Fresco Speaker user manual Home Theater

HOME THEATER

It had long been the practice of stereo buffs to connect their television to a stereo system. The advantage was the use of the larger speakers and more powerful amplifier of the stereo system. Even though the sound was greatly improved, it was still mono and limited by the broadcast signal.

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s two new home movie formats became widely available to the public: VCR and laser disc.

By 1985, both formats had developed into very high quality audio/video sources. In fact, the sonic performance of some video formats exceeded audio-only formats. Now, with theater-quality sound available at home, the only element missing was the "surround sound" presentation found in movie houses.

Fortunately almost all films are Dolby and DTS encoded and have the same surround sound information encoded on home releases as the theatrical release. All that is required to retrieve this information is a decoder and additional speakers and amps.

Home theater is a complex purchase and we recommend that you consult your local MartinLogan dealer, as they are well versed in this subject.

Each piece of a surround system can be purchased separately. Take your time and buy quality. No one has ever complained that the movie was too real. The following list and descriptions will give you only a brief outline of the responsibilities and demands placed on each speaker.

Front Left and Front Right

If these speakers will be the same two used for your stereo playback, they should be of very high quality and able to play loudly (over 102 dB) and reproduce bass below 80 Hz.

Center Channel

This is the most important speaker in a home theater system, as almost all of the dialogue and a large portion of the front speaker information is reproduced by the center channel. It is important that the center speaker be extremely accurate and mate well the front speakers, and that it is recommended for use as a center speaker. This is not the place to cut corners.

Surround Speakers

We recommend (along with the film industry) that the surround speakers play down to at least 80 Hz. Surround speakers contain the information that makes it appear that planes are flying over your head. In the past some people suggested that this is the place to save money and purchase a small, inexpensive speaker. Now with the proliferation of discrete multi-channel digital encoding the demands on surround speakers have increased.

Subwoofer

With any good surround system you will need one or more high-quality subwoofers (the .1 in a 5.1 channel surround system). Most movie soundtracks contain large amounts of bass information as part of the special effects. Good subwoofers will provide a foundation for the rest of the system.

Figure 26. Fresco i loudspeakers as front, center and surround (effects) channels. Abyss subwoofers as 0.1 (effects) channel.

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