Front View of Dave Platek's Home Theatre System
 

Dave Platek contacted us by email with his take on "Drew Daniels Ultimate System". What follows is a description of his system in his own words along with illustrations that he provided.

My uncle introduced me to McIntosh and JBL when I was around 13 years old. He was running a pair of D130's with 075 HF transducers in some home brew ported cabinets that were probably 4.0 cubic feet. He had a tube Mac pre amp and two McIntosh tube mono block amps (don't recall the details). I remember the first time I heard his favorite "demo" disc - a sound effects album that had trains, machine guns and all the usual stuff - the rest is history.

He gave me a pair of D208's that he was no longer using and I "up-graded" my Knight speakers. After that, there was no turning back...... Many, many, many years later, I have finally gotten around to doing the best I could do, given the limitations of my room.

I have attached some shots of my home theater application of a system which, I believe, fairly closely approximates Mr. Daniels "dream system". Although I am using passive networks, the MC1201s have no problem driving through them at all frequencies. Please note that I have a pair of the old reliable 375 drivers (lower cabs - lens 'up') and a pair of 2446Hs for each channel. Ultra high frequencies are covered with an 075 and a 2404H in order to extend the range past 20khz. The two loudspeakers shown in the vertical cabinets are E130-8s and low frequency reinforcement is accomplished with two (2) LE15As (dual lower cabs) and one (1) 2226H in each channel that sits below the 375s. I have also attached a diagram of the crossover points and network configuration.

As you can see, the room is less that 'ideal' for surround sound applications. However, since I was doing this anyhow, I am using an MC2100 bridged for mono to drive a center channel speaker consisting of a 2206H LF loudspeaker, a pair of 5" mids from the old L65 Jubal series, and an 075 HF transducer. I also have a 2426H compression drive/2370A horn set-up behind the cabinet and configured pointing straight up to "wash" voices across the screen. (Modification made after the picture showing the horn facing out in the center channel was shot - too "honky" that way). This actually seems to work quite well. The surround speakers are driven by another MC2100 and are actually L100 cabinets that have been up-graded with LE14As.

Visually, I am running a Sanyo PLV-60HT projector. This is a three panel LCD projector with a 16:9 native resolution chip set. I have found this machine to be extremely the absolute right solution!! No matter what the true videophiles say about the limitations of LCD technology (or DLP for that matter), this unit produces a razor sharp, bright, clear image and has no problem whatsoever producing "black". While I am certain that "true black" and a better image quality is possible with CRTs, nobody, and I mean nobody, can come close to this image for the price!! This unit cost under $5,000. More importantly, when I pop-in Stones at the MAX (a DVD recorded in the IMAX format) or a Stevie Ray Vaughn concert DVD, or James Bond 'Tomorrow Never Dies', and turn the volume up to concert level, if you are still looking for scanning artifacts and 'true blacks' on the screen, you're a hopeless geek-wad that wouldn't know how to have a good time in a whore house in Vegas with Bill Gate's credit card!