Separate Rooms for Hi Fi and Home Theater

Curious as to how many keep their stereo and their home theater in separate locations. While we have a 65" TV in our listening room, the home theater is one floor and several rooms away.

I think one critical issue is the type of speakers you use. In my experience, planar speakers are very difficult to even remotely optimize for both music and home theater.

I think it also depends on the room. Some are relatively easy to acoustically treat for both, while some really only optimize for one or the other (music or home theater).

Everything in the one room here - and the stereo and home theatre system are also orthogonal to each other.

Acoustic treatments? What are they? Iā€™ve only just about got away with being allowed to have electrostatic speakers in the living room. :grinning:

Our home theater is also guitar and amp collection room. It is a 13.2 system and meant for the entire family to gather as a group (where they can talk through an entire movie). It used to have an 11ā€™ projector and Stewart screen. Now it is simply an OLED TV.

By contrast the stereo is solely for music listening. The TV in there is rarely used. The home theater uses PSB Stratus Gold/i (x4). The stereo uses Golden Ear Triton One.R.

The two systems have never been combined since the home theater is not an enjoyable space for serious music listening.

Good on you for getting electrostatics. Nothing puts you in the music like a good planar!

How are the One.R speakers for jazz and classical music?

They seem like more of a rock ā€˜nā€™ roll speaker.

Currently, I have Fives.

I like the Triton One.R for jazz and classical as well as rock and see them as a good option at their price point.

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The best speakers I have ever owned for music were electrostatic. They would not work in my current listening cavern (and it is) without extensive room treatment. They also would not work in our home theater for different reasons. Thus, I use ā€œboxā€ speakers in both location. I use PSB Stratus Gold/I in the home theater. I had used Paradigm large towers for stereo which I have (and its subwoofer) now given to my son. Works well in his apartment in mid-town.

I have systems (minimal thru to high end) in most places in the houseā€¦yes the bathroom and kitchen areas are covered too.

for my listening room (sadly now commandeered by SWMBO for the office - working at home 100%) I have 2 channel active open baffle LX521ā€™s but also have a TV in there with cable etc.

the lounge area / family area etc I have an Emotiva XMC-1 that has 5.1 on the main outputs and using the 2nd zone I have active open baffle Orionā€™s so the processor copes doing double duty but I am looking fo another option perhaps to separate the stereo side to a dedicated network connected DAC. power to the amps for each setup is controlled by triggers for the different zone outputs.

As I also enjoy multi-channel DVD-Audio, SACD, and Blu-ray music, my system is both sterero and multi-channel, so with a TV between the front speakers, itā€™s also a home theater, albeit optimized for music and not movies. Works well enough for the latter.

When Blockbuster existed, and Best Buy sold DVDs, a home theater had more of an enticement. I traded projectors annually etc. Now with streaming media, the emphasis appears less. I think that the Soundbar replaced the home theater sound requirement for many.

SONOS was a drug. I bought many, many units and had ā€œsoundā€ everywhere at home and at the office and equipped the kids homes as well. It ā€œfilledā€ the house and obviated that interest in serious listening for a long time.

For us, Roon on the one hand and OLED TV on the other, allowed for a non-complex means of listening and viewing.

I used to have separate rooms, but in the new house they are in one room. Its a 2.1 system with extensive room treatments. This way I can enjoy the best sound system in the house for both music and movies/shows.

Room treatment options elude me. Very problematic stereo room and have never had to deal with that in the past. Recommended panels etc?

I use RealTraps.

  1. To control primary mid/hi frequency reflections from side walls and floor: I have RFZ panels on the side walls between the speaker and listening chair. A rug on the floor. MicroTraps on the back wall. I donā€™t have anything on the ceiling now, but I could hang some MicroTraps.
  2. To control Bass room modes: I have the MondoTraps and MiniTraps bass traps in all wall-wall corners and some wall-floor corners

A total of 8 MondoTraps, 2 MiniTraps, 2 RFZ panels and 3 MicroTraps in a 16ftx18ftx9ft room. The room doesnā€™t look pretty, but the sound sure is fantastic. Stereo imaging is so stable and precise, bass is clean and tight. I can crank up the volume without the sound overwhelming the room. This is the best upgrade I did to my audio system.

You can get excellent results with fewer panels. At a minimum I would recommend 2 bass traps in the corners behind the speakers or listener, 2 RFZ panels for side wall reflections, 2 MicroTraps for rear wall reflections. RealTraps are not the prettiest, I believe there are other companies that have versions of panels that look more like art.

Thank you. Very helpful. Very.

I have GIK acoustic panels in my ā€œmainā€ listening room. Major upgrade. GIK gives free advice for your specific issues. They have a host of colors/shapes/styles that fit nearly any decor. They were very good to deal with, in my experience.

My home theater and listening rooms are (now) separate. I found it very difficult to optimize the set up for movies and also have it work for 2 channel music, so I now have 3 systems! The home theater for movies and ā€œsurroundā€ music, one 2 channel system for analog, and one 2 channel for digital music. Iā€™m running out of rooms!

Lucky you :grinning:

I got nice headphones when i retired, HEAVY HINT

Then i was allowed a nice chair ā€¦

I have my 65 inch LG OLED, sound system, headphone station, laptop, recliner, and Schnauzer all in one place. I wouldnā€™t want it any other way.

I had heard of GIK panels and shall investigate them as well. Thank you for reminding me of the brand.