I'll be listening to the SC50 tomorrow at a local dealer, but wanted to get an idea about what size room this system would fill. My target is 13' x 18' with vaulted ceilings. My current system has towers which are spaced about 12' apart, rear surrounds about the same. My listening position is about 11' from the center channel, a bit further from the towers, and about 6' from each surround.

I'm a little concerned that the SS50/3 combination won't be able to fill the room like floor-standing speakers (of course, I'd love to be wrong about this!).

Thoughts?

The SuperCinema 50 system will play VERY loud in that size room. The maximum output will be determined more by the number of subwoofers used and the crossover selection for the system than by the satellite speakers themselves. I have heard a SuperCinema 50 system in a room twice as large play scary loud. And if it wasn't loud enough the addition of a second sub and a higher crossover point would have allowed it to play even louder (although I'd have to leave the room ) .

I did take a listen today. I'll keep it short, but I was very impressed with the HVFR tweeters and the upper-mids. The ForceField4 did a commendable job on the lows - but I couldn't help but find something missing between it and the mids produced by the SS50's. I did adjust the crossover on the sub various times, but was never really able to find the sweet spot - and thus found myself playing the system louder in attempt to compensate for the missing sound range. The SS 50 Cinema system probably could have used a second sub in the back, not for lack of bass - but to fill in upper-bass & lower-mids. Still - a SS 50 Cinema with two ForceField3's will run you about what a Triton II cinema system would - and the T2's are in a different league altogether.

For an intimately sized room - the SS 50 Cinema would be a fantastic system. For my moderately sized space, I just don't think I'd get that special feeling of envelopment that I had hoped for.

I think the system may have needed some more adjustment. From your brief description it sounds like the crossovers and levels needed some more "tweaking". I can tell you from our own experience in setup that wall mounting vs. stand mounting (free air) yields different results and requires different settings of crossover and subwoofer gain. I can also tell you that to equal the performance of the Triton Two you would need to use two of the ForceField 4 subs, preferably in the front of the room. And lastly, room acoustics can have a very significant effect on the end sonic result - with dealers' showrooms often times being unrepresentative of a typical room in your home because of all the open space. These differences almost always affect the bass and mid bass frequencies.

With the Triton, all these sat to sub adjustments are taken care of for you (and they aren't wall mountable of course), leaving just the bass volume control for a little "room tuning". Its a beautiful thing .

Thanks for the response. When I was tweaking the crossover - I was able to either match up well with the supersat 50s -or- cover the lows, but never both. This is what I meant by "missing something"... it just never seemed like I could cover the entire spectrum with this setup.

You mentioned the difference between on-wall and freestanding the SS50's. These were wall mounted pretty close together (6' apart) - much closer than I'd have them. What advantages do freestanding SS50's have apart from being able to toe them in? (I ask because of the impressively slender construction).

I very much agree about the Triton II's. They seemed to need very little tweaking, if at all, to sound great. That does worry me about the SS50 cinema system - if it really needs an expert hand to sound great, I'd probably become frustrated long before I achieved a desirable result.

Thanks!

I'm afraid I am at a loss to understand the problem (or at least the cause of the problem). I don't know what would cause the low bass to be reduced when raising the high-pass crossover point. Have you tried turning off the auto-setup/EQ function to see if that's the culprit?

A pair of 50's on stands and a pair of ForceField 4's does a remarkable job of imitating the Triton Twos. On the wall and very close together is not the ideal "audiophile" set up but still should sound excellent. I've heard this exact wall mounted setup at many dealers and the results are outstanding, both visually and sonically. It should not be a big deal to obtain this - I've set up a few systems (including a SC3 system in my bedroom) with very little tweaking (just the basics and my preferred room correction) and it sounds glorious.

Thanks for your continued interest and for your participation in our forum!