I've decided to take the Home theater plunge

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

My room is basically one long rectangle. I have separated it into two parts. The audio section I have the speakers in corners on the short wall. Behind the recliner (which separates the audio room into the living room where I have the 37 inch Samsung on the long wall.

From the pictures below you can see the TV. Behind the curtain is a cutout and I am thinking of placing the TV in that area (it will easily fit) and putting the wall mount speakers beside it and behind the couch.

To the left of the couch is a nice corner where I Hope the sub will work as it could then pull dual duty with the home theater and 2 channel. If memory serves subs are non directional (although I've always detected them but anyway perhaps 15 years has improved things.

Subs are non direction below 80hz. The become more directional at 120hz, and very directional at 160hz. So you really have to watch your crossover point so you cannot tell where your sub.

[RGA]

Yes the Gallo balls supposedly go to slightly under 80hz.

The room surprisingly has little slap echo and I have about 16 acoustic foam panels. The floor is tiled which probably isn't great but I can purchase rugs. I'm not sure what the glass is but it's not the flimsy rattly kind like in Canada - I suspect most of the buildings use Typhoon resistant grade glass or whatever because it's very strong.

The subs seem to allow for some choice and their top sub is not to much more $$ than their mid priced one. Anthony Gallo TR-3 Subwoofer

Part of this is about size and keeping to the "style" of the eyeball speakers but the 3.5 floorstander had way way above average bass drive and starting stopping speeds than virtually anything I heard at CES. Which says a lot since the 3.5 is a very small speaker compared to most.

I am also going to be exploring bass traps for all of the upper corners. It's a matter of price performance and in some cases availability and whether the retailer speaks any English.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Yes the Gallo balls supposedly go to slightly under 80hz.

The room surprisingly has little slap echo and I have about 16 acoustic foam panels. The floor is tiled which probably isn't great but I can purchase rugs. I'm not sure what the glass is but it's not the flimsy rattly kind like in Canada - I suspect most of the buildings use Typhoon resistant grade glass or whatever because it's very strong.

The subs seem to allow for some choice and their top sub is not to much more $$ than their mid priced one. Anthony Gallo TR-3 Subwoofer

Part of this is about size and keeping to the "style" of the eyeball speakers but the 3.5 floorstander had way way above average bass drive and starting stopping speeds than virtually anything I heard at CES. Which says a lot since the 3.5 is a very small speaker compared to most.

I am also going to be exploring bass traps for all of the upper corners. It's a matter of price performance and in some cases availability and whether the retailer speaks any English.

Congrats Richard for taking the plunge. Looks like you are off to a great start on your venture. If you have any questions about Audyssey, just let me know. You will find the results of its calibration much more satisfying with pre-treating the room a bit.

[E-Stat]

Subs are non direction below 80hz.

That's certainly true, but many folks directly correlate that to the low pass crossover frequency. While better subs like yours most likely have a steeper 18 db/octave slope, many like mine are only 12 db / octave. It is for that reason I set mine to 50 hz - which still has pretty significant output above that frequency.

I think I would always prefer having dual (or more) subs for better balance and to eliminate localization. The satellites Rich is looking at have 4" drivers - which is tough to reach solidly down to 80 hz.

[RGA]

It is somewhat of a concern - The Gallo has gotten great press in the Home Theater Magazine as being the best thing it's class - I have the advantage that my TV can go behind the curtain in the picture and I could place the sub directly in front of the TV between the two speakers. This set-up would alleviate the directionality somewhat and I auditioned a similar set-up with M&K years back. The sub in the center I found has generally worked. (Or two subs).

Thanks E-Stat for pointing this out - I carefully re-read the Home theater review and it turns out that the reviewer did the same thing as per Anthony Gallo's instruction that the sub be placed between the two front speakers as the reviewer had trouble blending them.

This has always been a problem when I have used or owned subs - they sub maker will tell you to cross it over at 40-80hz and you can place it in a corner but I always hear a "weight" from whatever side of the room it is placed in. My powered sub would cut the low frequencies going to the front main speakers and that configuration was terrible because the speakers then didn't sound right (My Wharfedale Vanguards are good to 40hz at deafening levels). The one sub handling the duties made the Wharfedales sound lousy so I ended up running the powered sub passive which worked better but after awhile I gave up and dumped the award winning sub. However at that time I could not place the sub in the center.

15 years later I am hopeful subs have come a long way.

Lastly, my expectation is a bit lower. If it works for music - great, if it doesn't integrate that well for music, then it will serve movie and video game duty only and I am fine with that.

I would like to try it with the AX Two standmounts which provide solid 50hz in room response. It's very close in fact to the LS3/5a and the two SW-1A subwoofers in terms of in room bass depth. So the Gallo Sub might be a nice addition there (except I'd have to move the sub around to place between both systems.

I think from the measurements the center sub position is a must - the little Gallo balls operate –6dB point is at 103 Hz (which is why they will be better on the wall to get a little bit of boundary gain). The Sub operates up to over 100hz.

I think there is no real way around this with such small speakers and subs - there is going to be a gap though at least it's not too too big.