Adding Front WIDE speakers....an experiment
Posted by: Geoff P on 20 January 2012
One for those with non-Naim A/V receivers.
Audyssey's microphone measurements seems to have taken over the A/V setup world. I have it on my Denon AVR 4310 and have to say it does an excellent job of setting speaker distance/volume.
You then get the chance in the menus to use various degrees of room correction which I have escued until now.
Audyssey also can drive a couple of speaker configurations that superficially appear to be just audio tricks, extra Front HEIGHT or extra Front WIDE speakers. Basically the surround BACK channel amps in my Denon can be used for either of these 'tricks' instead of what they are labelled to do.
The argument given for the use of add on Front WIDE speakers has some logic to it, suggesting that there is much more opportunity to have an immersive Cinema audio experience by spreading it wider in the front and that the back channel audio is of limited benefit.
Well idle hands and all that, so last night I reset my Denon using the Audyssey options and installed a pair of KEF egg speakers I have as Front WIDE, full of scepticism. Other than that and the minimal sacrifice of giving up the Surround BACK channels I kept all else the same with the font MAIN channels passing through the trusty 552/500 as normal.
Listening test results
First up a DTS audio disk of Joe Cocker's 'Night Calls' which is one of my favourite surround audio disks so pretty familiar. Result - I have to say the spreading effect on the soundstage was very successful and enjoyable to listen to. Interestingly there was a genuine impression that the locations between instruments and vocals had separated more across the wider soundstage but there was no oddity to this. It sounded quite natural and in fact there was an impression of more delineation in instrument sounds.
Second a Blu Ray film, Iron Man 2. I picked one that would obviously have plenty of sound effects rather than something subtle to get the best (or worst) result in DTS-HD Master Audio. This passed with flying colours. The sense of immersion was not suddenly unnatural compared to the standard layout, in fact it seemed more natural if anything. There was an added bonus in that dialogue seemed to shift forward more and had a little better clarity. The film is actually good enough so you get into it and the crash boom passages were certainly drawing me to the edge of my seat in spite of seeing it all before.
Third a Blu Ray of Barenboim performing Beethoven's piano concertos again in DTS HD Master Audio. An excellent result which again was enhanced by the inclusion of the Front WIDE channels. I won't wax lyrical except to add the audio results were as affecting in a much more subtle way as reported for Joe Cocker
Sooo...I recommend anyone who has an A/V receiver with this capability to try it. As I said I used small KEF egg speakers I had lying around and in spite of their less than spectacular potential they worked very well. Full spec speakers might be rather good if some one has the luxury to try them in these positions.
regards
Geoff
Thanks for a very interesting post Geoff. The Audyssey software's certainly getting increasingly sophisticated.
I keep looking at alternative processors to my trusty AV2 but so far they haven't matched up to the sound quality. However I confess I do hanker after something with a few more modern bells and whistles. Temptation whispers in my ear.
First, to work out where & how I could sneak in a pair of additional front speakers...
Thanks for a very interesting post Geoff. The Audyssey software's certainly getting increasingly sophisticated.
I keep looking at alternative processors to my trusty AV2 but so far they haven't matched up to the sound quality. However I confess I do hanker after something with a few more modern bells and whistles. Temptation whispers in my ear.
First, to work out where & how I could sneak in a pair of additional front speakers...
Tony
My Denon AVR 4310 is about 2 years old now so these bells and whistles have been around a while. They all seem to bring out new model ranges almost yearly so if you do give in to temptation check if even newer models are about due. I have a Denon universal BD player which works with the receiver in a dedicated connection for multichannel audio known as Denon LINK which is also audibly better than via HDMI
I am not sure but I assume your decoding takes place in your Blu Ray player and you then pass the analog outputs to the AV2 for channel balancing etc. before handing off to your Naim power amps. If so presumably it is the pre-amp performance of any replacement A/V receiver that interests you.
It would certainly be difficult to figure out sites for Front WIDE speakers in your room. Front HEIGHT speakers would be more feasible I would guess.
Still like the way it sounds using the FRONT WIDE speakers. Of course giving up the surround back channels for this freed up my single surround back speaker so since it fits nicely in the low unit I have between my front speakers I decided to have a bash at running a PAIR of CENTRE speakers by wiring them in parallel.
Again Audyssey came in handy. A re-run of setup advised the 'Center' was now out of phase which was fixed by reversing the phase of one of the two Centre speakers.
The result?. Well nothing bad and there is more clarity to the spoken word on film soundtracks, beneficial especially for those american actors that seem to mumble.
regards
Geoff