Hi from Western Australia

[Fushie]

Hey everyone

I have been snooping around the forums and other places online for a few weeks now and thought it would be time to say hi. I'm living over in Western Australia and have some background in electronics but nothing audio related so I'm still struggling to come to grips with the lingo being used., but I'll get there.

Just want to say thanks to Bill for creating an awesome community of people with a passion for something so awesome. The thought of building your own speaker system that puts to shame virtually everything you would find in the local audio sort of gives me warm fuzzy feelings.

I'm really excitted about the idea of building myself a complete set of speakers to replace my very entry level Wharfedales and this forum has been a wealth of information to get my brain going. It's actually a bit of overload and I am struggling to find some answers but I'll get there.

Anyway I'll give you a run down of what my wife and myself want to achieve (please not we are not audiophiles):

Music wise, we listen to music a fair bit, when I say we listen to music I sort of mean that some mates come over have a few drinks with us and we'll have something banging away in the background, I like trancy stuff, my wife likes her linken park etc. So we generally like it loud with lots of bass.

Now the important one Home theatre wise, I want to eventually build a complete set of 5.1 speakers and they need to have full Home Theatre effect, By that I mean an awesome set of floor standing speakers rear and centre speaker. And most important a sub that will shake the house to it's foundations. Think Transformers at the cinema

So at the moment I'm basically thinking

Front floor standing speakers = TLAH's
Centre = SLA
Rear = SLA
Sub = Tuba HT

I have considered the Davids as the front Floor standing Speakers but I'm not sure if they would fit into the Home Theatre environment with a Tuba HT next to them lol. Do the Davids put out enough mid and high range? or would the Davids get lost in the overwhemling bass of the Tuba HT's lol. Anyway the concerns I just mentioned is what made me list the TLAH's as my Front floor standing speakers.

A quick question about the TLAH's, when used as floor standing speakers, what shape are they. I have seen the pictures on the main website where they are mounted in the upper corners of the walls but it doesn't mention the shape when used as floor standing speakers.

Anyway I'll be buying some plans over the next few days, and I'm sure alot of my questions will be answered within them. But I was hoping to hear what some of the pros thought of my 5.1 grand plan before I buy the wrong plans.

Thanks again to Bill and everyone else all the awesome work with the products and the forums

[Grant Bunter]

G'day and welcome to the forum

I'm going to leave the answers to others more experienced in HT, but gotta say g'day to more Aussies...

[Tom Smit]

Hi, and welcome!

It looks like you've been doing some homework.

Here are a couple of pictures that you might not have seen yet.http://www.billfitzmaurice.info/forum/v ... 30&t=18656
http://billfitzmaurice.info/forum/viewt ... 13&t=12632

[67baja]

Ewwww! I just had a bunch typed and lost it! ERRRGGG
Anyway, my take on it:
Fronts: TLAH or SLA - no matter. The TLAHs have a bit more bass, but who cares? You will have the Sub of all subs to cover the bass.
Center: Curved SLA using the same drivers as the front left and rights.
Rears: SLAs are wasted on the rears since there is little audio content the rear speakers in 5.1. Just use 1 or 2 matching woofer and a tweeter or 2 for your surrounds. However, if you are throwing a party and listen to 5 channel stereo (all speakers getting the same content), maybe SLAs will be the right choice.
Sub: THT all the way. I may be biased since I have THTs myself, but I also have TTs, ATs, etc. as well and the THT just does it for me. You have probably never been in a cinema with the bass a THT delivers. For real. A 100 watt plate amp will impress you -- and your distant neighbors. A 300 watt amp may crack your drywall, and a 500 watt amp should come with a Life Alert bracelet. Some people (Bill included) use table tubas in their theaters, but I always say 'Go big or go home.'

[Fushie]

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm looking at getting the plans for the TLAH, SLA and Tuba HT later this weekend so I can make some serious decisions next week, and get an idea of costs involved. I'll have to buy everything as I don't have any goodies lying around.

So keep an eye out in the Home Theater section and Build section of this forum

[Titanium Hand]

Gday Fushie, welcome to the forum. Beware - This is Addictive like Crack Cocaine

You're going to enjoy your journey here for sure.

Best of luck getting your system underway.

depending what you go for, purchasing gear via the US can often be economically viable. May need to enlist the services of Shipito or any other mail forwarder to purchase things with a US address though

[ketoet]

goodday and welcome to the world of BFM speakers. TLAH , (mini)SLA , SLA curved and a THT and you'll have a killer home cinema setup.
it's the same setup i'm working on. when you get the plans read them a zillion times so you understand everything clearly.
building these speakers is a lot of fun, at least for me. listening to them is an even more thrilling experience.
hope you have fun and if you have any question don't hesitate to ask , there is a lot of knowledge on the forum here.

greetz ketoet

[Fushie]

the warm fuzzies you guys are giving me is very much appreciated.

I thought I would give you a little more information on the setup (non speaker wise) that Im running.

I'm more or less running everything from a Home Theatre PC in my lounge room. The specs are good enough to do more or less everything I want it to do as I'm not a gamer. I play all my media from a software package called XBMC, I'm sure a lot of people here have already got experience with it.

The only point about the computer I want to highlight is the sound card I want to put in it, I'm close to buying the Asus Xonar STX

https://www.asus.com/Sound_Cards_and_Di ... sence_STX/

The card seems to have great reviews and some really cool features. I like the idea of the card supporting Dolby Pro Logic II and also FlexBass feature. It just seems like a great HTPC card at great value for money.

I also run a Yamaha RX-V565 av reciever.

http://au.yamaha.com/en/products/audio- ... x-v565__l/

It isn't the most powerful unit but it certainly does the trick, 90w RMS. With Bills plans being nice and sensitive I would think that the reciever will have enough power. When I get the sound card Im hoping to use the Pass Through mode on the reciever and have the computer handling all the EQing and Pro Logic stuff. It seems like a neat solution to me, I'll let you know how I go and give you guys a bit of a report.

Anyone else running a HTPC similar to this?

[escapemcp]

Gday Fushie, welcome to the forum. Beware - This is Addictive like Crack Cocaine

Um... MORE addictive in my experience!

[Fushie]

I can think of worse things to be addicted to, at least my wife tends to enjoy her Home Theatre so I can get around a lot of arguments by simply telling her that I'm doing it for her enjoyment hhhmmm wonder how far I can push that arguments. She did seem to have issues with the size of 2 Tuba HT's in the lounge room, but at least I got the option of building the Low Profile versions. I wonder what two of those 6 foot monoliths would look lol

[Grant Bunter]

I can think of worse things to be addicted to, at least my wife tends to enjoy her Home Theatre so I can get around a lot of arguments by simply telling her that I'm doing it for her enjoyment hhhmmm wonder how far I can push that arguments. She did seem to have issues with the size of 2 Tuba HT's in the lounge room, but at least I got the option of building the Low Profile versions. I wonder what two of those 6 foot monoliths would look lol

If you can make it work, lol, corners, columns, protrusions, leg stretchers, side work for a screen day bed.
The list is endless...