Wes’s Ramblings

For the past few years I’ve really been jonesing for an acoustically transparent screen.  The idea is that its gives much more of a theatre feel when the speakers are hidden from view and the sound comes from directly behind the screen, just like in a real theatre.  There are other benefits such as using 3 identical speakers so that as sounds move across the screen they do so seamlessly as all the speakers are identical and at the same level.  Also, the location of the sound is much more natural.  The drawbacks are potentially dim image because light is lost as it passes through the screen just as the sound does.  Another potential drawback is sound that is “muffled” as it passes through the screen material.

Well, I have to say that the screen fabric I’m using provides outstanding picture quality as well as audio quality.  The source of the screen material is SeymourAV, here’s the linkage:  SeymourAV.com

As you can see from the photos below, I tore out my existing screen and rebuilt the screen wall to house my 3 Mackie HR824 active studio monitors as well as my Mirage BPS400 subwoofer.  I can’t rave enough about the HR824’s.  They provide a level of dynamics and accuracy I’ve never heard in a passive speaker.  Yes, they can be a bit analytical but at the end of the day I’m trying to reproduce the source material accurately.  Tubes and passive speakers need not apply (listen up Gary and Alun ).   Anyway, I successfully set up the Audyssey MultiEQ (8 position RTA) on my Onkyo 705 as well as getting it applied to the DTS MA and Dolby TrueHD output from my Sony 350 BD player.  All I can say is that I’ve never experienced this level of audio reproduction in a theatre.  Truly spectacular.

Also, during the start of my construction I had to move my Electrohome 8500 CRT projector back about a foot for the new screen.  Well, lets just say I let the magic smoke out of the PJ and there’s no putting it back.  So, I ended buying myself a flashlight.  A BenQ W5000 DLP projector to be exact.  More on that later but I’m very pleasantly surprised at the quality.  Big upgrade from my non-LC CRT projector and one of the first flashlights I’ve seen that are significantly brighter than an 8 or 9″ CRT.

 Anyway, enough rambling, here are a few pics:

Wesley J