ACTIVE home theater?

[rushnrun 14]

Anyone here run an active home theater setup?

I'm looking at possibly running 4 100 watt bridgeable stereo amps (for mids and highs) and 1 200 watt bridgeable stereo amp (subwoofer) along side an active crossover (behringer or peavey 3way stereo-4 way mono design or something else..?) The end result will probably be a stack of amps hanging in the basement and an infinite baffle subwoofer using the floor as the baffle (I may go ceiling, not sure what will sound better)...

I'm not real sure on speakers, I'll be building everything. I'm thinking of making a large "sound bar" center channel with 8 3" woofers and 2 1 1/8" tweeters... I've got some towers from my last passive build that I may use in this app. They're dual 6.5 woofers with a single 1 1/8" tweet (I'll be adding an extra tweet if I reuse these woofers-they're Dayton audio reference series, along with the tweets)

The TV (46"LCD) will supply all the a/v mixing of components so I'll just be running the TV out to the x-over and work it out from there.... Other than I may try to hook up and Ipod/mp3 player to the setup separately so the TV doesn't have to be on...

Not real sure what I'm getting into...

Any input or pointers?

Oh yeah it’s a very small living room somewhere in the neighborhood of 15x10 with 9

Edited December 1, 2008 by rushnrun

[a1161979 3]

There is no point in active surrounds, even in Cinemas no matter the quality or size the surrounds are always passive

As for the front three speakers that is not to hard, you need a surround processor with pre out for all you channels. I would run one A500 for the surrounds one channel for left and one for right then one A500 for each front speaker meaning a total of 4 amplifiers for the 5.1 setup (excluding the subwoofer) On the front speakers each has its own A500 with one channel for HF and one for LF, between your preamplifier and the each A500 you will need an active stereo crossover which you can get for about $100. So in total you need 4 A500 and 3 active crossovers

Mind you for HT its not worth it... You would be better off buying a really good AV amplifier and/or better speakers

As for the Behringer A500 being over rated it probably is but please remember it is a 200 watt power amplifier with a street price of $200, if you can afford better amplifers go for it

I spent yesterday setting up a new cinema where I work and it was passive simply because it was only 40 seats :clap:

[Solid_State13 1]

Where can u get a $100 stand alone active crossover for HT? I'm having level issues with my speakers/sub and that would help alot

[rushnrun 14]

I've got a grasp of what I need and what needs to be done... Just not sure how worthwhile it'll all be. I'm thinking for starters I'll run three amps on my passive setup and see how I like it and go from there... (one amp per tower and one for the center)

I like the active idea because I change out tower designs pretty often and it'd be nice to just turn a knob and adjust vs. building new x-overs every time.

[topgun 262]

I'll say this much right now, going full active is NOT a cheap route to go. I'll try to get a lot more in depth with this later today if I get time.

[a1161979 3]

I'll say this much right now, going full active is NOT a cheap route to go. I'll try to get a lot more in depth with this later today if I get time.

And neither is it worth it in the home environment

The reason cinema's are active because it allows more EQ and level options from the Processor and building crossovers to take 500 watts or more a chennel is very expensive, even then most cinema's bellow 200 seats will have passive systems anyway

As for the crossover look into the Behringer range http://www.behringer.com.au/CX2310/index.cfm?lang=ENG

[rushnrun 14]

That's the exact x-over I was looking at. For now I'm going to run passive (the next couple weeks)..

those x-overs are cheap,

I stuck the audiosource amp that I bought to run the subwoofer on my mains and it's more than plenty of power so I think I'll run three more of the smaller audiosource amps on the tweets in the towers and on the tweets and mid woofers in the center. should leave me with only needing two of those x-overs and three more amps... only about 600(the audiosource amps are pretty cheap but seem to have plenty of power) I've gone ahead and just bought a dedicated subwoofer plate amp only 250 watt but with the dual 21's that will possibly be mounted IB in the basement I don't think I'll need a ton of power to get my output

*I bought the woofer tester program to test the t/s parameters of the 21" subs, just gotta figure out how to work the program

[rushnrun 14]

Well I keep adding to my pile of HT toys...

Got my new 46" LCD TV yesterday, picked up a matching amp to my original audiosource amp and bought one of the smaller 100 watt amps.

So as I stand right now I've got 200 watts per tower and 100 for the center, 240w for the subwoofer (towers will be rebuilt using 4-6" woofers-they're currently 4-ohm and I need 8, My newly built Center channel is 4db more efficient than my towers so twice the power should be about right to keep it even...)

the new tower design gives good response all the way down to 40hz and the center is good down to 90hz if I don't do IB with the 21's the sub will be tuned in the 20's...

It'll all start coming together shortly.

*on a side note the new TV doesn't supply enough a/v support (it only has a few component video jacks) so I'll be buying a large onkyo a/v receiver-the new receiver will has pre-outs for all 7.1 channels-Front, 2 Rear, Center, sub

odds are the new receiver will supply plenty of power and these new amps won't get used.. the receiver is rated for 160x7@6ohm-4 ohm stable

New amps may get kicked to the party room...(party room currently has a cheap Sony a/v receiver powering my old towers...)

[///M5 2,833]

Let's look at this quantitatively for 3 way fronts and center and 2 way rears:

Amplifier requirements:

Front Left -- 3 channels

Front Right -- 3 channels

Center -- 3 channels

Rear Left - 2 channels

Rear Right - 2 channels

Subwoofer - 1 channel

So you will need 14 mono amplifiers or 7 stereo with power appropriate for each channel.

If you used the Behringer 2496 you will need 3-4 of them depending on how you control things.

I am not sure sure that 14 channels of amplification and 4 2496's make sense.

Personally using an active processor at home should be a pre-emptive decision to help design appropriate passives which you then further optimize for your drivers.

[rushnrun 14]

Personally using an active processor at home should be a pre-emptive decision to help design appropriate passives which you then further optimize for your drivers.

Yeah, I see your point... I should have thought this through a little more before I started buying equipment. Kind of did the kid in a candy store thing when I got this idea..

I knew to run active I would need quite a bit of equipment I had planned on 4-amps and probably 3-crossovers

I think the Onkyo receiver I'm looking into should probably be more than enough power and I probably won't end up using any of the amps(other than the sub)

So yeah dumb idea on my part...

Atleast the stuff I bought is fairly cheap so I didn't waste much

Thanks for the input....

I'll post some pics of the finished speakers and Passive Setup....

[rushnrun 14]

Got my Onkyo TX-SR805 receiver yesterday... all I can say is wow.... should have just bought the receiver first... far more output than either of the audiosource amps (more output than I really need)... it lacks a little on the low end but I'm sure there's a crossover that I can change... too many buttons just to go pushing, looks like I'll have to read the manual..

My only complaint is these amps get SUPER HOT, too hot to touch even after 20mins of stereo play (just watching TV at low levels)... The receiver has a sticker on top that warns about the excessive heat, so I don't know if it's the ohm load I