Question Advice needed on 5.1 speakers (Dali Zensor and Monitor Bronze etc) and AVR please. :)

[Richdog]

Well, have now got everything except the subwoofer (now going to be an SBS SB-12)... ignore the cables they still need to be properly tidied and routed. And yes, I need to put pictures on the walls.

It's amazing how much the Zensor 3's speakers improved when I put them on proper stands (they were previously temporarily resting on dining chairs, heh). I still need to get some rubber feet for the center speaker which should also improve things a bit. The rears are on DJ monitor stands and to be honest I didn't think they would be as big from the photos I saw, they do the job perfectly well and are very stable but are a little overkill in terms of footprint and I may swap them out for something more discreet.

Sounds awesome. I really am very impressed with the Denon X1200W, for £250 you really can't ask for more from a new amp and it has more than enough power to blast out movies in my size room and also importantly sounds decent in stereo for my movie music. I will upgrade this at some point for sure as I used to have a much higher-end amp, but I'm certainly in no rush to do so.

I can't wait to get a sub set up, it really will tie everything together.

 

[DrHarvey12]

Looks a nice setup. I guess the subwoofer will go on the front wall somewhere?

Pico's look quite narrow but still fairly deep. Although they are somewhat dwarfed by the stands they are on . Least they are not going to fall off no matter how loud you play them.

Pleased the Denon is working well for you. I had a Denon a while back and was pretty happy with it. Just a firmware bug prevented me from being able to use it properly so had to return it. Best (and easiest to follow) onscreen setup procedure I have seen! Plus from what I understand you don't need a powerhouse receiver for most "normal" listening levels.

I asked a question around this a while ago and got a very good response from @BlueWizard that deals with this:

Question - Safe Listening Volume for Movies - Dali Zensors

I assume that the wattage for the speakers is similar to that required from the receiver but just goes to show that you may only be using a fraction of it's power at normal listening levels. Hopefully if I have completely misunderstood this someone will point it out.

Look forward to hearing how you get on with the system and what you think once the subwoofer comes .

 

[Richdog]

Looks a nice setup. I guess the subwoofer will go on the front wall somewhere?

Pico's look quite narrow but still fairly deep. Although they are somewhat dwarfed by the stands they are on . Least they are not going to fall off no matter how loud you play them.

Pleased the Denon is working well for you. I had a Denon a while back and was pretty happy with it. Just a firmware bug prevented me from being able to use it properly so had to return it. Best (and easiest to follow) onscreen setup procedure I have seen! Plus from what I understand you don't need a powerhouse receiver for most "normal" listening levels.

I asked a question around this a while ago and got a very good response from @BlueWizard that deals with this:

Question - Safe Listening Volume for Movies - Dali Zensors

I assume that the wattage for the speakers is similar to that required from the receiver but just goes to show that you may only be using a fraction of it's power at normal listening levels. Hopefully if I have completely misunderstood this someone will point it out.

Look forward to hearing how you get on with the system and what you think once the subwoofer comes .

Yes, the sub will go at the front somewhere hopefully between the TV cabinet and one of the speakers.

The Picos are actually substantial little things, they remind me of my old Quad Lites.

Interesting regarding the speaker wattage but I can't pretend to understand all of it, I'm not particularly techie when it comes to audio or electrical engineering heh.

 

[Richdog]

Well, today I received my SVS SB-12 NDS and wow, it is lovely. Feels very solid and while I wasn't sure about the design in the photos, I really like it in the flesh.

Including shipping and taxes it cost me a grand total of 367 quid. That is considerably cheaper than what the BK would have cost me, 30 quid before taxes were taken into account and probably around 70-80 cheaper when they were. Bargain.

Looking forward to getting it set up properly as I think it will need some real tweaking with Adyssey... I'd better get reading up!

 

[Richdog]

Photo of my now, for all intents and purposes, complete home cinema:

Still need to tidy things up, but wow... very pleased with it. Full list of components is:

Front speakers: Dali Zensor 3
Surround speakers: Dali Zensor Pico
Subwoofer: SVS SB-12 NDS
AVR: Denon AVR-X1200W
TV: Samsung UE65JS8550

Love it.

 

[DrHarvey12]

Congrats man.

Looks very nice .

Happy with the subwoofer?

 

[Richdog]

A shot of the room including everything:

Congrats man.

Looks very nice .

Happy with the subwoofer?

So far though I haven't done any real placement testing yet. It's nice and subtle which is just what I wanted, though I think Audyssey hhas maybe underpinned it a bit. I have set crossover to 80hz for all speakers, gain set to 50%, and it set it to -8, so I raised it a bit to -5 and it is more noticeable but still subtle.

I shall have a play tomorrow and see what I can find.

 

[DrHarvey12]

Those settings sound just about right for the subwoofer. Should give you nice impact when required and no noticeable output when not. That's how I like mine to be.

I used to have my older subwoofers run quite hot just to feel like they were approaching the impact that was happening onscreen. A good subwoofer will give prodigious output at normal levels at the appropriate times. I'm sure you'll be very happy with yours - that price seems very good for a great subwoofer.

 

[PSM1]

I would at least bring the centre to the front of the unit so that the front of the speaker is just proud of the front of the unit. Placed back on the unit is not ideal.

 

[Richdog]

I would at least bring the centre to the front of the unit so that the front of the speaker is just proud of the front of the unit. Placed back on the unit is not ideal.

Good point, thanks. I did have it front before, then for some reason moved it back when I put up the new TV. All rosy now