Hate to ask......

I have the blessing and curse of two decent size living rooms, one each for theater and two channel. So, having put together the two channel first, I listen continuously to recorded music. I simply never enjoy the level of the sound in the theater(9 seats). I have improved the sound in the HT, but it is secondary to the video, but I simply don't watch more than a few hours of tv/movies weekly. Don't have the time and won't divert my attention from the extroidinary fascination I have for classical music.

Of course, when I'm watching in the theater, I forget all about my BS and love what I'm watching. Someone put it like, "when you see the t..'s you don't think about the music". I think he got it right!

Bill E.

Like others here, I have two separate systems since I have two separate living areas. The HT has a modified Pioneer DVD, Lexicon, Sunfire and Paradigm Reference (v2) speakers. The main system is for stereo only and is a real joy since I upgraded to the Sierra Denali amps. When I watch movies, the sound is important and fun. When I listen to the stereo, the sound is critical and hits a much deeper emotional center. There is no visual distraction.

Perhaps the reason some people hate HT is because so many folks spend a lot of money and then "settle" for a less fulfilling (IMHO) audio experience. But they think they have it all. I dunno. On the other hand, few of these HT fans would probably have sprung for a decent stereo only system. I'm glad I didn't start with HT. I might not have gone further.

Cheers. Guenther (silent first e)

OK Hifiho, I gotta see these pictures of the NHT 2.5s rear wall-mounted. Sounds kooky and kool.

Inscrutable: Of course. What was I thinking (or not thinking).

Inscrutable, surely you CAN have them spread out too much. Like i said, a lot of how they need to be set-up has to do with the size of the speakers, their dispersion pattern and the listening distance. It's the same thing that we run into for 2 channel use. You have to adjust them according to each individual situation design and the room acoustics.

As to having a center to anchor the dialogue for those not sitting in the sweetspot, that comes back to room dimensions and speaker dispersion. If the room is narrow and the speakers have wide dispersion, you would run into a problem with "overlap" between the three channels. Not only does this hurt overall performance, but the imaging is now blurred and channel seperation less distinct.

In a situation like that ( narrow room ), i would probably forego a center and just use good sized mains. One could even have the tv audio turned on at low level just to center the soundstage somewhat while the mains would do the majority of volume and side to side effects. Like anything else, it's a balancing act. Sean
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