Greenblood said:
By room shaking I do want good bass, but also clarity and balance. I dont want flabby bass! I want the room to really feel like there are explosions going off when being shown in the film. I want to blow away pals that come round for a beer and wach a film. I have been recommended the MK 950 before, but as they are stand mounted I thought I would see if there are floorstanders that can match or better them.
I personally never got on that well with the 950's. They sounded good, but I always preferred the 150's,and even the 750's.
Nobody wants flabby bass. It might impress some people, but the novelty of oodles of soft warm bass soon wear off. I would generally look at sealed subs, as these tend to naturally offer a more even in room response than ported ones, but because of this, won't quite reach down as deep. It's partly down to quality as well, but sealed subs offer greater control, and therefore, greater dexterity. A loose sounding sub can lack punch, and therefore detail, and sound soft.
I have been recommended the Onkyo 3009 or 5009 so will choose which Evers most suitable. I want to make sure the room is well filled with sound, the walls will all be clad with 50mm insulation rockwool behind a black fabric, so will sound pretty dead. The ceiling will be 1/2" ply with the same black material stapled to them, the floor, concrete with thick underlay and carpet.
Stopping sound reflection is a good idea in theory, but be careful not to deaden the room too much. This can completely rob the life out of a room, and it can get to a point where it doesn't matter how good a system you put in it, it'll never sound good. The deader the room is, the more powerful the system needs to be because there's so much absorption going on. Wide dispersion speakers would be needed too - they generally are for AV anyway - narrower dispersion speakers will make the system sound like you've got five or seven separate channels rather than a soundfield going on.
I would allow a little bit of reflection in certain places. If you play a little mini system or iPod dock in a heavily furnished living room, it won't go very loud, and if it does, the volume will be turned up quite high. Play the same thing in your kitchen at the same volume, and the resulting sound is much more room filling, and it'll sound louder too. I'm not saying kit your AV room out as a kitchen, but if you take that extreme, you might be able to see where I'm going with it. Sound travels when it's reflected, but it doesn't when it's dampened. Finding the right compromise there will help you reach higher volumes without pushing the equipment so hard, and playing everything so loud.
I would probably need to see some pics of the room, and get some more accurate measurements for better recommendations, but if you're aiming for the sound I have in my head based on your description (if you follow that!), then I'm afraid the current budget won't quite be sufficient. Headroom is the key word here.