Equipment, Rooms, and Accuracy.

While the system occupying my main audio-visual room remains finely tuned and relatively consistent in terms of permanently installed hardware (my most recent upgrades involved surround-speaker changes that I discussed in a previous column, and more recently the replacement of my last CD player in that system by a third DVD player), the home-theater systems in my smaller A/V room and my living room (hereby called the "small" system and the "living-room" system, both of which are similar in size) are normally a hodgepodge of outwardly incompatible and ever-changing pieces of hardware.

This fact is regularly articulated by my wife, who remains perpetually frustrated by hardware rotations that tax her ability to watch movies, watch regular TV shows, and listen to music. Some of the switches also jolt her sense of visual propriety. ("How long will we be keeping those butt-ugly speakers in the living room?")

The current main-channel speakers in that living room are a pair of definitely not butt-ugly AR Phantom 8.3 models, that both look and sound terrific. Even my wife admits that she likes both their sound and their looks. They are not the most bass-potent speakers in the world, but the addition of a Velodyne CT-120 subwoofer to the installation has worked wonders for the response down to a reasonable 30 Hz. The living room now has a viable, high-quality A/V system.

For a month or so the Phantoms were replaced by a pair of Waveform MC satellites, which looked, well, interesting (so said my wife) and also sounded terrific. Moreover, to be truthful, they sounded sensational.

Before them, the TV was flanked by a pair of Allison AL-125 systems, which also sounded fine, but which looked out of place in that room. (Vinyl-clad finishes are a no-no in the living room.) Before that, the room had a pair of AR 310 HO models for several weeks (at least their black vinyl looked good), and at other times the systems in place were Coincident Technology Triumph Signatures that alternated with some Tannoy Mercury M2 units. The Coincidents and Tannoys also pulled a significant amount of duty in the small A/V system.

All of these systems were fine performers in the living room, with the Waveforms probably having a slight edge in terms of detail and focus over all the others. The AR systems measured slightly flatter in that room, particularly in the midrange (this was in contrast to measurements I took in the main room, which had the Waveforms a bit flatter), and the Allisons always sounded more spacious than anything else, even the Waveforms. My wife also emphatically told me that the Phantoms looked better than any other systems we have ever had in there, and she felt that they looked way, way better than the Waveforms. The roundish Waveforms just did not fit into a room that had furnishings that were more angular, even though the room also contains a grand piano.

For a couple of weeks at a time, both the living room and smaller A/V room also hosted Velodyne CT and Atlantic Technology T-70 sub/sat systems, as well as somewhat larger Polk RT-35 and CS245 satellites (well, almost: the rear-ported CS245 center speaker would not work in the living room, because of the way center speakers have to be positioned under that room's TV monitor), and a bit earlier the smaller A/V room had been occupied with the Atlantic Technology System 270 sub/sat package.

I was impressed enough with the Velodyne CT package's center-channel speaker to purchase a sample for permanent use in the living room. While it sounds good, one of the primary reasons I obtained it is that it shoehorns on to the top shelf of the stand that supports the 27-inch TV monitor in that room with relative ease. Cosmetics, as well as sound, play a determining role in what gets seriously installed in that room. Most of the time, the surround speakers in that room are a pair of vintage RDL AV-1 minispeakers that are positioned on top of 6-foot bookcases and aimed at the ceiling. Because those systems are fairly shallow in depth, this keeps them fairly well out of sight.

Currently, the smaller A/V room sports a genuinely eclectic mix of products: my modified AL-125 models, an NHT VS1.2 center (a superb little speaker), and four Radio Shack surrounds, mounted high up on the side walls. Recently, an Atlantic Technology T70 satellite speaker was installed on the center of the rear wall, for current and future center-rear channel duty only, of course.

As noted before, that room also had an Atlantic Technology System 270 sub/sat package installed for a while, and when I had the Polk RT-35 systems working in there as left and right mains, I also had the Polk CS-245 center sitting on top of the 45-inch TV monitor between them.

For about a week, the Waveform MC satellites were also sitting on very stubby stands on the benches, flanking the RPTV monitor, and although the two Waveform MC.1 subwoofers were too large for that room, the MC satellites got along very well with the Velodyne FSR-12 sub that is installed in there most of the time.

Subwoofers in each room have included that Velodyne FSR-12, as well as HGS-12 and HGS-15 models, which all sounded the same at the volume levels that those rooms require. Additional subwoofer residents have included three different units from the Velodyne CT series (the CT-120 remains as the regular sub in the living room), Atlantic Technology T-70 and 272 PBM models, a Hsu TN1220 (only in the small A/V room, since it would not fit under the piano, where subwoofers are normally located in the living room), a B&W ASW 2000, a Polk PSW-140, and a Paradigm Servo 15, which, like the B&W, was a tight fit over in the smaller room's right-front corner. In most cases, one brand of subwoofer would be coupled with satellites from a different company. Mixing and matching has been the order of the day in both rooms.

These speaker systems have also been under the control of assorted Yamaha processor/amps, as well as a Yamaha RX-V3000 receiver, an Outlaw 1050 receiver, an Onkyo TX-DS787 receiver, a NAD 750 receiver, and even a rather expensive Parasound AVC 2500 processor (driving a combination of Yamaha and AudioSource amplifiers) that was moved from my main system and given a try in the smaller A/V room for a while, prior to sending it back to the manufacturer.

Also tried out in this pair of rooms, with their mix of speaker, subwoofer, processor, and amplifier hardware have been DVD players from Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung, RCA, Sony, and Onkyo.

OK, so what does all this mean?

Well, first off, over this period of time I have come to the conclusion that DVD players, like CD players, are, well, DVD players. Sure, there are subtle picture differences (the Pioneer DVL-700 DVD/LD player, in particular, falls behind the others when it comes to DVD picture quality, although it is a superb LD player), but the audio differences with musical program material, like with CD players, were nil.

The Pioneer and perhaps the Samsung excepted (both are older-generation devices), you really have to look close to make judgments about the visuals with those players. The THX-Ultra certified (and very expensive) Onkyo does have a slight edge over the others when my 27-inch Samsung TV in the living room was checked from about two feet away. However, from normal viewing distances (I do not recommend continuously watching 27-inch TV monitors from two feet away), the differences were inconsequential. Incidentally, when the players were compared on my big LCD set in the back, the differences were even harder to spot, because that set has certain performance limitations of its own, compared to good CRT monitors.

I also continue to believe that amplifiers really are all similar sounding, at least up to their respective power limits. Indeed, I will go beyond this and say that with any of the speaker systems I tried (I also recently did some amp comparisons with a pair of Dunlavy Cantatas, and of course I also tried the Waveforms and AR Phantoms), all the amps I have fooled with were absolutely identical sounding.

Note that there were often great differences in power between some of the amps. After all, I also compared some of the lower-powered versions to my Carver M500 in the big room, as well as (in a somewhat less rigorous manner) to a Bryston-built Lexicon amp that I reviewed last year. However, in the smaller rooms this edge in power with some of the units simply would not manifest itself at sane listening levels. Maybe some other speaker loads would show up the differences, but none of the models I have had on hand were able to. Barring defects or really stupid designs, amps are, well, amps, in my opinion.

While I believe that processors that deal with Dolby Digital and DTS sources will sound almost identical (barring the use of DSP functions that enhance those surround effects), surround processors that work to synthesize hall ambiance from two-channel source material can often sound radically different, particularly when special test-tone signals are employed to show off those differences.

On the other hand, with musical program material, I find that the room and speaker positioning in that room will very often easily be as important as the particular brand of speakers and surround processor. A surround processor that sounds excellent in one room with one group of speakers may not sound so good in another room, even a room that looks like it would work out fine. This might be the case even with better-quality speakers and a killer processor. The room's the thing, people.

Because of the significant variables involved with room acoustics and speaker positioning, I had no trouble getting along with the mix and match component combinations I tried out in my two smaller A/V room/systems. As long as the hardware was reasonably good, the rooms themselves had considerably more impact than any of the gear.

This is not to say that speaker types and brands do not matter, because we certainly do want speakers with reasonably flat, or at least smoothly sloping, power input to the room, decent extension, low distortion, and spatial characteristics that make for a coherent and plausible soundfield.

However, in most cases, if at least the three speakers up front are of reasonable quality, are positioned properly, and the room is a good one, the speaker/room interactions will have a far greater impact on the sound than the quality of those speakers in isolation. In many cases, particularly if the room area up front is irregular, the room/speaker interactions will even be more important than close, anechoically measured compatibility between the left/right mains and the center unit.

Moving further out into the room, if any speakers are important for surround-sound use, it will be the surround units themselves. After a lot of fooling around with different models, I continue to believe that properly located, wide-dispersion monopoles (I mean really wide dispersing) are superior to more directional versions with both movie and musical program material. In addition, unless dipolar models (including THX certified dipoles) are positioned just so, wide-dispersion monopoles will be superior to those types, too.

What's more, I consider the need for super-exacting spectral-balance and radiation-pattern similarities between the front and surround speakers to be nowhere near as important as some claim. Again, room acoustics and speaker positioning will be more dominant, and they will not allow for hard and fast rules about which speaker types or brands work best.

Yes, it is important to have front and surround speakers that exhibit reasonably similar spectral balances. However, because surround ambiance will itself be colored by the way it was recorded in a hall (or mixed in with movie material), and colored further still by the listening room and the way the speakers are positioned, it is nowhere near as important to have front/surround compatibility as it is to have left/center/right compatibility.

However, sticking my neck out and pushing the envelope a bit further, I can also state that my experience with all those different speaker combinations in those two rooms has left me with the impression that even the center speaker does not have to be a superrigorously perfect match for the left and right mains.

Indeed, even with identical speakers across the front, the center will sound different from the left and right mains, simply because of its different relationship with room boundaries. When we take into further consideration the often radically different radiation patterns of horizontally mounted MTM center speakers and the supposedly compatible left and right mains made by the same companies, it is easy to see that the listener will have a lot of leeway when it comes to mixing and matching all the loudspeaker systems for home-theater or home-surround-sound-audio use. A person can get away with a surprising amount across the front, and when comparing the three fronts to the two, three, four, or even five surrounds, they can often get away with even more.

In any case, after fooling around with a fair amount of gear in a fair number of mix-and-match combinations, I have come to the conclusion that those of you who have a stereo pair of high-quality speakers and want to upgrade to surround sound can probably get away with keeping them in place and augmenting their performance with center and surround speakers made by any number of other good companies, although it would probably be a safer bet to stick with units made by the same company that made the mains. Because of this flexibility, surround sound has helped to turn audio into a fun-oriented, do-it-yourself hobby again, and experimentation again rules the day.

One more point. Given what room acoustics and different positions (those of both the speakers and the listener) can do to the sound of speaker systems, it is safe to assume, at least with most set ups, that the system owner can get the best results by employing a good equalizer to align the frequency responses of whatever speakers they decide to use. (See issue 83, as well as issues 68 and 79, for some comments on equalizers and their use.) Equalizers can come in particularly handy when fine-tuning the three front speakers.

Unfortunately, doing this with a lot of receiver models is well neigh impossible, because most do not have the required pre-out/main-in hookups. I guess this makes a case for surround-sound separates, or at least integrated amps and receivers that have pre-out/main-in jacks on their back panels. This is one area where going the high-end-separates route can pay off. The more flexibility, the better. --HF