 1 volt. So, you don't want to be mixing and matching. If your subwoofer has an RCA input jack, then connect the RCA output jack on your receiver to it. You can connect speaker terminals on the amplifier to the speaker terminals on the subwoofer as an alternative. But, don't make a cable that connects the speaker posts on your amplifier to an RCA input jack. That could damage something, including your body. What you need to do is contact a friend in your city who knows something about hi-fi components.

� Copyright 2001 Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity
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