I would like to pass some observations on my about sound quality in my video room.  The sound in my video room is what I would call very very good, I am not kidding – really good.  It is delivered by Altec 21S speaker driven by Yamaha B2 amp and Yamaha C2 preamp. All cables are the RadioShack crap (they are very bad, do not listen the fools who try to convince in opposite) and the speaker cables are 14ga wire from the same RadioShack.  Am I kidding or boolshitting you? No kidding and no boolshitting going on here.

I do not want to lie to you and would like to note that if I use my borrowed DVD player and play audio CD with more or less serious symphonic repertoire then my audio system in my Video Room instantly demonstrates own ugliness. It is not that some specific aspects are wrong but rather the whole sound is so much in unsophisticated scale that it below me even to criticize it.  Still, with video material all those problems do not manifest itself and sound is very much not annoying, in fact it is very much enjoyable.

What I am observing is very much confirms what I was saying back in 90s when I had quite sophisticated 5.2 channels audio system for video. At that time I was pitching that audio installation for video room must not be more sophisticated than $500. Yes, I did it while I had over $75K audio system for video. It does not call paradox, it called idiocy.  Then I sold all my audio setup for HT and did not touch HT for 14 years. Now I have my Altec 21S that looks like wonderful furniture but that with all honesty in the scale of my audio reference do not deliver better sound then $500 audio system. It is all that I, you, we need for video rooms and trust me they do absolutely wonderful in video rooms.

Video material is intrinsically are horribly recorded and even at my $500  audio playback I feel that it able to deliver much better sound then the souse can offer.  I do not blame my DVD player, in fact I think that this borrowed Oppo is MUCH better then I expected and I am planning to try to experiment it in my main audio system as transport and as player. It is not the DVD player’s fault but the extreme primitivism of the played material, would it be DVD or BlueRay.

I do not see any need to more than 2 channels. I know some folks feel that it need to be 5, or more channels but it is not what I feel. I have enough speakers in my house and enough amps to add more channels but I have absolutely no interest or temptations to do it.

I also admit that I am not video room expert. I do have experience and some sophistication with audio installation but I do not have acquired taste with multimedia rooms. What I get is fine to me but I do not mind to learn something. So, what I am willing to do is to invite some local folks that I know who are practicing video room for years and to ask them to point out for me the specific problems with my video sound that they might with their developed experience to recognize. It might be educational and I will post what they criticized.

Bill wrote:

Sorry for this long rant but I feel a rebuttal is necessary. 1. Back in the 90's you had 480 I video and 16/44 or dolby 2.1 analog audio. Then the sound was crap as was the video so you could get away with a crappy setup. Now we have 1080P video and 24/96 5.1 audio to reproduce. Thus, one can  obtain significantly better sound and picture if one has the proper system. 2. I don't know about others, but when I go to a concert I do not wear blinders or have Sonex behind my ears to block out the visual and hall reflections which make up anywhere from 20 to possibly 80% of the sound you are perceiving in a great concert venue. I try to sit as centered as possible in the front third of the hall where the sonics are the best and I can view the way the artists are performing, not just hear them. 3. Thus I try to reproduce that concert hall experience as closely as possible. Using a small television set with large 2 channel speakers would be the equivalent of seeing the orchestra from the back of the second balcony with the sound equivalent of being in an open area with the natural hall reverberance mixed into the front soundstage.  4. With the 5.1 channel 24/96 1080P well engineered concert discs now on BluRay coming out of Europe, at least one gets a sense aurally of whast it is like to be in the concert hall. While I* agree that most of the visuals annoyingly flit from player to player rather than keeping the visual feel that one is sitting in one seat, at least the audio on the best gives me the sound that the conductor is hearing, possiblyb the best seat in the house. 5. We all hear and perceive sound differently depending on our audio upbringing and genetics. I have a friend who finds stereo annoying as he has difficulty integrating a solid image from stereo. Thus he prefers listening to his stereo system from another room. I can just remember the arguments back in the 50's over mono vs. stereo and how stereo would forever muck up the sound.     Most of us came up in the mono to stereo era and became accustomed to the inherent imaging distortion of having the hall sound mixed in with the two front channels. I prefer to have it placed where it belongs; around me through the use of surround channels. Others will prefer to keep it in front changing the sound emanating directly from ther musicians. 6. When I  go to see a movie at a theater, I want the best image and sound possible without overloading my senses. Thus I sit as close to the center of the hall as possible with the screen filling my visual field. Unhappily, 90% of the time  either some yahoo is talking on his cellphone or the projector bulb is at its life expectancy and the image is darker than night. With my home theater 10 foot diagonal 16x9 screen with an analog 3 tube projector with 7 horn loudspeakers sitting 10 feet away, I can be immersed in either the movie or concert experience as well or popssibly better than being at the original venue. You can't do that with a 30 inch television and 2 speakers. 7. I have been to Romy's and find his audio system to produce the best two channel sound I've ever heard. I just wish he would now go forward and use his expertise to produce a video-surround audio experience to equal it rather than settling for a 1990's setup.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Last week a local audio guy come to my place to listed some music and I played to him my Wand’s Bruckner 4 in video room. With all “phenominality” of the performance I need to confess that sound was horrible. The guy did not complain, so I did not stress it as well. Later on I show to him some other video material and I found that I hardly understood a regular speech from the screen. So, what did I changed? I did a change and I did not listen my video room since then. Last week I did it with my visitor, so I did yesterday, so I immensely hate the sound I’m getting got now. So, what did I changed? I change whole amplification. The key was my laziness – I wanted to have a remote control for my video system, can you blame me” Formerly I used Yamaha C2 preamp with Yamaha B2 power amp. Adding 1.5dB on preamp’s tone control bass I did have OK sound (for video) driving my video speakers, whatever they are. Then I decided that since the amplification is crap anyhow then why I don’t I get identically bad consumer receiver and driver my video room with a comfortable remote consol? Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? So, this was what I did – bough off eBay $70 Sony stereo receiver, got rid of my high-endish Yamaha from 70s and put the contemporary crap in use. Holy shit, I never thought that it might be so bad!!! I understand that it is video and I do not need to have good sound but what I end up was beyond any acceptance. I can put the Yamaha B2 power amp back to the service but I can’t use the OPPO digital volume control – it kills sound faster then Ebola virus. So, kids do not let kids to use those cheep consumer audio…

This week on Thursday and Friday I had two “audio visitors” in my listening room. We did some listening and as it have become customary: they asked me to show something “interesting” or different in my Opera Room. BTW, for whatever reasons people do love my Opera room decor tremendously, so do I.

Serge wrote:

Romy consider that the engineers who did your Altecs in their worst nightmare could not imagine their lovely cinema speakers would be used with solid state amplifier which badly distorts on LOW power levels. It has 100 crappy watts and the first watt is the crappiest.

Romy the Cat wrote:

This week on Thursday and Friday I had two “audio visitors” in my listening room. We did some listening and as it have become customary: they asked me to show something “interesting” or different in my Opera Room. BTW, for whatever reasons people do love my Opera room decor tremendously, so do I. So, I was playing some “interesting” fragments to my visitor and was shocked how horrible the sound was. The consumer $70 worth receiver that I am using is rater at 100W but I clearly hear horrible clipping at I would say 90dB in bass. The whole sound was so flat and “in your face” that I made the decision to return back to my Yamaha B2 configuration. Even in context of low-demand video sound the crap that this consumer receiver out is too devastating. Now I need to look for preamp with properly implemented tone controls and remote, sucks!

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/PDF/YamahaB2_Circuit.PDF

… that the signal goes directly from input to the grid of the first transistor on the drive circuit board,  bypassing two board on the left. I kind of like this amp driving the Model 19 bass module while EQe. It does not give the proper bass but it gives not annoying bass for video room. Sure, during my fireplace sessions I do not do video and play 2-ch music and here is where the absence of the horrible Model 19 HF module really pays off but I do not think that I will consider other amplification after putting BS back to the business. Not that I feel that B2 is great but it is fine for what THAT room does and meant to do.