Help speccing audio system for large games room

[TomO]

I am currently redoing a room in my house into a games room, its 12 x 6m and has a vaulted ceiling - 2.5m at eaves going into 4.9m in the centre. I want the system to go loud and be good quality (not asking too much!) I have discounted a PA style setup as the sound quality would be too poor, I want it to go loud occasionally, but most of the type will be spent at modest volumes and dont want it to be trying / harsh etc at these volumes. So looking at hifi gear I have come up with the following idea:


4 x bookshelf speakers mounted on wall brackets high up - preferably decent sensitivity and power handling to enable them to go a bit louder - something like monitor audio bronze 2 or KEF Q300? I dont think 2 speakers will fill the room out sufficiently and the effective listening position will be all over the room - so more speakers more evenly filled with sound.

2 x amplifier ( 1 x integrated and 1 x power) to power these - NAD c370, roksan kandy - both 100w pch+ and have 2 sets of preouts.

subwoofer(s) for low end

sonos and cd player as sources.





couple of concerns I have are that the amplifiers will give the speakers a full range signal, will this muddle the bass with the subwoofer - obviously on a HT setup the receiver splits the signal so that speakers dont duplicate sub frequencies. also, will having 4 speakers will mess up the stereo imaging or muddle the sound in general? is there a better solution to the above? Approx budget - say £2k to include everything but sonos. second hand / end of line almost preffered to maximise budget.

Please let me know if you need more info to advise, thanks in advance.

 

[Nick1881]

Active speakers might be a good idea, look at the JBL range, LSR305.

 

[pete910]

Personally I would go the AV amp route. That room you have is begging for it.
You can then have your games in surround sound too whilst having the quality plus also been able to "blow your socks off" .

Most mid range AV amps are 100w + per channel now . Though they are rather more expensive. But it would be worth the cost in the long run.

Edit:

That assuming it's a "PC" games room but after a re read it's rather large so I'll presume a games room as in pool etc .

 

[TomO]

Active speakers might be a good idea, look at the JBL range, LSR305.

Dont have any experience on active speakers, so reading up now. But a quick look at those JBL's and they dont have a high pass filter on them, so would still be getting a full range signal and still unsure if thats an issue with duplicating part of what the sub will do.

also what preamp would be used to run the active speakers?

 

[TomO]

Personally I would go the AV amp route. That room you have is begging for it.
You can then have your games in surround sound too whilst having the quality plus also been able to "blow your socks off" .

Most mid range AV amps are 100w + per channel now . Though they are rather more expensive. But it would be worth the cost in the long run.

Edit:

That assuming it's a "PC" games room but after a re read it's rather large so I'll presume a games room as in pool etc .

Yeah, games as in pool and table tennis, so purely a music setup.

 

[K.C. Leblanc]

couple of concerns I have are that the amplifiers will give the speakers a full range signal, will this muddle the bass with the subwoofer - obviously on a HT setup the receiver splits the signal so that speakers dont duplicate sub frequencies. also, will having 4 speakers will mess up the stereo imaging or muddle the sound in general? is there a better solution to the above? Approx budget - say £2k to include everything but sonos. second hand / end of line almost preffered to maximise budget.

Please let me know if you need more info to advise, thanks in advance.

I don't how you'd get round this with a hifi setup. But with PAs systems you would generally have a crossover or speaker management system that would separate the bass and the tops/mids and then send the signals to separate amps.

Quite a lot of active subs also have their own build in crossovers that will output just the tops.