To put it in a nutshell, loudspeaker performance is determined by room acoustics. Something most people don't want to admit is that they're hearing more of their room than the speakers themselves.

You measure a room with calibrated mic and then get the results using a program like REW. As for how to interpret the graphs, well, post them here or on the AVSForum REW thread. But I believe measuring your room is well beyond the scope of what you understand right now. As was already repeated multiple times, go finish your renovation, go buy the speakers you like then we go from there in how to optimize the sound in your room. All I'm giving right now are theories that you won't understand until you hear your room.

HT is not very complicated if you cut out the bullshit. The process is fairly straight forward.

Those speakers aren't bad. But personally I'd pay less for surrounds.

Which pioneer receiver are they recommending you though? Pioneer is no longer the Pioneer from the 90s and early 2000s, they've gone the way of bullshitting the consumers and taking short cuts to their products. They do still have some pretty good products, but it really depends on which specific model you're getting.

LX55?!
That's... a very, very, VERY old model man. Doesn't even have 4k support.

In Malaysia, bang for buck - SVS is king. In the US, Rythmik is king. Starke subs are also very good, but are higher priced than SVS and Rythmik. For your room size, I think dual SB2000 Pros will do very nicely for it. If you want a little more, maybe dual SB3000s even.

That LCR combination works well. But don't they have the R series bookshelfs? Didn't try that out?

You may or may not need an external amp, depending on how loud you really want to play. But I remember your room dimensions are really small and you aren't sitting very far from the front soundstage. Furthermore you're adding subs, so that means you're going to digitally bass manage. It would always be nice to have a nice external amp though.


His room is very small, he's also going to use subs. The receiver might just be enough.

The Evo 4.2 is a more refined speaker than the Tannoy XT8, excluding bass presentation. But if you have subs, that's really a non issue.

There's a lot of audio bullshittery that goes on in the industry. Power ratings is one of them because people believe the bigger the number, the better it should be based on conventional logic.

Anyways, either both PB2000 Pros (or even PC2000) and SB3000s would definitely have more than enough output in your room. I had a bedroom theater some time ago and the room size is similar to yours, a pair of SB2000s were more than enough to pressurize every inch of it.


This post has been edited by SSJBen: Sep 1 2020, 11:16 PM

Diagonal opposing corners in a perfect rectangle room is usually a very safe option to utilize the best use of dual subs. But your room is 11 x 14, so that doesn't give you a perfect rectangle. It's a good starting point regardless.

Take note that subs are the most room dependent speakers in the system. What you experience in a demo room will certainly be very different to what you'll experience in your own room. So don't just go for a demo and then be wowed by a sub that may not even be suitable for your room in the first place. Sure EQing will help to cut off some peaks, but there's only so much EQing can do.

Yes there is.

But you'll have to do some work to set it up of course. It's not as simple as a set it and forget it item like a soundbar does.

^Yeah but 5k for a power cable is not....



This post has been edited by SSJBen: Sep 21 2020, 03:05 PM

Honestly, if you can't do Atmos properly... then just don't do it. Really, that's it. People are so hard up about getting Atmos, perhaps due to the way it's marketed but Atmos isn't really as special as they want you to believe it is. The bulk of the sound is still going to come out from the Left, Center and Right speaker. You get those 3 right, everything else is just extra topping on a pudding.

13k can get you some very nice set of front speakers of which is just so much more important than getting an all-in-one soundbar just to have fake Atmos. Sorry, upfiring Atmos is simply not good Atmos if you ask me. It's about as good as not doing it.

For 13k, I would do:

- Wharfedale Evo 4.2 (pair)
- Wharfedale Evo 4.C (the 3 way version, WTMW design, NOT the MTM model)
- SVS PB3000 sub (or dual SB2000 Pro if you don't have the space and you're not willing to get another PB3000 down the line)
- Whatever left over change for the surrounds and in-ceiling speakers.

If you have to include a receiver within the 13k budget, I'd say go with the cheaper 2000 series subs from SVS (ported or sealed up to you), in fact get it second hand even.

The Starke Sound Echo is actually decent, but they're all still small satellite speakers. Still produces the same issue as the SVS prime satellite set, those satellites simply cannot go below 100hz. I had the SVS prime sats for a while too, they were okay but nothing amazing. But for about RM5k, they were of decent value though.

No, I've not heard the 4c. But it shouldn't be too far off the 4.2. Obviously all horizontal centers are never going to be as good as their vertical brothers, but what choice do you have if you don't use an AT screen?

It's not.
It's a soundbar with 2 little satellites. There's nothing home theater about it.

If you want to know the opinion of how good it is, well - other than convenience, there's nothing good about it. It reproduces adequate sound I guess, but nothing close to decent much less to say good.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Sep 28 2020, 03:18 PM

Theoretically better because you lessen the chance where audio skips can happen due to bandwidth. Other features like ARC/eARC may also work better.

Realistically though, as long as you get the proper HDMI cable - you wouldn't notice a difference as far as audio or visual quality goes. But of course there's someone else here who would tell you otherwise.

On paper it shouldn't be an issue as long as you connect it to the HDMI port on the TV with ARC/eARC.

Well ARC cannot passthrough lossless Dolby TrueHD, so Atmos is packed into lossy DD+.

Check out Sound Fusion
IMO no one is better than Sound Fusion right now in Malaysia if you want a high-end HT. Doesn't just rival a commercial cinema, they beat them - easily.

On a second note, rivaling a commercial cinema is not really that difficult. The projectors in them are always set to the lowest eco setting, just to increase hours hence less lamp replacement hence higher profit. About any decent consumer PJ these days from JVC and even Epson will beat commercial ones already.

As for speakers, many don't no longer use JBL synthesis speakers either. Subs are custom solutions but for whatever reason, are never tuned down to 20hz despite the fact that they're capable enough to do so. Always found it contradictory when a cinema hall calls themselves THX certified when their audio setup does not cover the full 20hz to 20khz as THX mandates as one.

Yeah I'm aware they are using the DP4k30L. But not sure why they still set the light output to a very low degree. The thing is capable of 28k lumens...

Their small halls are using DP2k20C, also capable of 20k lumens but... yeah, but same issue as the main hall. Never have enough light output. HDR titles always lack the specular pop and is rather dull.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Oct 15 2020, 04:37 PM

RM3k isn't a whole lot to be very frank, you can't do very much with it. AV products has increased in cost substantially over the last year unfortunately and while RM3k could have gotten you a solid set of bookshelves and receiver in 2018, it's very difficult to get the same bang-for-buck in 2020 without considering the second hand market.

A very entry level AVR like the Yamaha V387 is already around RM1.6k new. It's quite basic, limited to 5.1 and has no expandability for Atmos or DTSX. That leaves RM1.4k for a pair of bookshelves, now how speakers sound are very dependent on your room's acoustics. So it's impossible to say what speakers are best for this price point, but some safe options to check out are the Q Acoustics 3020i, Wharfedale Diamond 225, and ELAC Debut 2.0.

I would say the biggest compromise here with a RM3k budget is the barebones AVR, which if you're planning to upgrade in the future may not actually bode too well especially if you want to go beyond 5.1.

There are also other "hidden" costs you may not expect as well. Speaker cables and HDMI cables for example are needed, which you should always avoid the snake oil in them including the people who tells you x cable is better than y cable because it makes the soundstage wider or some bullshit along those lines. They do however add up into the cost. If you do not have a high enough console table already, you may also need to get a pair of stands for the bookshelves as well.

Assuming your room shape is a rectangle, 5.1.2 would be about the max you'd want to squeeze into a room that small.

Get multiple small subs over 1 large sub too, since a small room will give you plenty of boundary gain. Ideally dual subs would make it easier to balance out that gain and get a really smooth response throughout the room.