Media Room: #504 System (Updated 9-26-16)
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I have nearly completed a 2 year project in my media room. Considering the costs involved it had to be done in stages. Beyond the cost two years ago the electronics/technology needed some time to mature. So I have been waiting patiently for when OLED 4k, Dolby ATMOS & Vision, HDR and HDMI 2.0a settled in too some degree. Since 2010 I have had a setup that had worked very well particularly the panel - Pioneer Elite 60" - so I was not in a hurry to upgrade. LED's came along with 3D (which never interested me) and then more recently 4k. Eventually OLED started to show up (a lot of curved panels that also did not interest me) but not until recently did a 4K panel have HDR. Even at this time there is not a set box that will stream movies in 4K, Dolby ATMOS & Vision simultaneously yet VUDU does have some movies to stream - 4k & Dolby ATMOS which there seems no way to stream and get it all. I even called Vudu and they had no clue either?? The panel will stream the UHD Vudu but it only has optical out so no ATMOS. I'm sure at some point a set box will include all but I did not want to wait any longer. TiVo will stream 4k but doesn’t have Dolby Vision or HDR let along ATMOS. I think some game boxes possibly but not into that as much as in the past so never really checked them out.
Stage 1: (2 year ago) The main components brought over from my music room upgrade were the Summit X's and Decent i's. They replaced a Definitive speaker surround system I had purchased earlier along with the Pioneer elite receiver, panel etc. Just needed to add 4 Vanquish and a Stage X. I did upgrade the speaker cables to Nordost Frey 2 and put in dedicated 120V power.
Stage 2: (Last week) Added two more Vanquish for ATMOS and replaced all the surround speaker wiring with Nordost 14-2. I'm sure some of you are thinking that having all surrounds in the ceiling is an issue. In my case I really had no choice in the matter because of my room configuration. This is not a perfect room but who's is unless built special but for my existing room it was all in the ceiling or nothing. The results sounds really really good. I"m sure with a more ideal room it would sound even better not sure that is possible but maybe. Having a drop ceiling sure did help to install them however because of the Vanquish speaker is so heavy I had to make special wood support brackets that are screwed to the joists to support them and then packed around them with fiberglass insulation. Because of the size of the speakers they needed to fit in between the joists so they would fit and also line up with the drop ceiling girding. Compromises had to be made in regard to placement however not as much as initially thought. I really like the Vanquish speakers they are large and heavy but really put out good sound!
Electronics: I have Parasound JC-1's
http://parasound.com/products.php in the music room and liked them so much that I just went with Parasound in the media room. Three A23's and an A31 three channel to power all the speakers. The processor I picked is the Anthem AVM60
http://anthemav.com/products-current/model=avm-60/page=overview. I liked how the ARC worked for my ML 212's in my music room so the AVM60 was the logical choice. Since none of my media room speakers have room correction the AVM60 can do the job for them all. My previous Pioneer receiver like most have a room correction program but I was never happy with it. Every time I ran it I ended up doing some manual changes. I very much like how the AVM60 did my room correction this time. I do not see any reason to correct anything this time around – nice! The other nice thing about it is the print out showing that I had some real dips and valleys in my room which were all corrected nicely – not only on the graph but I could tell by listening.
The panel is a LG 65" OLED
http://lg.com/us/tvs/lg-OLED65B6P-oled-4k-tv. I would of rather of picked a Pioneer or even a Samsung however Samsung does not make one and the Pioneer although they do is not available here in the US and is like twice as costly yet they use a LG panel with their upgraded electronics. So for now this is the only game in town but the picture is great! I decided to keep my Blu-ray player for now but will probably update to the new Sony UBP-X1000ES 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Player early next year when it come out. But for now I'm having fun watching my old Blu-ray’s up-scaled to 4k. Also will be installing a TiVo Bolt + next week to replace my old clunky Charter DVR. Last but not least I connected my existing Sonos Connect.
Power, Interconnects and Ground: I'm a firm believer of good power and ground. Not that interconnects do not make a difference but in my mind they are a distant third. I'm sure some of you are rolling your eyes on this but good ground and power can very much be heard IMHO. My son and I did some testing recently just with power and speaker cables on his new 13a's and it was a good confirmation. On the power side we went from stock cord to Red Dawn to Frey 2 to Tyr 2 and it was amazing how much better they sounded as the quality of the power cable increased. I have some Valhalla 2's in my music room which we never tired but I just wonder what they would of sounded like?????? Speaker cables we moved from Frey (The original Frey) to Tyr 2 which is actually a good step up but not nearly what power did from Frey 2 to Tyr 2. He has a earth ground going directly to the QB8 and his system has a very dark background.
First up Ground: In my music room #503 I describe about how it is grounded using an Entreq box and earth ground. In the media room I did not want to put in another earth ground rod since then there would be three (including the Main Electrical box and Music room) and to connect to the earth ground of the music room did not make sense to me either. So the only option left was another Entreq box. However that was a problem because of the space it would require in the media cabinet. In the music room I have a Silver Tellus (which was the best at the time now surpassed by the Olympus) but it is a nearly full rack size which was way too big for the media cabinet. So the next best thing was a Silver Minimus and as luck would have it Entreq just came out with an adapter to all their boxes called Everest
http://entreq.com/products/ground-boxes-17667704 that basically takes a small box like the Minimus and makes it the larger size in capability yet the Everest is quite small. So this was perfect for my application. Once I got the system up and running I noticed a faint buzz coming from all the speakers as the volume was turned up. I then added a ground wire from the Anthem ground screw to the Minimus and it is now completely gone - Nice! Also to clarify the Entreq box is connected to the ground terminal on the Nordost QB8.
Cabling and Misc.: By now you have figured out I use all Nordost cabling
http://nordost.com. All the main components are connected using Tyr 2 power and Interconnects. All surrounds use Heimdall 2 including 4k HDMI and network cable for streaming. The Nordost QB8 is behind the Sonos and Entreq box in the far right lower section of the media cabinet. The problem was how was I going to get this to fit and work? Since the QB8 is designed to be placed on the floor but that did not work for me. In doing so it would have pushed the media cabinet away from the wall even further like 4"-6”. So I came up with a way to mount it on its side so that it would be placed in a shelf like the rest of the components with the plug side facing back. This actually has worked out quite well.
The A31 and Anthem are also on Nordost BC Kones with the rest on Vibrapod Isolators. Because of limited height I needed to go with these as the Kones added just too much height. Also there is a QX2 in the mix for the power and 4 sets of QV2's and QK1's. Lastly I needed to find a solution for heat. My JC-1's run real hot and the little A23's run quite warm interestingly the A31 no so much. So I added two temperature controlled fans to the rear.
The cabinet ended up having to be custom. Because of the outside dimensions that I wanted to keep it too, cooling concerns and how much equipment it needed to house no stock reasonably priced unit would work that I could find. So found a local cabinet maker that saved me nearly $1K over the closest commercial cabinet. I got what I wanted in size and capacity but equally as important ventilation holes in the shelves, bottom and a mostly open back.
Last but not least power. As mentioned earlier already had dedicated 120V line but went a little further by installing latest Furtech GTX-D NCF duplexes. To complete the power to all the odds and ends I used my existing Monster power conditioner. To this I have connected - Harmony remote charger, cooling fans, power to the back lighting etc. This has worked out nicely as all the main components are powered by the QB8 for best sonic results.
Results: The picture is gorgeous. The blacks as you would expect are black but I have never seen black like this. Also the detail in low light is very very good. The color is so vivid it looks like I have a window to the outside instead of just looking at a panel. The picture to some degree I was already prepared for however for the sound there was no way to hear any of this until it was all together. I knew it was going to be good but was even more blown away by the eventual sound quality that was coming from this setup. To give this a good test - I happened to get my hands on a couple of Dolby ATMOS and DTS demo discs and there are tracks on these that are just amazing. During normal listening my front three main speakers now really shine particularly the center channel. Using the Pioneer receiver sure they played but not with this clarity or authority that they do now. The surrounds have also come alive now with the better amps and power. I probably over did it a little going with the A23's but I have no regrets once I got a good listen too.
Next up: TiVo Bolt +
http://tivo.com/shop/bolt-detail?st-t=Google-Brand&vt-k=tivo%20bolt&vt-d=c&vt-pti=&gclid=CPCWpv_xrc8CFQmraQodvvwEgQ&gclsrc=aw.dsgoing in later this week. Looking forward to recording more then two channels like my old Charter box. Also skipping commercials. More on that later.
Installed the Tivo Bolt + but ended up not as good as I would of hoped. Wanted Charter plus streaming and only got Charter. I do like the interface, skipping commercials and how they do the fast forward. Also the menu is vastly superior to the Charter box but then again that's a pretty low bar. All and all like the change. So for streaming purchased the new Roku Ultra and now can stream 4k, HDR Atmos movies. Not that there are many but the couple I watched were really really good. Hopefully more will be coming out soon.
Also I need to give kudos to Shawn at Da Vinci Media for his help and common sense in picking components and cables. Also check out my Music Room Member System #503
