Hello all,

A new GE customer here ... and a very satisfied one at that. I'm running a ~400sqft home theater in one part of a very large (25K ft^3) warehouse-type room. Started with two T1s and a SuperCenter XL ... see my comment in another thread about how well those guys are mixing it up. I'm going to add some SS50's as surrounds, and I think I'm pretty well covered, except for one thing: bass.

The T1s do a credible job, but in the size of room I'm in (and the relatively fixed position of the T1s for the L/R duties), I'm considering adding a subwoofer or two to the mix to get better dispersion of the sound and give me more flexibility on location to mitigate some of the standing wave issues in the space.

My question comes from the fact I'm in a two-story building, and there are people below me with whom I'd like to remain on friendly terms who live in a similarly large space that booms pretty well from noise upstairs. The T1s have done better than I could have expected with getting the bass into the room and not into the floor - so much so, actually, all of us have raised our eyebrows at just how much bass they can put out into the room and not be heard below.

However, the T1s are not down-firing, and the ForceFields are. So wondering if anyone can provide thoughts on whether or not the passive radiators on the ForceFields are going to blow me out of the water were I to add them. Also, curious whether something like a SubDude has been effective for others as well.

Thanks in advance!

Dizzydev,

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the GET set up! I bet it sounds amazing! I have a few follow up questions before I get too far down the road of offering suggestions:

1. What are you using for a receiver or pre/pro?

2. What is the floor/ceiling made of? Concrete or stick framed?

3. How do you have your T1s hooked up? What crossover settings are you using?

I have a theater set up beneath my master bedroom and the bass penetrates into that space pretty badly due to the current lack of insulation. That is without bass directly firing at that surface... I'm not sure the platforms would help too much if you really got things thumping. Let us know what you're working with. There are a lot of smart and helpful people here that will likely have some great ideas.

Cheers,

T Cobe

Thanks for the welcome + questions.

Receiver is a Denon 5200W.

Construction is a challenge - foot-thick concrete walls or flat plaster in the room, roof is pine on large wood beams. It's a humorously reflective space, so carpet is already down in the HT area, and likely some additional targeted treatment coming shortly, once I figure out the rest of the system I'm planning to install. The floor is a 2" pour concrete diaphragm resting on top of 12x24 concrete beams. When I put in the T1s we were all expecting a lot of transmission - the folks downstairs can hear me walking, and I can hear them hammering (it's a mixed-use building), so we are very surprised at how well the T1s are keeping the sound where it should be.

Current setup is no LFE, just running direct from the AVR to each of the speakers and letting the T1s do the crossover work internally. Crossover for center is 80 Hz.

Any thoughts appreciated!

Dizzydev,

Concrete floors are good for blocking noise so you may be in luck there. I would seriously recommend the LFE sub hook up before you go out and purchase any additional subs. You may still find that you need more but better to exhaust your current options first. Do you have any cables to test it out?

It looks like your Denom should have Boundry Gain Compensation which works well if you only need to use it occasionally but I wouldn't want to keep it as a permanent setting.

Do you have any subs hanging around that you could use to test the noise that would bleed downstairs?

Cheers,

T Cobe

To test the noise, you could also just crank the sub gain to 3/4 and turn up the volume until you get to your maximum safe and tolerable volume to see what the neighbors can hear...

Thank you for the posts - this is tremenedously useful to test my thought process.

I've connected the T1s as recommended in the FAQs here (www.goldenear.com/support/faqs#WHAT'S%20...20OF%20THE%20TRITONS?). I didn't double up on the LFE as I can get plenty of bass out of the T1s if I drive them up, but the bass ends up being uneven in the space. For example, I can generate a 35Hz signal out of RoomEq and literally rattle the dishes 25-30ft away with the T1s, but it is almost completely silent where I normally sit to watch movies or listen to audio. Classic standing wave problem, and the dishes were not amused. Not surprisingly, I have some audio that sounds fantastic (movies tend to win over audio, because they don't have as consistent frequencies, particularly down low), but music (or music in movies) suffers pretty bad from time to time. Boundary Gain Compensation just rolls off the signal, and I agree with you, while it's useful for testing, it's not what I'd want for a long term solution. This is the challenge I'm trying to fix - getting natural, smooth, even, deep bass over a broader area.

I have limits to what I can do with acoustic treatment in the space, and I can't easily move the T1s as they are capably doing left/right duties, thus the idea of an extra sub or two comes in.

Part of this takes me back to the days of Dolby Tone tests in a theater I worked in - test tone, adjust speaker by speaker. But even then, in a very controlled environment, there were limits to what could be adjusted in the system without physical changes.

Thanks again for the questions and appreciate any other thoughts you might have.