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Cerwin Vega?

 
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jbltecnicspro




Joined: 23 Apr 2016
Posts: 512



PostLink    Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:04 am    Post subject: Cerwin Vega? Reply with quote


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Hey guys,

This Friday I'm going to go to my brother-in-law's place and will help him think up a home theater system. Apparently his house is prewired for surround sound and his media room is in the basement and is perfectly light-controlled, with dark red walls. The previous owner had a projector but I don't know what the setup was like.

Question - I was going to go along the lines of something like this:

Two 12-inch towers for the fronts:
https://amzn.to/2DOmOPy

Center channel:
https://amzn.to/2PHO7BA

Two rears:
https://amzn.to/2BoyypI

Two subs:
https://amzn.to/2qYrLNv

Driving the show would be the following setup:
Preamp - http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/975.html
Amp - http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/5000.html

Thoughts? Please be nice - it's my first time doing something like this. Wink Seriously - I would love some opinions on what would constitute a good audio system.

For the projector, I plan on steering him to an entry-level JVC projector (RS-4x0). I'm not sure about room dimensions yet. I'll be taking measurements on Friday.

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Curt Palme
CRT Tech



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 24296
Location: Langley, BC

TV/Projector: All of them!


PostLink    Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2018 4:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I haven't dealt with Cerwin in decades, but generally speaking, they are bass heavy (a good thing), LOUD! , efficient, but not accurate. That's about all I can tell you about the stuff from the 80s and 90s. The Jr Earthquakes from the mid 80s are still amazing folded horns.
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jbltecnicspro




Joined: 23 Apr 2016
Posts: 512



PostLink    Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2018 1:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Curt Palme wrote:
I haven't dealt with Cerwin in decades, but generally speaking, they are bass heavy (a good thing), LOUD! , efficient, but not accurate. That's about all I can tell you about the stuff from the 80s and 90s. The Jr Earthquakes from the mid 80s are still amazing folded horns.


Thanks for this. I'll continue to do my research but this may be right up his alley, as he's not an audio guy and only really wants his system to be loud and thunderous, without any distortion. He wants to bring the roof down. Smile
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Curt Palme
CRT Tech



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 24296
Location: Langley, BC

TV/Projector: All of them!


PostLink    Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2018 2:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CV is your speaker company of choice then! Very Happy
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jask




Joined: 17 Mar 2006
Posts: 10164
Location: kamloops BC


PostLink    Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2018 5:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wink if this is primarily a theater room those speakers will fill the bill at a great price.. that amp has the potential to damage the speakers at max power. how do you plan to connect the second sub?
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jbltecnicspro




Joined: 23 Apr 2016
Posts: 512



PostLink    Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2018 8:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jask wrote:
Wink if this is primarily a theater room those speakers will fill the bill at a great price.. that amp has the potential to damage the speakers at max power. how do you plan to connect the second sub?


The room is prewired for speakers. I haven't thought about how the subs will be connected. The room is a bit... Odd too. So the wall where the screen will go is massive - 192 inches wide. But the outlet and hdmi cable on the ceiling drop is only 12 feet away from the wall. I was hoping to recommend an RS-420 for them, but they'd essentially be maxing out the zoom to fit a 120 inch screen (which is what I was wanting to get). Honestly, that wall is so big we could go bigger but we don't have the throw distance for it.

Pretty lame design, if you ask me. We do have some play room (I can bring the projector back, but it will look a little weird) so we'll see. The room can be totally blacked so it would be a shame not to have a high-contrast projector.
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jbltecnicspro




Joined: 23 Apr 2016
Posts: 512



PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 2:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, so for audio we may be taking it down a notch.

Amp driving the show:
https://www.amazon.com/Marantz-SR5012-Channel-Surround-Receiver/dp/B072ZJ9SRM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1543802979&sr=8-2&keywords=marantz+sr5012&linkCode=ll1&tag=curtpalmecrtp-20&linkId=4ccd41d6b6e6a1b2fc063611f8f24c5d&language=en_US

Front speakers:
https://www.amazon.com/Cerwin-Vega-XLS-28-3-Way-Audio-Speaker/dp/B002JGZ9RC/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1543803218&sr=8-2&keywords=cerwin+vega+xls&th=1&linkCode=ll1&tag=curtpalmecrtp-20&linkId=db9af5e002d313739fd3aad1bc0decba&language=en_US

Center and rear are the same as before

XLS-6C for center and XLS-6 for rear.

And for the subwoofer, we may just start with the XLS-15 inch subby. What do you guys think about that audio setup? I don't have the actual room measurements on me, so if you need me to get that I can get them.

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Curt Palme
CRT Tech



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 24296
Location: Langley, BC

TV/Projector: All of them!


PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 3:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

All good. Asking opinions other than overall quality about matching speakers to amps doesn't really work online, as the room acoustics are going to affect the best (and worst) speakers more than an amp will.

Should sound good though. Me, I never use receiver's internal amps, I use the preamp outputs running to independent power amps. I love overkill though! Very Happy
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jbltecnicspro




Joined: 23 Apr 2016
Posts: 512



PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 6:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Curt Palme wrote:
All good. Asking opinions other than overall quality about matching speakers to amps doesn't really work online, as the room acoustics are going to affect the best (and worst) speakers more than an amp will.

Should sound good though. Me, I never use receiver's internal amps, I use the preamp outputs running to independent power amps. I love overkill though! Very Happy


Yeah, his room is a little "lively". I'm hoping that some furniture and the velvet surrounding the screen will dampen some of the reflections though. Thanks for the input. We may just start with the receiver and front two speakers and get a feel for the room. And then maybe add the other speakers later. Or if we don't like the sound, we return the speakers. I think Amazon has a pretty generous return policy.
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jbltecnicspro




Joined: 23 Apr 2016
Posts: 512



PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2018 6:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Curt Palme wrote:
All good. Asking opinions other than overall quality about matching speakers to amps doesn't really work online, as the room acoustics are going to affect the best (and worst) speakers more than an amp will.

Should sound good though. Me, I never use receiver's internal amps, I use the preamp outputs running to independent power amps. I love overkill though! Very Happy


Yeah, his room is a little "lively". I'm hoping that some furniture and the velvet surrounding the screen will dampen some of the reflections though. Thanks for the input. We may just start with the receiver and front two speakers and get a feel for the room. And then maybe add the other speakers later. Or if we don't like the sound, we return the speakers. I think Amazon has a pretty generous return policy.
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garyfritz




Joined: 08 Apr 2006
Posts: 12024
Location: Fort Collins, CO


PostLink    Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2018 4:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Might want to consider making some sound panels. Just build a frame out of 1x4's, put 2" fiberglass panels in the front 2" (with 2" of empty space against the wall), cover with speaker grille cloth. That will absorb a ton of high freqs. There are different classes (different densities) of Owens Corning fiberglass that absorb different levels of sound.

In this thread I posted a pic of the two side-wall traps I built (roughly 2.5'x2.5'). I also built big bass traps in the front corners, about 4'x8' of 2" OC705 across the corners. In this pic you can see the two bass traps in the corner, another panel under the screen, and you can just see the tips of the side-wall panels.

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Curt Palme
CRT Tech



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 24296
Location: Langley, BC

TV/Projector: All of them!


PostLink    Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What Gary said. I built 2'x 4' frames out of 1 x 1 wood, braced it in the middle, covered it in black microfibre material, and put Roxul insulation behind 1/2 the panels. My room had an annoying slapback reverb that only I could hear between the front and back walls (22' or so distance). We put the frames over the entire ceiling, covering the white paint, and all around the screen. The difference was remarkable. The room is DEAD! Improved the bass dramatically as well.
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garyfritz




Joined: 08 Apr 2006
Posts: 12024
Location: Fort Collins, CO


PostLink    Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 4:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, that's what's *supposed* to happen. Didn't seem to do all that great in mine. I was really hoping for improved speech intelligibility, but it didn't seem to help much. And the room is still fairly live -- a handclap takes at least half a second to die down. Mostly off the side walls, I think, even with the panels there. Pretty ridiculous echo for such a small room, about 12x14. Guess I should have covered the ceiling like you did. I'm sure that's where a lot of your benefit came from.
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jbltecnicspro




Joined: 23 Apr 2016
Posts: 512



PostLink    Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2019 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Had a question to bump this thread with. We're going to start putting it together soon. I've kept the speakers the same but have switched to this amp:

https://www.amazon.com/Marantz-SR5013-7-2-Compatibility-Streaming-Automation/dp/B07FMPVMRL/ref=as_li_ss_tl?keywords=Marantz+SR5013&qid=1564520874&s=gateway&sr=8-2&linkCode=ll1&tag=curtpalmecrtp-20&linkId=d0dcf24f3e072f44eb2109edc43158cc&language=en_US

Reading the manual of the speakers and amplifier, it seems that the speakers are all rated at 6 ohms. The rears and center handle 125 watts peak. That Marantz amp drives 100 watts per channel into 8 ohms, and at 6 ohms, 140 watts per channel. Is this too much for the center and rears? He doesn't want to spend too much on audio... If I kept the speakers the same, is there a lesser-powered amp that could still do decently?

I have to say I find it odd that CV doesn't make any high-power-handling rears and centers to match the gianormous XLS-215's...

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