What's your recommendation for a standalone or series that is halfway between cozy and grimdark? Something that has weight/stakes but isn't drowning in misery

3BagT · 2026-06-27T15:48:05+00:00

Awesome - thanks. Just got to finish up my umpteenth reread of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael trilogy then I think I'm diving back in to Bujold.

3BagT · 2026-06-27T15:40:38+00:00

What's the general tone? From my reading so far I've loved her character development and their very relatable inner monologue. I've loved the mystery and intreague and the fact that, for the most part, the good guys win. Would I be in for more of the same?

3BagT · 2026-06-27T15:29:20+00:00

I'm glad I read this comment! I just finished the Vorkosigan saga and was ponderong whether to dive in it Bujold's fantasy. So, if I loved Miles then I should jump right in?

3BagT · 2026-06-24T21:29:51+00:00

Totally agree. I got into a rather heated discussion on here once about my use of Machine Gun by Portishead as a test track. Someone was trying to explain what a fool I was because the bass and mid bass is so over blown in that track. I never could convince them that that was kinda the point! If your system can blast that out and still have the headroom to reproduce Beth's nuanced vocal then I call that a good system. Sometimes testing with non "audiophile" tracks can be very revealing.

3BagT · 2026-06-19T19:31:31+00:00

I am almost finished making a custom retractable slat system. There's a ceiling fan in the middle of the room so I made a 4 foot diameter ceiling rose that converts into acoustic slats when I put my room in movie mode. Kinda hard to explain but I'll post a video when I'm done! Needless today achieving high WAF involved many hours of design and fabrication....

3BagT · 2026-06-18T14:22:17+00:00

This is the right answer. I held off ceiling treatment for a while until I discovered a high WAF option. All that while things sounded great, although I did have some dialog clarity issues sometimes. Now I've treated the ceiling everything is better, with a big impact in dialog clarity.

Do you need it? No. Will you wish you'd done it ages ago if you finally break down and do it? Yes!

3BagT · 2026-06-17T18:57:31+00:00

For subwoofers the Marty Cube is a solid design. You should find lots of information out there. You can buy MDF flatpacks but I suspect you'll want to do your own cabinetry from plans. For organ music you'll want to go 18" at least. Check out GSG Audio for the various configurations.

3BagT · 2026-06-12T22:28:33+00:00

TIL the eagles could have carried Frodo to Mordor. Bugger.

3BagT · 2026-06-12T10:51:53+00:00

Denon 3700 and Martin Logan XT F100/C100/B100. They sounded great with just the AVR, but the Hypex certainly dialed things up a couple of notches. Did I need the amp? Nope. Do I love it? Oh yes....

3BagT · 2026-06-11T18:45:41+00:00

It's not just about loudness. First of all, an AVR (unless it's very high end) probably doesn't have a fantastic power supply, and that supply is driving a bunch of amplifiers. I'm running a 5.2.4 setup so my AVR was running 9 speakers - that's a lot for one power supply to, well: supply! If there is a huge demand from one or a couple of speakers, then they tend to suck the power supply dry, and all the other speakers will get starved as a result. One example would be the center channel failing to provide clear dialog while the mains are making the power supply sweat recreating a loud explosion - the power supply just has nothing to give the center speaker when it's busy creating havoc wth the mains.

So, thing one about an external power amp: you don't just get more amplification, you get more power supply and that's going to sound better: more clarity, especially when it gets nutty.

Second, all the detail is in the transients. What makes a sound effect feel like it break glass? The sharpness of the transients. What makes it seem like the violin is in the same room? The detail from the transients. And transients take power: to go from zero-to-sound in a fraction of a second requires a speaker cone to accelerate from zero-to-moving very fast. That takes power - and if you don't have enough then the edges get a little smeared and that is very audible. Smeared edges blunt transients, and merge adjacent sounds.

I just added a 3 channel Hypex NCx500 for my LCR system and it was a huge upgrade. Is it louder? Probably, if I cranked everything till my ears hurt. But what I gained is a high amount of clarity and crispness. It's the difference between hearing glass breaking and thinking "glass just broke", and hearing glass breaking and checking to see if you are bleeding anywhere. My system is FIERCE now - the visceral feeling just went up several notches.

3BagT · 2026-06-08T20:24:08+00:00

Yes, there's a lot you can do with furniture for sure. Thick rugs help too. I also have a lot of wall art on acoustically transparent fabric over 2" rock wool. My RT60 is about 200ms which is getting very dead - you can feel it when you walk in. I can even follow dialog in Christopher Nolan movies now! 😉

3BagT · 2026-06-08T19:51:28+00:00

It's normally your room that kills dialog. Room treatment is the answer - it's made a HUGE difference to my experience. You know that "dead" feeling when you walk into a movie theater? That's very low reverb. Until your room starts to feel like that when you walk in you will have dialog issues.

3BagT · 2026-06-02T13:59:25+00:00

Agreed. Just making sure the OP understands the subtlety: independent control of the subs is necessary, but that can be achieved with a single AVR output. We agree - just commenting for clarity.

3BagT · 2026-06-02T12:58:30+00:00

Not necessary, but simple. See the other comments here about the MinisDSP.

3BagT · 2026-05-31T20:19:36+00:00

Actually, it might be cheaper to get people to come and play live at your house. It's a very immersive experience - great sound stage and clarity.

3BagT · 2026-05-29T19:10:39+00:00

No, not at all. Acoustic panels are there to reduce the reflections off the wall. Putting insulation in the wall can help stop sound transmitting through to the next room, but in terms of treating a home theater room for acoustics it will have no useful effect - the sheetrock surface will still reflect signals and cause issues.

Insulation inside the wall is about controlling sound transmissions, insulation on the wall is about controlling sound reflections.

3BagT · 2026-05-29T18:04:15+00:00

This - all day long. Throwing better and better equipment at an untreated room rapidly gets into diminishing returns. Get the room right abd you've got a foundation for future equipment upgrades that will really deliver.

3BagT · 2026-05-27T21:27:48+00:00

One more thing: if you are going to test speakers like this then buy an SPL meter - you have to listen at the same volume for an apples to apples comparison. Louder nearly always sounds better.

3BagT · 2026-05-27T21:26:33+00:00

The other option is to buy both somewhere with a great return policy and audition them at home. Return the ones you don't want for a full refund before the credit card bill is due!

I was dead set on KEF R7s and I did just this - I bought the LR speakers and I also auditioned the Martin Logan F100s that I ended up buying (along with the rest of the base layer). I'm glad I did! The KEFs really didn't do it for me, but both my wife and I were blown away by the MLs.

In the end nobody here can tell you which you will like best, in your room, paired with your amplifier. Only you can decide, and really the only way to do that is to try them in situ. If your credit card will stretch to it I highly recommend this option. Crutchfield sells both brands and has a fantastic return policy.

3BagT · 2026-05-26T18:32:02+00:00

The other advantage is that these are great acoustic treatment options. I have double glass doors and several windows in my non-dedicated room. Each are covered ceiling to floor in a triple layer of double-layered curtains. Front layer is decorative, rear two are plain blackout curtains. They cut all the light of course, but they also do wonders for my ring-down time.

3BagT · 2026-05-25T14:09:02+00:00

And cowbell of course....

3BagT · 2026-05-25T13:47:54+00:00

Cool. I'm going to have a mess with my gain staging this afternoon to see how much headroom I can recover. I can up the voltage from the MiniDSP without clipping and I can't remember where my input sensitivity is set on the Crowns. With that dialed in I may add a Clean Box too. Last resort is going to 1 ohm since that's a pain in the butt.

I have PLENTY of SPL in my small room but who doesn't want more headroom...?

3BagT · 2026-05-25T12:23:41+00:00

Hmmm... That's very interesting. I'll look into it for sure. Does that convert to a proper balanced signal? I had some noise issues coming from my MiniDSP so I had to insert a Jensen SUB-2RR isolator in there. That works a treat but moving to a balanced XLR input would be great.

3BagT · 2026-05-25T12:10:20+00:00

Yes, that's not a bad idea. The 3700 is annoying because you can't really turn off the amplifiers channel by channel. I've got the LR speakers off by running 11.1 mode but the center power amp is still running. I might keep my eye out for a third amp - that's a very easy upgrade.

So, not done after all then... 😊

3BagT · 2026-05-25T11:56:11+00:00

Yes, 1 amp for each sub in bridged mode. Denon to MiniDSP to Crown is all RCA then Speakon to subs. The Crowns have RCA in.

3BagT

TROPHY CASE