Brad, Thank you very much for your understanding my point of view. You are a very wise and understanding person.Better speakers do make a difference. For hometheater use, id say 30 to 40 feet are the best dimensions to start testing cable runs for loss in signal strength. My living room is about 30 to 40 feet long and about 20 foot wide. I use a Mid level home JBL speaker system with horn drivers and all speakers are the same exact model. They all feature binding posts and i use a copper lug cable terminator for connecting the speaker cable to the speaker.

Ideally, highend cable ( like kimber for example ) should be matched with hi-end components and speakers for best results. I recommend investing in good cable when you hit mid level components. You still get the most out of your components with good cable. I tend to go with hi-end cable because im using better than average connections hence im getting better preformance from the cable.

I wish i had the money for hi-end speakers but i dont. The cable seems to be the better decision for me for my situation since cable is a bit cheaper than a hi-end speaker system. I really cant say how much better the cable I use preforms compared to other hi-end cable.I do know its better than Monster cable. I have had bad experience's with monster cable.On some instances better cable made an audible difference on some gear. I only suggested to Antonio that he should experiment with different and perhaps better cable before he invested in equalizers. He could very well hear a difference that he likes witout having to make his setup more complicated than i should.

I wish i knew more about commercial theater setups to be able to set one up on my own. I could then really test hi-end cables and make comparisons.

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I wish i had the money for hi-end speakers but i dont. The cable seems to be the better decision for me for my situation since cable is a bit cheaper than a hi-end speaker system.

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For your 40 x 20 room, save your money for decent speakers and go with good old-fashioned 12-guage stranded zip cord at Home Depot. I've done A/B tests with two audiophile friends in Toronto (and one in New York) where I went over to their expensive setups and swapped wires with 12-AWG zip. They were blindfolded for these tests, and I repeated them a total of about 10 or 15 times each over the course of an evening. One person was able to guess correctly about 6 times in a row then went back to not being able to accurately tell the difference. Once, with one guy, I swapped cables exactly *twice* and then just made shuffiling noises and screwed and unscrewed terminals using the ZIP cord...he gave me a different response every time, and was 100% positive of the results.

Interconnects are a different breed, and I'd agree with getting good ones, but don't go nuts.

As I mentioned in another thread, try auditioning a set of matched Paradigm Monitor series speakers. They're much cheaper than many so-called high-end speakers and will give you amazing performance.

As to EQ, I have two distinct thoughts. From a purely technical standpoint Gord's right about the curve. The ISO-2969 curve is used for cinema and mixing studios, which have both direct (near-field) and reverberative sound fields. In the home situation, you're generally only dealing with a direct sound field, and going flat-out further is definitely warranted. My other thought mirror's Darryl's suggestion, and let your ears decide. YOU are the one who will be listening to this system, and maybe YOU like more bass or higher highs or whatever.

For your Sub, try to achieve a flat response down as low as your sub will go. You shouldn't ideally want a boost, but rather a smoooooooth response, ideally from 20 Hz to about 4-6k, then a gentle roll-off after that.

Also, how old are you? No, I'm not being nosy--but after you hit about 35-45 years old, your hearing starts to attenuate the higher-frequencies. If you roll off the highs in accordance with ISO-2969, and you've suffered some HF loss, you'll be subjecting yourself to a double-whammy.

I'd suggest you buy the best speakers you can afford (save if you must, but remember that you can get a full 6.1 or even 7.1 speaker setup for about $1,200 US). Set them up as well as you can directly-without EQing, and even without plugging in the RTA. Just set the levels with your SPL meter (remember, home theatre recomended practice is 75 dB, C-weighted Slow response, not the 85 dB-C recommended for theatres). Listen to several familiar pieces of source material over a period of days--playing your favourites about half a dozen times each. Note the way it sounds, THEN take out the toys and see what you have. I'll bet that unless your room has some hideous peaks and valleys, you'll find that you don't need to do all that much spending and tweaking.

Good Luck!

Does anyone notice that film and music recording studios use the kind of wire Gord mentioned? What kind of magic wire restores the sound quality that must have been destroyes as the poor electrons struggled through that crap?

What you said is correct. I'm going to build my own Hi-End home theater, using a big garage, a 4688 subwoofer, QSC amps... I was searching for hi-fi speakers then I tought that the movie soundtracks are created using pro stuff (amps, cables, speakers) and created FOR pro stuff (amps, cables, speakers). SO I realized that a very expensive Hi-Fi amplifier will be a vaste of money since it will be play sounds that cannot be hear in rec roooms!

About cables, I have a question. How do you usually wire theaters? Using standard cables twisted? Our tech told me to use 4-pole cable, then to connect + to two opposite pole and - to the others two. (is it clear? )

About EQ: Peter you're right. But after have changed the speaker position, I would like to achieve a good ISO response, and THEN (from a known situation) try different solution "by ear".
In other words, I would like to start from a known situation.

Of course, I'll try to "equalize" the room changing the room itself prior to star using an equalizer!

About the ISo curve: why should be differences equalizing a big and a small room? However for a bedroom you suggest almost flat 20-20.000?

Thanks for your help!

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Antonio Marcheselli
Florence, Italy

Peter, You never mentioned what kind of cable your friend was using and what kind of system ( including the speakers ) you did your swapping tests on.What are the conditions in which his system is set up?

Do your audio file friends set up systems? Have you ever been to a audio electronics store that sold professional gear and tested your zip chord in various conditions and on various speakers.

I bet you didnt know that the cable i use supports more energy than your ZIP chord does and rejects RF noise. Visit http://www.kimber.com

Alot of your professional home audio dealerships use kimber cable. The founder Ray Kimber comes from the commercial and pro audio world. Even Lucasfilm recognize's the benefits of using professional cable, even in their screening rooms.

I personally have never seen ZIP chord from homedepo or from any home improvement store used in professional audio setups. I dont even see it sold for professional audio applications.

There is no advantage to using any really highend cable as the energy that copper can conduct vs its heating effect and voltage drop is a matter of physics and anyone who claims otherwise is full of black magic

In almost all theatres I use 10AWG THNN T90 stranded pairs and twist them and then to meet firecode they are in conduit

If the cable has a layn twist it will reject almost all RF interference

Gordon, anybody who braids a positive and a negative wire together (a counter rotation design to be exact ) will eliminate alot of RF interferrence. Your 10AWG THNN T90 wire lacks a couple of important features. It lacks a viastrand design. That means the strands of copper that would be within one single covering jacket are instead isolated into various sizes ranging from hair thin to standard size.All groups independantly covered by their own jacket. This method prevents unwanted powersurges to the speakers and rejects more RF noise. The only time all the groups of wire ever touch each other are when they are terminated and connected to the speaker or amp. The second feature is the jacket. The Kimber cable ( their newest brands ) has a special jacket that bonds to the copper itself. Whats the purpose? Its so that the jacket wont ever erode under extreme conditions and expose the copper wire. To top everything off,the copper Kimber uses is very pure and very durable.

Their is no voo-doo black magic in the kind of professional i use. Its all scientifically proven technology. I really think you need to understand cable science a little bit more before you go off and say professional cable is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo black magic.

So twisted cables helps in RF reduction.
And what is the improvement of the HPS4000? Our tech told us about limiting the power loss...

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Any wire priced "by the foot" is a scam.

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What? You mean my 22-cents-a-foot for #12 AWG zip cord was a ripoff?

As for RF shielding, I can't say I've tried anything specifically to provide an RF shield. HOWEVER, I can give you my results with the aforementioned zipcord. As you can see from my .sig, I'm an amateur radio operator, and in my top-floor apartment I operate a 100W transmitter on numerous frequency bands between 7 MHz and 29 MHz, and two other transmitters at approximately 50W in the 144 MHz and 440 MHz ranges. The antennae are situated on the roof, almost directly above my home theatre.

When I'm transmitting there's no RFI to anything with only one small exception: at 14 MHz, my el-cheapo Infiniti surround-back speaker (fed by a NAD amp) picks up some RFI. If I turn off that 20+ year old amp, it goes away and all is silent. My wife and I have tested this extensively and I've yet to find any frequency or power level that induces any form of RFI into the system.

While I can't say I've done any serious A/B tests or performed any sort of hard scientific analysis, I can tell you that my setup has been extremely good in rejecting strong nearby RF energy at HF, VHF and UHF frequencies.

Adam asked:

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Stupid question of the day: What is meant by "interconnects"?

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This is the cabling that connects the various components within the system (i.e. your DVD Player to your preamp or the SR-D unit to the processor, etc).

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Cheers,
Peter, W2IRT

No xenon lamps were exploded in creating this message,
but several thousand electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

It has been shown that the amount of copper in the circular mil area of the cable is the limiting factor in its power loss in transmission
It max carrying cabality is the factor of the insulation withstanding the heating effect and the drop across the run

The rise time of that square wave is a direct product of how well the ampl;ifier can control the piston action of the speaker

There is no rocket science to speaker cable it is a mater of mass
Smaller stranding does increase the surface area that in effect should reduce skin effect but I would guarentee that that has no effect in the range of the audio spectrum

The disadvantage of stranded wire is that there is a build up of stray capacitance over long runs and that will effect damping factor

PS I looked at that Kimber information and am postivie that there is no baseis for the hocus pocus they are selling

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Gordon, brad, I still respect you guys and all others here to the fullest. I think you are awsome people and i have nothing against you.

Your still wrong about my kimber cable. Looking up info only goes so far.You haft to see it in action. Im shure your cable works fine in long lengths. My home system cost me about 10,000 $$$ in the course of 7 years. I only paid 110 $ dollars for 100 feet seven years ago and thats the last time i have personally spent money on cable.

I still dont know why you wont go to a dealer that sells Kimber and do your tests. Cable is the most over looked aspect of a sound system in my opinion. Most everyone wont pay but 25 to 50 cents a foot and most dont even know about professional cable. You can test your cable all you want and im shure you may get good results. Go and test some kimber cable.

Brad, i have home THX and guess what, 99% of the time i never use the THX feature. I agree completely its a joke but every once in a while it comes in handy on a movie thats really shrill sounding in nature.I never said lucasfilm uses hi-end cable, i only said they recognize the benefits of using professional cable and im not quoting atricles form stereo magazines.