Fitting alcove units - what ventilation do I need?

hornetstinger · 2 May 2023 at 14:05

Scam said:
Appreciate the points there @lucid . I started down another rabbit hole "what if I got a 3.0 passive soundbar, then found some wireless atmos upfirers for the bookshelves.. and rears, and a sub". But then I would have spent £1500+ which is totally not worth it for this room (and huge point to make - my girlfriend is so paranoid about noise re. the neighbours we'll never watch anything at what I'd call a 'decent' volume anyway) plus the expected £1,000 on the TV and I just can't spend that right now. Unless you can find me a passive 3.0 soundbar with wireless rears, subwoofer, and atmos up-firers for under a grand all in?

Also, in complete laymans terms if I want to wall mount the TV and soundbar then it'd going to require trunking some cables against the wall from the receiver up to the soundbar and that's jusst a lot of effort for something that probably wouldn't pass the girlfriend test. lol

I'm pretty set on TV choice if I go this route. Probably Panasonic but maybe Sony. It's the soundbars I know nothing about. I think I need to start a new thread entitled "spec me an Atmos soundbar <£600 with a sub, and the ability to add wireless rear speakers at a later stage" ...

Not many passive soundbars around tbh there's these

Soundbars | Hi-Fi Speakers | Monitor Audio

Monitor Audio's Soundbars provide the high definition sound you've been missing, and match the look of your TV with contemporary lifestyle design.

www.monitoraudio.com

You can then use any AVR and active subwoofer

tbh at that £600 I wouldn't even consider atmos as generally

"Less speakers, but higher quality speakers" is better than "lots of speakers, and all crappy quality" A quality 2.1 system will outclass a low end atmos system for sound quality. I can guarntee my home theatre in stereo mode or 2.1 mode will sound better than any soundbar.

hornetstinger · 2 May 2023 at 14:45

Scam said:
Well, we bought our place in London 18 months ago. And, it's London and a small terraced house and I'm not a millionaire so we can't afford anything bigger I also have my old Marantz stereo amplifier in the loft which I was holding on to for musical duties. But now I'm in long-term-relationship-compromising-stage of renovating the house I think it highly unlikely I'll win the argument to wire speakers around the dining room/kitchen living area either. Active wireless speakers seem a more likely option (we're currently making do with Google Home minis, for reference).

It's my knowledge circa 2010 Before I had any idea I would end up buying a place for myself in London I had grand plans for a proper 7.1/Atmos setup and sniffed at those poor souls that "made do" with soundbar setups. But now I live in the real world where I feel very lucky to have my own place, but a cinema room it certainly isn't!

For reference, here is the lounge about a wek after we moved in. We'll get built-in alcove units like the picture I posted above.

The room is barely 3.5m wide, the telly shown is the aforementioned 42" Panasonic GT60. And the alcove itself behind the TV is just over 1m wide. So any new TV is going to be a 43" max.

I think I turned CEC off on the TV I'll have a look tonight. But if the Harmony goes, it goes... I understand they're end of life with Logitech anyway now?

Thanks for the info. Realistically though, wouldn't I get a better experience with an Atmos soundbar with (possibly) small rears and a sub? Rather than 5.1 on a passive soundbar? On that subject, looking at the room and layout (layout will be the same), would it be possible to put a front-left speaker on the far left bookshelves? And the front-right would be pretty much above the TV. If I did that and maybe got a centre to mount under the TV, and small rears... would Audessy actually be able to tune them all properly? Or would it be weird with the left speaker so far out? Wires would be an issue (argument) though...

Anyway I will certainly investigate passive soundbars... In fact I will wander to Richer Sounds shortly as there's one near my office.

Passive soundbars will allow you to customise your system. For example you could buy this

Passive soundbar

SB-4 | Passive Soundbar | Monitor Audio

Monitor Audio's SB-4 passive soundbar provides a visually balanced, audio solution for 70 inch TVs plus, and is engineered for seamless integration.

www.monitoraudio.com

AVR

Denon AVC-X3800H AV Receiver, Black at AV.com

www.av.com

Pair of these for atmos

Wharfedale D300 3D Surround Speakers (Pair), Walnut at AV.com

www.av.com

Sub

Wharfedale Diamond SW-150 Subwoofer, Black at AV.com

www.av.com

Or to keep to same brand speaker
These for atmos

Radius 90 | Bookshelf Speakers | Monitor Audio

Monitor Audio's Radius 90 bookshelf speakers continues to evolve, delivering a greater size-defying performance than ever before.

www.monitoraudio.com

these for surrounds

Bronze FX | Surround Speakers | Monitor Audio

The Monitor Audio Bronze FX rear speaker delivers a true home cinema experience and will surround you in sound.

www.monitoraudio.com

Once you buy a active soundbar, then the sub and surrounds speakers are part of that system, you cannot replace one part without buying the same make and model. For example if the sub in a sonos soundbar blows you can't add that SW-150 sub. You're stuck with the Sonos rears also.

As another example, I could replace my LCR speakers and replace it with that Monitor Audio soundbar, keeping my AV processor, power amplifiers, subwoofers, heights, surrounds, front wides, sides. Buying standarised AV gear means you have total flexibility.

It's like comparing a Desktop PC you've built yourself to a mobile phone.

Scam · 2 May 2023 at 17:29

lucid said:
I said it on Friday in post #16, you are heading for a sound bar

Pah

hornetstinger said:
(snip) It's like comparing a Desktop PC you've built yourself to a mobile phone.

I get all that and appreciate the input. But as I've mentioned above there are no passive soundbars <1000mm wide (size of the alcove). Even if there were, I'm not sure I can warrant laying wiring all around for sub/surrounds etc. to even make it a fair comparison against an active soundbar setup (with sub and rears).As-in, I'm not sure I can firstly win that argument with my girlfriend, and I'm just not sure it's worth the cost and aggro given the amount of movies we actually watch, and at what decent volume anyway.

I'm aware it's not a great viewing environment anyway. It's a small room with the TV at an angle. Trying to squeeze a separates system into what is supposed to be renovated into a very traditional-looking reception room is just not going to work

hornetstinger · 2 May 2023 at 18:15

A LCR smaller than one meter will be pointless you won't get good enough stereo imaging

Maybe look at small stereo speakers? Or soundbase?

lucid · 2 May 2023 at 18:58

hornetstinger said:
A LCR smaller than one meter will be pointless you won't get good enough stereo imaging

Maybe look at small stereo speakers? Or soundbase?

You should really take a couple of minutes to read the thread, and I do mean read it, not interpret it, or think what you would do, or even think what the OP should do. Just read it. Pay attention to what @Scam is saying. Try to understand things from his point of view. You need a bit of empathy to appreciate what he has to deal with and who else is involved in this decision.

The requirement here isn't good stereo sound. He has somewhere else for that. What he needs is 'good enough' TV audio with the bonus of some surround effects all within the restrictions of the room and the aesthetics they're aiming for as a couple. Simplicity is also a key factor. That, and some convenience features.

If you re-read the thread and didn't pick up on any of that then you're not giving them the courtesy they deserve. If you're not going to do that, then why should they listen to your advice?

Buffman · 5 May 2023 at 08:39

Looks like the tv will be really high if you put it above the fire? (if you want examples look at r/tvtoohigh)

Could you get a small tv in the alcove or one of those wall mounts that could pull "down" infront of the fire when it's not on?

Scam · 5 May 2023 at 09:01

Buffman said:
Looks like the tv will be really high if you put it above the fire? (if you want examples look at r/tvtoohigh)

Could you get a small tv in the alcove or one of those wall mounts that could pull "down" infront of the fire when it's not on?

The TV absolutely won't be going above the fireplace. It'll be a 42/42" OLED wall mounted in the right alcove.

EDIT: Thought I may as well ask here as we're finalising the drawings for the alcove units and trying to figure out height of where the TV will sit etc. Obviously need to include space for the soundbar so what's the average height of these things? What should I allow from top of the cabinet? :confused:

Buffman · 5 May 2023 at 10:37

Scam said:
The TV absolutely won't be going above the fireplace. It'll be a 42/42" OLED wall mounted in the right alcove.

EDIT: Thought I may as well ask here as we're finalising the drawings for the alcove units and trying to figure out height of where the TV will sit etc. Obviously need to include space for the soundbar so what's the average height of these things? What should I allow from top of the cabinet?

I would just get the height of a sonos arc and then allow a touch more for wiggle room/carpenter errors.

As for tv height about 1m off the floor to centre of tv is pretty good, that could be a touch higher depending on your preferences.

Scam · 5 May 2023 at 11:29

Buffman said:
I would just get the height of a sonos arc and then allow a touch more for wiggle room/carpenter errors.

As for tv height about 1m off the floor to centre of tv is pretty good, that could be a touch higher depending on your preferences.

Currently we settled on the base cabinet to be 600mm high. I took a straw poll of soundbars and they range between 55-95mm height, TV (LG/Pan/Sony @ 42") are 540-564mm.

So rough sums gives me an eye level (middle of TV) of 945mm which I believe is what the carpenter actually measured when I was sitting on the sofa

Working backwards, the lowest shelf (immediately above the TV) was pencilled at 1400mm. So 1400-600 gives me an 800mm alcove to work with. Adding the average TV and soundbar height gives me ~140mm gap. Hmn.

What I need to judge is (a) is 600mm the right-looking height for the cabinet itself. And is 800mm enough to work with or will it all look very squeezed in. I'm thinking it's not quite big enough - everything will look a bit squeezed in. So the shelf can probably go a bit higher. And we'll hope it doesn't look too weird on the left alcove, as obviously there will be an 800mm+ hole without the TV or soundbar. But ya know.. plants, a lamp etc. can easily fill that up I'm sure.

EDIT: Heck that's a lot of maths for a Friday morning