Blumenstein/Bottlehead Home Theater

[Doc B.]

I finally have a couple of pics of our home theater that uses Bottlehead amps and Blumenstein speakers. Those are Orcas and Dungeness subs for the fronts, an Orca center channel for the center, a BUF sub for the effects channel, and more Orcas for the surrounds. Screen is 96", with a Sony G70 CRT projector, Oppo BD-103 bluray player, Mac Mini for Amazon streaming, Steremour for the fronts and S.E.X. amps for the surrounds and center channel.

[johnsonad]

I look forward to seeing it in person some day!

[wullymc]

Very nice setup Doc!!

I would love to see how things are wired up.  I am used to a 5.1 receiver for home theatre.    It is too bad I live so far away to make a visit.  Someday though I will come!

[Doc B.]

The trick to the whole setup is using the Oppo, which has volume control, rear delay, and inputs for other sources like the Mac. The amps connect right to the analog outputs of the Oppo and everything is handled from the remote control for the Oppo and a tiny little handheld bluetooth keyboard/touchpad for the Mac. I used CAT5 to wire it all, splitting the wires in the jacket to a hot set and a cold set so that just one CAT5 cable runs to each speaker.

The only complaint I have with the setup is that you can't enlarge the text size on a Mac desktop, which makes it difficult to read it on the projection screen.

[Doc B.]

And yes, if anyone is interested in checking out the setup please contact me.

[Jim R.]

Dan,

Just curious, how big is the room?

Also, if you go into preferences on the mini, choose accessibility and visual there is a setting in there for screen enlargement that should work across the entire mac. I can't give you any more pointers than that as I never use screen enlargement.

-- Jim

[Doc B.]

The room is about 11 x 14 with a 8'3" ceiling. I did try the accessibility settings on the Mac, but didn't find one that would increase the size of the font on the menu bar without changing the resolution. There is apparently a command you can give after you boot, through a console. But you have to do it each time you boot up. I did get the font set a little bigger in Safari and that helped with the other stuff I was having trouble seeing clearly.

[tdogzthmn]

I'll be setting up my own Orca 5.1 system once I can get myself a center channel but I had a question about set-up in the meantime.  I have the old Blumenstein BUF Sub and external (100watt?) amp.  My receiver will be the NAD T748.  I'd like to know how best to hook up the Sub to my system.  The receiver has an auto-setup feature designed to optimize the sound based off speaker placement and I'm hopping it will work with well with my sub amp.  Would I still use the speaker wire connection from the R/L front receiver output or the low level RCA inputs included in the amp?  Looking forward to listening to the high-res music albums I own!

[Clark B.]

Hi Thomas,

Assuming the subwoofer RCA outputs on your NAD are pre-tailored by Dolby 5.1 dsp, you'll want to use that as the signal to the 100-watt sub amplifier you have, and turn the crossover level of the sub amp all the way up to the max. Use the gain to adjust the volume level.

Feel free to shoot me an email or give us a phone call if you need any further advice.

Cheers,

Clark

[tdogzthmn]

Thanks Clark,

I'll take a crack at it myself and let you know if I have problems getting it to work appropriately.

When do you anticipate the center channels will be built?  I remember Molly saying you were looking at sourcing some wood that matches the Caramelized finish of the 1/2" Orcas.  I plan on setting things up toward the end of July when I have time to do so!

How many other users have a Blumenstein 5.1 system?

[Clark B.]

Thomas, we have a few odds and ends to tie up on the order board, though we are pretty well caught up at this point, and then we'll begin the next batch that you'll be in within a week or so. I'll say 3-4 weeks to be safe.  Sometimes we have to ship up panels via freight specifically for orders like yours where there is a specific color tone to match.  So I'll have a more solid estimate for you as soon as my plywood supplier calls me back with the options.

I havent kept track of all the 5.1 systems, but its in the double digits.  Some folks had high end amplification, some less high end, and some with just mid fi receivers.  As far as we know people are really enjoying them.  The warm sound lends itself well to daily use in prettymuch any application.

Its so awesome that you are doing this.  I'm a huge believer in good hifi speakers for multimedia purposes.

Clark

[tdogzthmn]

Just a quick update.  I've managed to hook up the system and get audio playing through all the channels.  I'm still in the process of sorting out all the connections and features of the amp trying to find the settings depending on my source.  NAD has a proprietary EARS mode that is able to take stereo recordings and pull out ambient information which it sends to the rear channels, resulting in a pretty convincing 5.1 sound from only 2 channel files.  I've notice the low bass sounds a little detached from the rest of the sounds in several songs but it has been hit or miss.  I will continue to wade through the receiver settings until I comprehend how to get everything dialed in tight. 

[cspirou]

Do you have the amps wired to a central location so you can turn them all one at once? Or is it plugged in a typical way and you make a lap in order to turn everything on? By my count you have 3 amps and 3 subs to turn on. Including the Oppo makes 7 things to watch a movie.

[Doc B.]

For what it's worth, I have a setup with three amps and three subs. The amps sit with the bluray player and the reomtes all, sit with that stuff. So the drill is switch on the three amps the projector and the player. There is also a Mac mini for Amazon and youtube stuff but it stays on as do the subs. It's such a satisfying setup that walking over and throwing more than one switch is not too big a deal.

Of course this is coming from someone who has to throw about 20 switches to fire up the big system at work.

[cspirou]

I guess if you compare it to the ritual needed to play an LP then flipping a few switches to watch a movie is easy.

Although now I am curious what your work system is!