Home Theater - Frequence Response

M

mito

beyond noob
Veteran
I'm looking forward to buying a home theater in the $500 range.

I'm interested in the Frequence Response figures.

Some say 25Hz-21KHz and others 35Hz-41KHz.

I'm interested in good bass and overall sound quality. Which of the above frequence response will provide better overall quality? (bass and treble).

Thx.
 
$500 for what? Everything?

How many speakers do you want?

Oh, and I doubt either of those two choices will matter much but if I had to choose, I'd go with the first one.
 
I go with the first one. The low will mean you get bass in the lower ranges which is good. If you watch a lot of movies, the bass is a big deal.
 
Ty said:
$500 for what? Everything?

How many speakers do you want?

Oh, and I doubt either of those two choices will matter much but if I had to choose, I'd go with the first one.
Click to expand...

yes, a 5.1 system with a good subwoofer.

dvd player is not required, although one with an hdmi interface would be welcomed.
 
mito said:
I'm looking forward to buying a home theater in the $500 range.

I'm interested in the Frequence Response figures.

Some say 25Hz-21KHz and others 35Hz-41KHz.

I'm interested in good bass and overall sound quality. Which of the above frequence response will provide better overall quality? (bass and treble).

Thx.
Click to expand...

None of those is real. Human ears can hear anywhere between 20Hz and 20KHz (or rather 15-16KHz for anyone out of the teens). But the one with up to 41 KHz should give you crisper highs, while I doubt you'll be able to hear anything below 35Hz anyway.
 
Hehe :) Since the sampling rate needs to be at least double the sampled frequency, 41K will give him up to 20.5 KHz audiable. Nyquist and all, y'know it all for sure...

If you filter the high frequencies out, that woudn't be comparable to AA but rather a cheap blur filter.
 
_xxx_ said:
Hehe :) Since the sampling rate needs to be at least double the sampled frequency, 41K will give him up to 20.5 KHz audiable. Nyquist and all, y'know it all for sure...

If you filter the high frequencies out, that woudn't be comparable to AA but rather a cheap blur filter.
Click to expand...

Umm, sample rate and frequency response are not the same thing and not even that closely related. Nyquist etc concerns itself with the limitations of what a discrete-time signal can represent, while frequency-response statements like these concern themselves with continuous-time signals. As I understand it, if a manufacturer claims 41 KHz frequency response, I would interpret it as if they are (or claim to be) able to accept a clean 41 KHz sine wave in from whatever source (analog input, or D/A converter with a sample rate of >82 kHz) and from that produce a clean 41 kHz tone out. The 41 kHz limit would then presumably arise from limitations in the analog sections of the setup, rather than a D/A converter limitation.
 
I don't know which is meant, but I can hardly imagine a $500 unit ever being able to correctly reproduce 40+ KHz analog signals. Nor do I see 41 KHz reproduced coming from a CD with just 44.1 KHz sampling rate anyway.

The response is, you feed it a Dirac impulse or a step and measure the overall spectrum/amplitudes of the output signal with a good spectrum analyzer. Nothing to do with sinus, since even a "clean" sinus can always be represented as a sum of harmonics (Fourier etc.).

EDIT: and I referred to the sample rate (assuming he was talking about digital signals) because the highest frequency you can reproduce is (minimum) half of the sampling frequency according to Nyquist. So for "acceptible" reproduction of 41 KHz you'd need min. 82 KHz sampling rate as you said above.
 
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_xxx_ said:
I don't know which is meant, but I can hardly imagine a $500 unit ever being able to correctly reproduce 40+ KHz analog signals. Nor do I see 41 KHz reproduced coming from a CD with just 44.1 KHz sampling rate anyway.

The response is, you feed it a Dirac impulse or a step and measure the overall spectrum/amplitudes of the output signal with a good spectrum analyzer. Nothing to do with sinus, since even a "clean" sinus can always be represented as a sum of harmonics (Fourier etc.).

EDIT: and I referred to the sample rate (assuming he was talking about digital signals) because the highest frequency you can reproduce is (minimum) half of the sampling frequency according to Nyquist. So for "acceptible" reproduction of 41 KHz you'd need min. 82 KHz sampling rate as you said above.
Click to expand...

The Dirac pulse will give you an "impulse response", while the step signal will give you a "step response". They are actually quite different, and neither is the same as a "frequency response", even though (if your system is linear) there exists a 1:1 mapping between all three of them.

A clean sine wave contains no harmonics at all and and can certainly NOT be constructed as s sum-of-harmonics; the Fourier transform of a sine-wave is a single Dirac pulse. Any half-decent DSP book will explain this to you in excruciating detail.

For a CD-type medium (being a discrete-time signal with a fixed 44.1 kHz sample rate), you obviously cannot represent frequencies above 22.05 KHz, however you could perfectly well be running other sources than plain CD -- SACD, DVD-Audio, and output from a computer sound card (all of which sound as if they could be quite relevant for a home theater) can all easily reach sample rates far above 44.1 kHz, making the frequency response at >22 kHz a fair bit more relevant than for CDs.
 
arjan de lumens said:
The Dirac pulse will give you an "impulse response", while the step signal will give you a "step response". They are actually quite different, and neither is the same as a "frequency response", even though (if your system is linear) there exists a 1:1 mapping between all three of them.
Click to expand...

The quality equipment is supposed to be linear at least in the "interesting" range for audio.

A clean sine wave contains no harmonics at all and and can certainly NOT be constructed as s sum-of-harmonics; the Fourier transform of a sine-wave is a single Dirac pulse. Any half-decent DSP book will explain this to you in excruciating detail.
Click to expand...

Nope. A simple example, sum of two sinus signals with the same frequency.

For a CD-type medium (being a discrete-time signal with a fixed 44.1 kHz sample rate), you obviously cannot represent frequencies above 22.05 KHz, however you could perfectly well be running other sources than plain CD -- SACD, DVD-Audio, and output from a computer sound card (all of which sound as if they could be quite relevant for a home theater) can all easily reach sample rates far above 44.1 kHz, making the frequency response at >22 kHz a fair bit more relevant than for CDs.
Click to expand...

Surely right. Though most of the material used nowadays isn't originally recorded in anything better than the CD-quality, that's why I referred to 44.1 KHz.
 
No idea about recommendations since the US market is so different to the UK, but for $500 I would expect that you are better off going with a receiver plus separates than a "home theatre in a box" (HTIB) system.

...even if it means going without a sub till you can afford a decent one.


_xxx_ said:
Nope. A simple example, sum of two sinus signals with the same frequency.
Click to expand...

That isn't really a sum of harmonics though. It's just f + f.
 
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You're right. It's been a while since I worked with this stuff, meh.

All that aside, let's not kill the topic with this :)
 
Oh yeah, one more thing: DON'T buy anything you didn't test yourself. Regardless of what it says on paper, your own ears are always the best judge.
 
I've never used a Denon HTiB, but I can say that their receivers are top notch. I've had 2, and both were excellent.

If you were in the US (I don't think you are?), then I'd recommend a combo like this:
1) Nice 5.1 Denon in the $200-300 range
2) Fluance AV-HTB+ - $200
3) PartsExpress 12" Sub - $120

All told that would run in the $500-$600 range. Don't be fooled by the cheap prices on the speakers, every review of them is excellent. They aren't the best speakers ever, but you get much more than you pay for.

I've got a 7.1 setup that consists of a Denon 3803, Fluance SX-HTB+ (plus 2 extra speakers), and the older model PE sub. I've yet to find anyone that wasn't shocked by the fact I paid less than $1K total, it sounds that good. And yes, it sounds very good even at ear-bleeding levels with the bass shaking the house :)
 
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