Hey, John

You may want to also play some Blu-ray surround concert material when making your adjustment. With DTS Neural and Dolby Surround both able to upmix to the height channels , there's lots of Blu-ray options to try. As you said it's hard, with action movies, where the sound levels move so dramatically. Music can sometimes be easier to use for adjustments. I have found that if I get it right with music, where the height channels add a sense of being in a concert hall with the sound all around me with no channel overemphasized, too obvious, then I also get great overhead effects in action movies, like planes, helicopters, noises in trees/buildings above. In fact, I enjoy the effect of the height channels at least as much for music as for action stuff.

Enjoy your great system! Even the experimenting is fun!

Rick

GDHAL,

You bring up a great point about perceived improvement vs real world improvement. My reasoning for going down the acoustical treatment road was that my GET dealer has their demo room treated. As such, I knew what could be vs what I was hearing at home. I always left their store feeling a small sense of longing at what I was hearing there vs at home. I did a lot of reading and there's a pretty uniform consensus across the web that some form of acoustical treatment can reap big returns. I've watched a lot of movies in the room prior to treatment and I knew the second I sat down for my first movie post treatment that I was going to be happy with the results. We all put big money into our spaces, there's no getting around that in this hobby. The nice thing about room treatments is that they are permanent, they don't eventually get outdated like so much of our equipment does.

The dealer I bought my panels from (and GIK as well) sell the materials to make your own panels if you need to keep within a strict budget. A good place to start would be treating the first reflection points at the front of the room (you can read about these over at the GIK website and there's even a video showing how to find them) with bass traps in the front corners. Most people should be able to do this for under $1000 or even less if doing it themselves.

Cheers

T Cobe wrote: Jcbudny,

That is a beautiful setup! I assume your gear is behind the door by your stairwell? Great job on the installation! I can definitely see GET posting this one on their Facebook page. Great choice on demo discs. The Dave Mathews and Tim Reynolds Live at Radio City Music Hall is fantastic.

I think a comfortable couch and some blue LEDs is the crown molding will really polish things off. That screen is really awesome! I went with the whole blue and black theme to cut down on ambient light and match my gear. Do you have any issues with light levels in your room?

I can't really add much on the Atmos discussion. I haven't gotten that far yet with my theater. That may be next now that I have my 2-channel setup finely tuned. I'm also craving a new sub for even lower and more powerful LFE. I can say that the Anthem AVM 60 is a great surround processor. I REALLY like the ARC 2 software!!! It is great to be able to see the graphs of room response before and after making any changes. ARC shows you exactly what it is doing and how well it is able to correct things. You also have a fair amount of user control on the process. The resulting sound, IMO, is also much better than with Audessey. I had XT32 on my Integrated AVR prior to the Anthem and I always left Audessey off after upgrading to my GET speakers.

I see from your profile that you are a fellow cheese head. Where are you located? University Audio in Madison has the AVM60 in house with a GET surround system that you could demo to hear the results. By now, they may even have ARC hooked up so you could play with it a bit. Steve and Ben are great to work with and are very patient! I can't say enough about their customer service!

Thanks for sharing your pictures. Your room is way ahead of my work in progress but we share some similarities. I'll post my acoustic treatment arrangement back on the other thread this weekend. It's good to have another positive testimony on the HTR 7000s and Atmos in general. Hopefully you'll post some new pics when the LEDs and new couch are in place.

Cheers,

T Cobe

T Cobe,

I didn't realize you were in Wisconsin as well. I'm up in the Wausau area, however I did live in Madison for a while (college days) so I know the area well. I'll definitely need to stop in to University Audio to take a listen to their set up. I'm incredibly happy with my set up, however if there's one thing that gives me pause it's Audyssey. I was turning it on and off last night while my wife and I were watching a movie and there are times I thought things sounded better with it on vs off and vice versa. I stop in to Suess Electronics when I pass through Appleton, their GET demo room is currently set up with 5.2.4 and sounds good. I believe they are running an Integra AVR in the room but the owner of the store highly recommends Anthem. He pretty much poo poo'd my Marantz 8802a when I told him that was what I was running.

I've read about your positive review of ARC 2 in some of your other threads. My only hesitation is that the Marantz 8802a just works, no bugs that I've experienced. I keep reading on the AVM 60 thread on AVS about little bugs with the AVM 60. It also seems Anthem is slower to release updates like the DTS: X update. Any idea if Anthem plans to release a revision to the AVM 60 in '17 or will the AVM 60 run for more than a one year cycle? I don't need video processing, I plan on getting the Oppo 203 when it releases and that'll do any 4k upconverting I need for movies while the Playstation 4 Pro I have does a nice job with games at 4k.

If you are ever up in the Wausau area reach out, I'd love to chat about our rooms (it bores my wife to death ha ha) and do a demo. It would be fun to get input from another GET owner on how things sound. You can help me tune my bass. I've had my wife sit on the couch while I moved speakers around and I always get the, "that sounds the same" look from her

Cheers,
John

jcbudny, with a room like yours, obviously you know what you're doing Based on the photo's, GET speakers, etc. I have no doubt your audio/video system is something to behold and provides significant enjoyment.

My situation is a bit different. I don't have the luxury of a dedicated media room, nor am I desiring (at least at this stage of my life given where I live and financial situation) anything other than two channel. From a video perspective I have a top model Samsung that was pro calibrated by Kevin Miller. I stream 4K content. Suffice it to say the display is "exactly perfect". In the case of audio, I understand there is software like room EQ, but I don't have the patience and/or supporting hardware (mic, spl meter) to do a true analysis. Sure, if money were no object I'd do like everyone else on this forum; buy top-of-the-line everything and have a professional multi-channel installation

I'm relying on my hearing. That said, as you can glean from my posts here on GE and audiogon forum, and having listened to a few ultra high end (100K+) systems in my day, I just know I'm already in the ballpark where very good quality home two-channel audio is concerned. So what am I trying to solve with the idea of acoustic panels? Same as everyone else I suppose which is to eek out that last percent or two of perfection and further approach reference caliber. At the moment I have tight bass and no echo that is immediately apparent. What is great to know is that - purportedly - acoustic panels will make a difference (improvement). So I'm delighted in knowing that my already GRATE sound can only can better. And for that I'm GRATEFUL.

jcbudny wrote: I'm incredibly happy with my set up, however if there's one thing that gives me pause it's Audyssey. I was turning it on and off last night while my wife and I were watching a movie and there are times I thought things sounded better with it on vs off and vice versa.... My only hesitation is that the Marantz 8802a just works, no bugs that I've experienced.

Hey, John

You're getting lots of good feedback/advice. As T Cobe points out, Anthem's ARC seems to be at least several steps ahead of Audyssey, including XT32. My Marantz SR 7010 also uses that same Audyssey. I view their set points as "starting recommendations". Nothing beats the human ear for fine tuning any start point. I find that Audyssey really underestimates GEt surround/ceiling speakers. Audyssey set my ceiling height speakers at 150 HZ for the Invisa 525 top rears, and 90 HZ for the HTR 7000 top fronts... nowhere near enough "weight" for those capable speakers! I re set them to 80 HZ for the 525's, and 60 HZ for the 7000's. What are the crossovers you're using for the 7000's? If they're not at least as low as 80 HZ, I'd recommend dropping somewhere to the 60-80 HZ range, and see what that does for improving the height effect you're looking for.

Regarding your Marantz AV 8802A, reviewers rate that highly, usually comparing it favorably it to pricier Krell and other pre'pro's, right up to $10,000. Either Sound and Vision or Stereophile Magazine even stated it was the most coveted component they'd tested in all of 2015. So, you have fantastic gear. I guess it depends on what you are hearing with your current gear, fine tuned by your ears and manually making adjustments beyond Audyssey's start points, and what you think you are "missing" that some some additional room correction might provide beyond what Audyssey has done. I guess my input would be, it would be REAL difficult to find a more musical, detailed pre-amp set-up than you now have. But that's what keeps us all going, looking for the best SQ we can find. Listen to as any set-ups, dealer or otherwise, as you can. But what I see in your set-up and gear is SWEET, SWEET. Keep at it!

Happy listening!

Rick

John,

The 8802A is a great surround processor and Marantz is pretty bullet proof. From a sound quality stand point, it would probably be a tight race between the Anthem and the Marantz. If you were starting from scratch, the Anthem would be an easier argument. Upgrading from the 8802A, maybe not so much.

Regarding reliability, I have only had a minor issue or two with my AVM 60 and those have been handshake issues with HDMI. One of them was my fault in hooking up an audio return channel. Other than that, it has been rock solid. I've read some of the threads on the AVM 60 while waiting for pro reviews and I have to say that a lot of the negativity is not well founded. It's hard to say if there will be a newer version within the next year or two. Since it supports video pass through of the most current formats, I would guess an upgraded version is still a ways out. They are working on their DTS-X firmware release. A company rep had told me to expect an August release: 2016... they are certainly behind the curve a bit there.

I'm not going to do anything with 4K until the projectors come down in price. I think 4K will be a significant upgrade for large screens, but I'm waiting for something in the price range of the Epson 6030 or 5030. I will almost certainly upgrade to the Oppo 203 or 205 when the time comes. By the time all this happens, Sony will likely have a PS5 released, so I'll probably stick with the 4 and skip the pro.

Wausau is a nice area. I really like the Red Eye Brewing Company. We pass through there from time to time. I'll shoot you a PM if I get up that way. Feel free to do the same if you get down this way.

Cheers,

T Cobe