Wd25a used as centre speaker

[Cobblers]

A post unrelated to valves and Vinyl.

Many of the best sound engineers work in the movie industry. Good surround sound adds a whole dimension (or 5) to movies.

Since the WD25a has superb vocal reproduction, fantastic dynamics and superbly controlled Bass I thought it only logical to add a 3rd one to the combined AV hifi system so that all three front channels are a seamless match.

I have been running this system recently in phantom centre mode and it is very good. This will be a lot better still. Centre speakers are most important in AV.

So here is a couple of pics of a single speaker WD25a kit (WD are flexible and allowed me to buy half a standard speaker kit.

The new PCB for the crossover and a picture of the Bass driver.

Anyone else linked their AV system to the Hifi?

[hal55]

Well, I did with very mixed results. I have a projector and primarily watch movies and some music DVDs on my two channrel stereo. On movies, if the soundtrack has a Dolby stereo option it can sound superb, typically though on multi channel speech it's hazy and indistinct and I have to go into the options to boost it, typically also compressing the dynamic range down which really robs action movies of their impact. Last movie we watched was Die Hard 4 (good shoot em up in my opinion but nothing really special) and it didn't "sound right" (obvious huh) till I scaled back the compression. I'm nervy though of running Hollywood mega effects straight thru my amp and speakers.
I'm toying pretty seriously with getting a cheap sub, telling the DVD player I have small front speakers (actually Heybrook 3s - 10in bass drivers) which I think will mean that the DVD will roll off the lower frequencies to the speakers and direct them instead to the sub, hence protecting both amp and speakers from Speilberg overkill. See my ebay listing
270169483403 Meridian 556 for more on the sad tale of when Speilberg meets much loved home stereo.........
If I go ahead and build Peters floorstanders I'll have the Heybrooks surplus, one of which could be pressed into service as centre channel speaker, but then of course I need a new amp with multi channel capability, sheeesh it never stops.
Are you having a devil of a day Cobblers? When I looked up your profile to track down this thread your posts total was 666. Don't get up to too much mischief now!

Regards,

Hal Littlewood

[Cobblers]

Hal,
Didn't read this before today, sorry not seen your reply until now.

A decent modern AV amp will not sound remotely indistinct, even a budget of £400 will get decent performance with movies. It is not necessary to replace your two channel amp, just use pre outs (on any half decent AV amp).

Things have moved on so much in this area recently that I would say a decent £500 upwards AV amp will provide good results, in most cases far better than high end AV designs from just a few years back.

Cheap Sub's will just reinforce your view that the sound is compressed or hazy and indistinct, as will sub sat packages. Cheap sub's severely colour the sound, they can even have a pleasing warmth, but realistic detail and dynamics are not on the menu at all.

Surround sound set ups benefit from far greater cone surface area and much greater power than most peoples stereo systems allow (with quality hifi speakers). Just as the WD25's benefit from low cone movement, 5 speakers strain a lot less and have to work much less hard than 2 units in pure Music reproduction.
It is easy to hear this in a good modern surround system. Anyone who criticizes surround sound for muddy compressed sound simply has not heard it done properly, in a quality system, and there is a great deal of dross out there, even for big money.

Using three WD25's brings excellent clarity with both Dolby Digital and the typically better DTS soundtracks.
It is very easy to pick holes hearing into mix (hence there is more than enough resolution available on these discs despite compression), and hear the layering of the sound and recording techniques used.
Studio added vocals to outdoors scenes are clearly audible for example.

You Could use the Heybrooks temporarily as centre and single rear in a 6.1 configuration. Sonic balance might not work so well with WD25 though (suck it and see!).

Good Projectors can be fun, very cinematic.
I wish I had the space for the projected image. I rarely watch regular tv, so this would suit me down to the ground for the weekend movie.

666 eh!
Hal, I AM the DEVIL.

[achaddy]

I used my WAD PreII and Kel 80s in my surround system and it sounded fantastic. I was using a Yamaha 5.1 processor with the preouts going to the preII Aux input.
Although I had a mixture of solid state and valves around the channels the front left and right channels through the Kel 80s added alot of warmth and depth to the sound tracks. Plenty of bass too on those big budget action movies

Never had any problems of loading the amps either.

[Cobblers]

Originally Posted by achaddy

I used my WAD PreII and Kel 80s in my surround system and it sounded fantastic. I was using a Yamaha 5.1 processor with the preouts going to the preII Aux input.
Although I had a mixture of solid state and valves around the channels the front left and right channels through the Kel 80s added alot of warmth and depth to the sound tracks. Plenty of bass too on those big budget action movies

Never had any problems of loading the amps either.

Valve amp with surround amp!!
Hurrah, i'm not the only nutcase to successfully do this!