ERD-1's..!

[wesm228]

Well I already have 6.2's as l/r. I won't be switching them out for a while.

[wesm228]

I got my upa-2 today. I took the cover off, gave it a good dusting, disconnected the power light led wire as I did on my other two amps, and hooked it up to the system.

I went into the Oppo setup also to add the surround channels.

So far so good. I'm about to watch Private Ryan on blu ray. My brother got it for my Birthday which is today.

I'll update later with impressions. Thanks for all the help guys!

[wesm228]

Okay. So we watched Private Ryan. Man, is that a LONG movie. But a very good one too.

The thing that most stood out is that the speakers didn't stand out at all. I don't know if this is their design, my placement, or if the volume levels are off.

Here are the settings I have: All speakers set to small w/ 80hz crossover, each rear speaker is approx. 7 feet to the side of me, volume level is -6.0 db, set to left/right dipole as manual and forum members suggest for side wall placement at approx. 6.5 feet floor to bottom of speaker, and mounted about 1.5 feet from back wall.

We were expecting bullets to come whizzing past us, shrapnel flying this way and that, planes roaring front to back, but none of this, at least that we were able to notice. All we were able to notice was a slight enveloping sound.

Is this just the subtlety that you want with surrounds or is something amiss?

[Deleted]

Please forgive me if I post any comments that seem to be negative, but my intentions are constructive.

It is always important to give in precise detail all the dimensions of your room when starting a thread. The reason I say this is now I realize that perhaps your apparent main chair is directly against the back wall, at least it looks that way from the photos? I now see from the photos that your ERD-1's are very close to the rear wall, "1.5 feet from back wall." IMO that is less than ideal. I would have recommended if I had know this that you mount the ERD-1's on the rear wall in the right/left bipole with both toggles in the up position (see page 19). That is how I have them in my room and my sofa is almost up against the wall. The side surround position presumes that you ideally have room in front of and behind the speaker on the side wall. Note I said ideally. What I would do is extend the speaker wire and have someone or two people hold the ERD-1's against the rear wall in the bipole setting to test if this makes an improvement. I realize this might be a lot of work but it is my best suggestion.

My other comment is that your sub is not up to the performance standard of your front and surround speakers. An upgrade for the sub would make a significant improvement for movies IMO.

All of that said as general comments base on your photos and measurements, I wonder if you have all the setup correct. I have played the Private Ryan in my room on my OPPO 83 with 3ea ERM-1 (slightly smaller brother of the 6.2) and 2ea ERD-1's driven by an XPA-5 (with Outlaw sub) and it sounded great!

I don't own the UMC-1 so maybe someone who is familiar with the UMC-1/Oppo 83 combo proper settings and connections can help to determine if you might have any settings issues.

[Nemesis.ie]

Wes, additionally you say the levels are at -6db, what are the fronts at?

Did you do an auto calibration and/or measure the levels with a meter? Have you tried increasing the level of the surrounds?

You may also want to try setting the cross-over to 100 or 120Hz as the ERD-1 does not go that low if you are playing at loud(er) levels.

Finally, try them in bi-pole. I preferred mine that way irrespective of position.

[wesm228]

Feb 2, 2012 3:18:06 GMT -5 @chuckienut said:

Please forgive me if I post any comments that seem to be negative, but my intentions are constructive.

It is always important to give in precise detail all the dimensions of your room when starting a thread. The reason I say this is now I realize that perhaps your apparent main chair is directly against the back wall, at least it looks that way from the photos? I now see from the photos that your ERD-1's are very close to the rear wall, "1.5 feet from back wall." IMO that is less than ideal. I would have recommended if I had know this that you mount the ERD-1's on the rear wall in the right/left bipole with both toggles in the up position (see page 19). That is how I have them in my room and my sofa is almost up against the wall. The side surround position presumes that you ideally have room in front of and behind the speaker on the side wall. Note I said ideally. What I would do is extend the speaker wire and have someone or two people hold the ERD-1's against the rear wall in the bipole setting to test if this makes an improvement. I realize this might be a lot of work but it is my best suggestion.

My other comment is that your sub is not up to the performance standard of your front and surround speakers. An upgrade for the sub would make a significant improvement for movies IMO.

All of that said as general comments base on your photos and measurements, I wonder if you have all the setup correct. I have played the Private Ryan in my room on my OPPO 83 with 3ea ERM-1 (slightly smaller brother of the 6.2) and 2ea ERD-1's driven by an XPA-5 (with Outlaw sub) and it sounded great!

I don't own the UMC-1 so maybe someone who is familiar with the UMC-1/Oppo 83 combo proper settings and connections can help to determine if you might have any settings issues.

Chuckienut, my room including the connected kitchen is 25 feet L x 15 feet W x 8 feet H. If you include the hallway that's well under 3500 cubic feet total.

As to the seating, it is actually at least 2 feet from the back wall and can be moved forward if needed though of course this won't change the distance the surrounds are from the back wall. The subwoofer is actually behind the couch.

The Bic subwoofer was meant to be in my computer room which is a tiny square probably under 500 cubic feet, but was moved after I sold my Epik Empire. I'm looking into building a serious diy sub.

The levels do need to be calibrated via spl meter which I will do shortly. My front speakers are set to 0.0 db in the UMC.

[wesm228]

Feb 2, 2012 5:20:55 GMT -5 Nemesis.ie said:

Wes, additionally you say the levels are at -6db, what are the fronts at?

Did you do an auto calibration and/or measure the levels with a meter? Have you tried increasing the level of the surrounds?

You may also want to try setting the cross-over to 100 or 120Hz as the ERD-1 does not go that low if you are playing at loud(er) levels.

Finally, try them in bi-pole. I preferred mine that way irrespective of position.

Nemesis, I did increase the surround level slightly during Private Ryan. I went from the -6.0 db mentioned up to -4.5. This may have mad the enveloping effect greater but really didn't make enough difference to impress us.

Again, we were seeking the "in the action" feel and we just weren't getting it.

If after some more tweaking and level calibration they still aren't sounding right I will try them bipole and/or switch the crossover. I got the 80hz figure from a bunch of separate posts on this forum regarding these surrounds.

[wesm228]

Here's what I've done since.

I attempted to calibrate levels to 75 db with spl meter on tripod in primary seating position.

The fronts were easy to match. The surrounds would not go to 75, and I know that you want them a good deal lower than the mains so I didn't attempt to put them there.

My sub was also set lower than 75.

So in the UMC-1, all are set to 90hz crossover, fronts are set to 3db at 10ft, surrounds to 0db at 7ft, sub to 5db at 5ft.

If these are way off or I screwed up in calibrating somewhere along the line please let me know.

I also tried Emo-Q for the first time and couldn't get it to work. "Test Ambient Fault" kept popping up. I remembered reading a while back about having to snap your fingers at the start to wake the mic up. Tried that also with no luck.

I played Avatar on blu ray and still not the surround effect I was hoping for. I wouldn't say it had changed much if any since before calibrating.

Lastly, I did as Nemesis mentioned and switched both side surrounds to bipole setting. Again, not a noticeable improvement.

[Nemesis.ie]

I like my surrounds the same as my fronts (SPL-wise). The trims would be lower if the surrounds are closer.

If a particular stream has the surrounds too "hot" that's what the trim on the remote is for.

In dipole mode you may also find you need them set higher to sound at a similar level (I did anyway).

What is the level control on your UPA-2 set to? I presume that's what's driving the surrounds? I'd suggest setting it near max and then try to level match all channels to the same level and see what you think.

90Hz is reasonable, I mostly used that when I had the ERD-1s, you could try the ERD-1s at 110 or 120 to compare too - remember for the lower frequencies, they only have a signle 5.25" versus the two 6.25"s in the 6.2s, that's a large areal difference.

Ultimately this is why I went with an all 6.3 setup.

[wesm228]

I haven't really watched any good blu-ray's since last tweaking my settings, just Netflix which is mostly in stereo.

However, today my sisters son was over playing the 360 which I hadn't touched in a while and I was hearing sounds all around me just how I had envisioned it would be prior to getting them. It was really quite realistic.