| My Rotel / MK Sound Dream system - THX Ultra |
Hey all, I wanted to share the build up of my Dream system. There was 2 brands in particular over the setups I have built in the last 21 years of being into Home Theatre that had a special place in my heart. Those brands were Miller Kreisel/MK Sound and Rotel. I absolutely loved the innovation and simplicity of the MK Speakers/subwoofers and loved the raw grunt and obsurdness of the Rotel gear that always put a smile on my face.

I wanted to make sure that I could build an End Game system that was a culmination of everything I enjoyed and the system would essentially be a physical photo album of the great moments.
I remember buying my first RB985 Rotel power amp, then upgrading to a RMB1095 power amp. A number of years later I ventured into my first set of Miller Kreisel LCR750 speakers and a Miller Kreisel V125 subwoofer and the love affair from there just continued.

 

On this new setup - as a tribute of the journey so far I wanted to get the speakers i've always dream't of. The MK Sound S150 MK2 LCR popped up and couldn't resist grabbing them. 

I also dream't of MK Sound one day making a bigger driver than the standard 12" (although it is definitely a tried and true design to use a 12" driver in the Miller Kreisel gear) and noticed they were bringing out the MK Sound V15+ and just couldn't resist.

Here is my dream setup, Please note the position of the speakers are very temporary while I wait for my stands to arrive. 

 

|       SPEAKERS                                        

• MK Sound S150 MK2 LCR Speakers
• MK Sound SUR95T Speakers x 4

 

|       AMPLIFICATION / PROCESSOR                                        

• Rotel RMB-1585 5x200w 5 Channel Power Amplifier
• Rotel RB-1582 2x200w 2 Channel Power Amplifier
• Rotel RSP-1576 MKII Surround Processor

 

|       SUBWOOFERS / TACTILE TRANSDUCERS       |

• MK Sound V15+ Subwoofers x2
• Crowson Shadow Actuator with D501 Amplifier

 

|        DISPLAY                                  |

• 140" 16:9 Tauris Projector Screen (1.1 Gain)
• Epson EHTW7100 4kE Projector

Edited May 6, 20223 yr by MKSOUND_HT

Don’t know anyone else with a Rotel RSP1576mkII running Dirac, will be interested to hear your thoughts on its performance.

2 minutes ago, Hi-Fi Whipped said:

Don’t know anyone else with a Rotel RSP1576mkII running Dirac, will be interested to hear your thoughts on its performance.

Oh me too. I've been dreaming of getting back into the Rotel gear again forabout 4 year but had some other priorities to work off. It was fundamental in this system. Boy the rotel gear is really nice quality but you definitely pay for it.

 

My other experience with Dirac Live was my Emotiva XMC2 Surround Processor. I will definitely keep you in the loop on my findings

Nice gear, I have the M&K s150 mark 2 and just up graded to the news version. Personally my first impressions are that I like the mark 2 version more. 

How are the new 15 ich subs working out? I've been looking at them with some interest. 

@MKSOUND_HT Your dream setup is also my dream setup.  Looking forward to see how this pans .

On 09/05/2022 at 7:45 PM, Ricktech said:

Nice gear, I have the M&K s150 mark 2 and just up graded to the news version. Personally my first impressions are that I like the mark 2 version more. 

How are the new 15 ich subs working out? I've been looking at them with some interest. 

Oh wow that is absolutely awesome. I think the S150 are absolutely spectacular.

The V15+ are really awesome. I must admit I prefer them to the previous PC2000 Pro speakers I had in the past. The bass is incredibly tight but has a great punch to it. I was mucking around with the scene where the little girl starts laughing after mike falls over and hits the bin sounded amazing in the room. Especially with 2.

 

5 hours ago, MrBurns84 said:

@MKSOUND_HT Your dream setup is also my dream setup.  Looking forward to see how this pans .

Thanks heaps mate. Super curious to see your dream come true too one day.

 

So a bit of time has passed since my last update but I always like to have something decent to report on.

A few changes to the below configuration:
 

Front / Centre / Right - MK Sound S150 MK2

Rear surrounds - MK Sound S150 MK2

Side Surrounds - MK Sound S150 MK2 / S95T (still looking for just one more 1x S150 to make it 7 in total).

 

Here are a few hints of whats to come tonight. Pretty excited without giving away too much LOL (i'm that excited, its not that big a deal but to me i've been planning it for a while lol).

Apologies for my quality of image but I have a small example of what I got up to, I had to photoshop the actual image on the tv my camera was that bad LOL. 

 

The 32" TV i used had a 100mm Vesa mount which was actually off centre horizontally (when looking at it landscape), so I managed to get a Vesa Slider bracket from Amazon.

 

The 32RU server rack pictured will be moved over for my router, mini pc, hard drives and vinyl cutter (little project of mine). 

I am using a StarTech Vesa LCD Rack Mount bracket.

Will mount my bass shaker Dayton amp at the top, and then my RB1582, and soon to come RMB1555 for Atmos purposes..

 

 

As a little side project I also made these little logos for the rack. I'm not sure the blue works (would love to do white and test it out.

 

Edited June 15, 20223 yr by MKSOUND_HT

Not too much has changed in this setup. I ordered Rotel rack mount brackets for the RMB1585 5 channel amp, the RB1582 2 channel amp, and bought a RMB1504 amplifier for x4 Atmos

 

I've also unboxed my 4x MK Sound M5 speakers for atmos purposes:

The M5 speakers are seriously tiny compared to the V15+ subwoofer and S150 MK2 speakers, but they sound much bigger than their size.

Just got around to mounting my new Rotel RMB1504 amp. Slowly coming together. Just waiting for my Rack brackets to arrive from Rotel for the 1585 and 1582 amps

 

Hey All,

Just waiting for my rotel rack mount brackets to arrive so I can do a good clean up.

 

I was mucking around with some display content for the 32" Side mounted Screen and came up with this. It will be used as just something fun to have. 
I wanted to use it for a combination of:
- Movie Posters

- Rainmeter for game statistics

- General effects. 

I manged to rack mount the RMB1585 and RB1582 with my rotel brackets ordered from the USA.

 

I managed to rack mount the rmb1585 on the bottom shelf on my own haha. Boy that things heavy.

 

I've got a project i'm working on for the side mounted 32" screen. Hopefully I should have some photos of this by the end of the week

 

Edited September 20, 20223 yr by MKSOUND_HT

Here is my latest development. I am positioning my 4 overhead speakers at a 45 degree angle from the user to the roof, and 30 degrees either side of the centre of the room.

 

I was struggling with mapping out the position, so I drew it out on the roof haha. This circle is 45 degrees from the centre of the seating in the room. The little white circles are positions of the studs, what i did was get little strong magnets and map out where the plaster screws are. This worked great. LOL

Not too much has changed since last time.

I've been errmming and ahhing the possibility of changing the dual M&K Sound V15+ Subwoofers for a pair of M&K Sound X12's

 

I've been also considering upgrading the Buttkicker LFE to either getting another Buttkicker LFE, or going the whole mile and upgrading to the Crowsons.

I have a suitable amp, but i feel the experience will be cheapened if I don't get the matching Crowson D501 amp (has very low freqency response).

 

 

How have you found the Rotel Pre and Dirac? 

Great journey your travelling, I’m toying with a dedicated HT in the future so keen on your M&K thoughts. 
Who what it may consist of and if it actually happens?

Btw what are your Ht dimensions?😊

1 hour ago, Hi-Fi Whipped said:

How have you found the Rotel Pre and Dirac? 

That is an awesome question. I must admit I must be setting up something wrong (or my room was so bad in the first place that Dirac changed the sound dramatically).

 

The biggest thing I noticed was that the sound was a lot more hollow (or maybe it was just more precise). The pink noise test sounded like it was further away. Reminds of when I used to change EQ's in winamp and it would be all treble. Maybe my original sound in the room was muddy and the bass was being trimmed up.

I will run the dirac again tonight and grab some screenshots of its findings. I am using the microphone that came with the rotel RSP1576 MK 2 (usb). Maybe there was something wrong with it.

36 minutes ago, joz said:

Great journey your travelling, I’m toying with a dedicated HT in the future so keen on your M&K thoughts. 
Who what it may consist of and if it actually happens?

Btw what are your Ht dimensions?😊

 

Thanks heaps really appreciated. I'll be honest I am a MK sound Rotel fanboy true and true, so I will do my best to not let that influence my opinion of home theatre. 

Since first hearing about Miller & Kreisel they have always been consistent. You could buy anything from their range and you know you will get a decent result. Thats not to say other brands aren't equally as capable. There was something about the heritage of both Rotel and Miller Kreisel / M&K Sound that makes me enjoy home theatre so much more knowing I own the products I dream't of growing up, as well as combining that with new tweaks that different generations of products have received.

 

I think even if I was given a set of S300 speakers in trade for the S150 MK2's I have, I would still keep what I have (although I wish I could get S150's for the surrounds as well.

 

I've been dreaming of a pair (or even 1) of the MK Sound X15+ subwoofers. They are absolute beasts (dual 15"), but $9500 each is a little much haha. These V15+ subwoofers I have at the moment retail for $4000.

 

X15+ next to V15+ LOL

 

Yes share your Dirac measurements, it can be a learning curve but once you get the basics right, the sound can be next level.

 

I get the feeling that once you get Dirac right and your subs are integrated you will feel the same about the X15 subs that you do with the S300 LCRs you should be more than happy.

 

I have MK S150s as LCR and o must say I’m surprisingly impressed now I’ve got Dirac working pretty well.

 

With regards to your Dirac experience I think you may have just left the standard target curve in play but look at the Harman curves as an example of boosting the mids and bass to suit the room and enhancing the sound significantly.

@MKSOUND_HT
Regarding Dirac Live make sure you are getting it plenty of gain at the microphone calibration stage.

Also ditch the Dirac Live Default Curve for one such as flat or with increased bass that can be created with the tool.

Don't be afraid to have multiple curves.

Start out with it only correcting up to 200Hz with a curtain and possibly a curtain on the real low end so that it doesn't over compensate really low frequencies that your speakers are not good at doing.
Listen carefully, it should sound like the speakers you know but with flatter, better bass.

You can then experiment with increasing the curtain higher than 200Hz but reasonably good speakers in an average room should not really need it.

Edited March 7, 20233 yr by Satanica