Amplification and Speakers In Huge Home Theater


I am re-tooling my home theater to get more speaker coverage in my very large room. I do not want to use a subwoofer(s) because of the expense. If I ran subs I would want to run four of them, and I just don’t have the kind of dough for four high-quality subs. Besides I live in a loft with neighbors on both sides…multiple subs would be just too much.

I had been using Infinity Kappa 9 speakers as fronts, center and surrounds. I had been running them with Carver Silver 9t monoblocs. The Kappas are notoriously inefficient power hogs. They are beautiful great sounding speakers, they just need a LOT of power and I’m looking to move on to something more efficient. Also, the Carver monobloc amps are getting up there in age (20 years?), and they may fail soon and I’d like to replace them all with one multi-channel switching amp (Wyred4Sound) and one stereo amp.

I am considering getting four pairs of indentical Cerwin Vega speakers for a 7.1 system. Each of these speaker towers will have two 18 inch woofers per speaker, for a total of eighteen 18 inch woofers in the system. The speakers are rated to go down to 24hz. I will also use one of these speakers as the center channel. Every speaker in the system will be set to “Large”. With that many 18 inch woofers going that low, there will be no need for a sub.

Two (48" tall) front tower speakers will sit on the floor, one on each side of the screen….sixteen feet apart. Another pair of front speakers will sit on the floor along the front side walls about eight feet out into the room, 22 feet apart. I am using an extra pair of front speakers to help fill the room with sound. The four front speakers will be Y-connected to facilitate the two speakers per side.

The surround speakers will be ten feet high off the floor, 22 feet apart, twenty five feet away from the screen.

The back surround speakers will be 35 feet away from the screen, fifteen feet apart and elevated five feet off the floor.

My sitting position is twenty five feet from the screen. Any closer and I get pixelization.

My room is 22 feet wide, 70 feet long and 22 feet high.

My screen is 16 feet wide and 12 feet tall.

Photo of room with screen rolled up

Photo of room with screen rolled down

Photo and specs of Cerwin Vega speakers I want to use

Photo and specs of the Wyred4Sound multi-channel amp I will use

This room is also my living room. So before you start to think of all these big ugly speakers killing the room aesthetics, all of the speakers will be ingeniously hidden and stored away when not in use. This system will be used for home theater only, my two channel system will remain separate.

I will be using a Marantz AV 7005 as my processor.

I would like your feedback and opinions on this system regarding the bass output capability while not using a subwoofer.
128x128mitch4t
What's your budget here? If you're willing to spend, Definitive Technology will blow away the Cerwin Vega as far as movies go. Top dog is the Def Tech BP 7000SC if you can get your hands on one, they're hard to find with 18-inch built-in subs will shake your ground here. For center, go with the C/L/R 3000 and maybe a pair of BP7002 for rear. I guess is around $3500 used if you can find them. Trust me, your Home Theater will never be the same.
The Cerwin Vegas have two 15" woofers yet the -3db point is only 38hz. There are a lot of speakers with smaller drivers that play lower than that. With the Cerwins you will need a sub for home theater.
Yeah Prpixel, down 3db at 38hz and down 10db at 36Hz!!!!

I don't think I have ever seen such a precipitous drop-off at the bottom end. If the link is the actual OP speakers (he is planning on buying), then he will definately need a sub.

My recommendation is to go with much higher quality speakers. I suspect this many CV's in a room are going to drive somebody crazy.

My recommendation is to contact a local movie theatre and ask for a tour or the name of who they worked with on installing their movie sound systems. I think the current plan is fraught with all sorts of problems.
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Thanks guys, I was looking for a way to do this for a lot less money than it is actually going to take.

I'll go back to the drawing board and save up some more dough and try this again another way.
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Mitch, I would re-consider the subwoofer aspect. I think you would be better of with speakers that are going to give you a tighter bass than the 15/18" dual drivers on the CVs. My guess is there will be a lot of bloat or flabbiness with those speakers.

Maybe if you drop down in their line to speakers with 8-10" drivers and use the savings to go with 2 used subs, you may find your goals more feasible.

Of course, none of us that followed your link could find the speakers you referenced with the 18" drivers and extending down to the 24 hz. range. Maybe you can post an updated link to the correct speakers?