Hey guys I have posted here a couple of times about speakers and now I really need to buy my speakers. I have a pretty good idea of what I want! Just so you all I know I just won a bid on one of those refurbed HK 254. I am pretty excited because it seems like a good reciever for the price I paid. Now I am looking for a 5.0/5.1 speaker system (preferbably 5.1). MY price range is around 200-250.

Ive narrowed down my choices to the polk rm6750, Energy take 5 classic ( with no sub), jamo s413, jamo s406.

I have tried to research these things like crazy and I cant make a decision. I saw in a few months ago that people were getting the take 5’s for 150 or less. If I could get that deal I would take it in a heart beat and buy a 100 dollar sub but now those speakers are 230. Does anyone know of how I can find that speaker set at a nice price like that?

As for the Jamos I really like the floorstand speakers in the s406 but I want to know how much better the s406 sound compared to the s413. The s413 comes with a sub and many people have said the sub seems likes its worth 200 bucks? What do you all think.

The polks seem nice and they are the only speakers of these that I have heard andd they are pretty nice. I am pretty sure I would be happy with those for now. Anyway what do you all think? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I posted the links of each speaker at the bootm. Please help me guys.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc…82E16882290066

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc…82E16882269004

http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/it…_c=site_search

http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/it…_c=site_search

Hi all,

I have been researching and trying to find a set of good sounding, efficient (loud enough) cheap, but also designed in a way that it actually meets most if not all of the THX specifications for surround sound speakers.

For the front stage of the theater system I will likely be mounting a flat screen just barely above the front channel speakers.

Luscasfilm usually certifies front channels that are D’Appolito arrays with narrow horizontal dispersion characteristics.

In order to get the speakers close enough to the screen (to anchor the sound to the picture), I will use pedestals to raise the front stage. A great secondary point is the tweeter level is ear-height for someone who is seated on the couch in front. This should also further enhance the front stage image width.

So, here was my sketch for the front stage as I’m invisioning it:

————————————-

So, I started to look for a set of speakers that fit this profile. I found these:

Cerwin Vega CLS-6C:

You might be thinking. Hmm. That’s a center channel. Yep. I want you to imagine that center channel "standing up", not lying down.

As you can see, it’s a D’Apollito array of drivers. The waveguide will obviously give a wonderfully "horizontal" dispersion while limiting the vertical dispersion. The drivers have a nice efficiency, so they should be able to get loud enough to meet the output standards.

What I don’t know is how it will sound. I’m hoping the Pioneer receiver’s MCAAC will help give the front speakers an improvement in any area they are lacking. Considering it’s Cerwin Vega, I’m not very worried about whether these will have sufficient output. I’m worried whether they will have nice, delicate sounds which have realism and character.

Does anyone have any experience with these?

—————————————–

The next step is going to be the surround channels. I want to do a diplolar array. A matching set probably woudn’t be the best thing as the CLS-6 Bookshelf have the same "narrow" horizontal dispersion waveguide as the front channels. I’m not so sure those would be the best choice.

My question is, can two bookshelf speakers be wired to a single surround channel, one of them "in-phase" (+ to + / - to -) and parallel wire a the second speaker "out of phase" (+ to - / - to +). Then mount the speakers close to each other on the wall but pointed in different directions. Will this accomplish a dipole array for each surround channel?

Forgive my MS Paint fail-sketches.

If both speakers are 8-ohms, I believe this creates a 4-ohm load, correct?

Is there any speaker expert who can tell me if wiring two speakers in this manner will accomplish a di-polar effect?

My subwoofer is already purchased and will be the old Cambridge Powered Subwoofer PSW-1 model.

That’s all I got in this thread for now. Thanks.

Hi folks. Yes, this is yet another audio-neophyte asking for some advice on a new surround sound setup. My living room has the following dimensions:
13 ft long, 17 ft wide, 12 ft cathedral ceiling, carpet + thick rug, 8 x 10 ft window/balcony to one side; listeners will be sitting about 11 ft from the TV.

I have pretty much nothing in there aside from the tv - no speakers, receiver, audio/visual players of any kind aside from a laptop plugged into the tv. The aesthetic look is fairly neat, with everything composed of high gloss black - the tables, tv stand, shelves, and TV (Samsung 52"A750).

What I’m looking for is a 5.1 speaker system + receiver for…say…around $1500, though I could go a few hundred higher if the argument sounds convincing.

I’m completely fine with the front speakers being bigger/longer, but the rear speakers I’d prefer on the smallish side. I’d like everything to still remain slick if possible (high gloss black would be great). I’ll primarily be playing either movies, or video games. Some friends recommended the Klipsch Quintet SL since the front speakers are big and the back ones are less space occupying - though they don’t look particularly slick. I don’t plan on pumping the volume up very high on anything, if that makes a difference in your recommendation(s).

Receivers I’m also somewhat clueless about, but I’m aiming for the upper end of "mid-range". One feature that would be very useful for my purposes is the ability to accept VGA/headphone style 3.5 mm audio inputs from a laptop since I tend to keep at least one notebook plugged into my tv at all times (no clue if any receivers even have that). While the video usually looks good, the audio from the laptop tends not to sound so great going directly into the tv - interference and whatnot. Not sure if a receiver would be able to package that together in a cleaner signal over hdmi.

Please let me know what you recommend and/or if you’ve got any other information I should provide to get a better suggestion.

Thanks!

First, let me say that I am about to break a ‘cardinal rule’ in judging something for its looks rather than its abilities. However, in the world of music and movies, visual aesthetics and beauty are still important and it is especially evident B&W seems to have abandoned a great history of understanding this.

The new 800 Series speakers look to have abandoned their thoroughbred linage and have adopted the Tuesdays-child or ugly duckling approach. It appears they tossed the baby out with the bathwater, as they say. Did they not listen to, or did they fire, the design team that has guided them since around 2000? Did someone in England decide that boiled cabbage and potatoes could compete as fare on the worldwide menu against utterly awe inspiring sauces, soufflés, meats and deserts? B&W has literally turned what has been to-die-for Beef Wellington into nothing more than ‘bangers and mash’!

I feel abandoned, or like a parent who discovers their much loved and cherished child has just committed a sin against society and everything they have been taught and held sacred! Or, as if you had been – for some years – entrusting your hard earned money to financial leaders and guru’s to now find out you are broke and they have destroyed your saving, hopes and dreams. Did Bernie Madoff of the United States take over management at B&W? Am I rambling in my outrage in finding B&W must have been taken over by aliens? Did Engineering (Gary Geaves) take over design from Kenneth Grange? Did someone die and someone got promoted in B&W who long bemoaned not getting that set of $29.99 Radio Shack speakers for Christmas as a child? Yes, I will say it, if I have not said it ten different ways already, these speakers look cheap! They look like they should be sold out of the back of a panel van in a broken down industrial neighborhood. Not everyone, in fact most people, do not want to stare at the actual speaker units. While it may be something that is better than sex for an engineer, little silver rings around the bass, mid-range and tweeters are cheap looking in comparison to fabric covers – which do not negatively effect delivery of their historic great sound.

My suggestion, take a BIG step BACKWARDS! Having personally run GE’s business process improvement initiatives and customer services, get to know what you do best and stick to it. If not, the first thing to do is listen to your ‘customer’. Rarely in history has the lone voice been right. This is definitely NOT one of them. And I cautioned myself to think hard before writing this as I have always been a champion of the lone voice. B&W has also chosen – I am told for profit and sales number reasons, not lack of greatness - to abandon the HTM1D for the HTM2D-design that they have repeatedly been told in reviews, by customers and in private is sonically mismatched to the historical 804D or higher level of their speakers.

I have had, and do have, what are considered some ugly and – heaven forbid – aesthetically mismatched equipment - though I have tried to stay with black-finished hardware. B&W has lost a customer in me, and at least six others who I know personally have the money and were prepared to upgrade, but not now. I and these others will now be looking harder at Wilson, Magico and others. These others, are different, but not cheap and ugly like these new (and higher priced) monstrosities. B&W, beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder but these are just plain butt-ugly and only something a mother could love! You have abandoned us, your customer, and all beauty you had achieved and continually built on over the last ten years. Even the great fashion models of the world wear clothes and make-up.

I regret I am not championing these speakers historic inner beauty. But B&W seems to have lost sight of something, that not all of their customers are engineers or absolute audiophiles. And, that it is easier to sell something, especially for ten-thousand dollars (US$) or more that looks nice in ones home.

For a while now I’ve been thinking of replacing my Energy RC-10/RC-LCR 5.1 setup with something else. After much research I began focussing on the Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1s as the most likely replacement option. I then began asking anyone who would listen if they had ever hear these two speakers and what the difference migh be between the two in terms of sound quality. Nobody really seemed to have much to offer, so I pulled the trigger blindly knowing that I could return the Sierras if I wasn’t happy. Here’s what I’ve found out.

I’ve had the Sierra-1s set up and operational since the middle of last week and have had a few opportunities to see what they sound like with music and movies.

First let me say that I’m a big Energy fan and I think the RC-10/RC-LCR setup is a really good one. It plays loud without distortion and sounds really great, especially for big movies.

That being said, I purchased the Sierra-1s for kind of a strange purpose…I wanted to be able to clearly hear dialogue at low volumes so that we don’t wake up our 5-year old daughter after she’s in bed. The Energys were never really able to accomplish this goal to my level of satisfaction and I found that they didn’t really start to shine until you put some juice to them. Also, they seem to slightly color the sound to the warm side of things…which many people actually like…including me until I heard the Sierra-1s.

The Sierras seem to be quite a remarkable speaker. They are the most detailed and neutral sounding speakers I’ve ever heard…which isn’t saying much since I’m certainly not a sound critic or someone who’s had lots of experience listening to wide varieties of sound equipment. Regardless, I believethat even my amateur ear can notice a significant and identifiable sound quality improvement with the Sierras versus the RC-10s. Dialogue is more clear and crisp at all volume levels. Music is so detailed as to allow me to hear pieces of songs (especially in classical strings pieces, etc.) that I’ve never noticed before. Also, voices and instruments sound completely natural…like the actors or musicians are actually present in the room, not like they’re being reproduced by a speaker…even a very good one.

For me, the Sierra-1s demonstrate a marked improvement to the RC-10s and I’m really happy I made the purchase…even at twice the price of the Energys.

Hi, I need some urgent help; and I am really a dummy in this area… so bear with me, and ALL my questions…

I am on a budget but want to do some simple multiroom sound in a new house I am building.

In my living room (25m2) room I want 5 channel surround, in open connection with this room is the kitchen/eating room (38m2)

I plan on getting 4 ceiling speakers for surround (back and L/R), and one centerspeaker below tv. In other room, I am not sure if 2 ceiling speakers will do the job?
Music is just for background listening. The ceiling are tilted. So tweeters must be pivotting…
Any recommendations on good value for money speakers in the cheap end appreciated?
And placement, I dotted in expected on attached floorplan. Will it work?

I have a Kenwood surround 5.1 amplifier (KVR8090) with build-in tuner, intended for the surround. But could this also cope with the sound distribution in kitchen, when not being used for TV (must play music then in the 2 zones)? It does have a pre-amp channel. And how should that be setup?

The home server will also feed this amp with music/cd ripped collection and net radio.

So can I do this with the existing amplifier or does it require an additional (I have an older one lying around) or different (new one)

How many speakers can my amplifier handle?

Thanks in advance

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Seems to me these speakers, Mythos ST/STS, are so unique, so ground breaking, so highly reviewed, so well, awesomely cool, that they deserve a thread of their own.

So here it is fellow ST/STS owners.

I thought it would be nice to have a thread where ST/STS owners could share their experiences with setup, positioning, opinions, and the like.

Maybe share their favorite listening material for showing off their ST/STS.

Do you use the included spikes, do you use speaker level only or speaker level and line input level for built in subs.

Where do you set the sub level… at the recommended 1 o’clock position,
higher, lower?

Have you had any issues with your ST/STS?

What do you use your ST/STS for, 2-channel/multichannel music, home theater or both?

What do you like most about your ST/STS? Like least?

What improvements would you to see in the future, bigger, smaller, more finishes (still can’t believe DT stopped doing Silver/Aluminum finish:confused:)

Maybe a bigger base for those of you with kids who like to tip things over:eek:

If using in a home theater system, what other speakers are you using with them (center, surrounds, subwoofer)

What are you driving your ST/STS with?… receiver, separate amp.

Anyway hopefully this thread will help, inform and entertain ST/STS owners and/or those contemplating them.

Here’s a few links to ST/STS reviews:
http://www.hemagazine.com/node/Defin…r_loudspeakers

http://www.definitivetech.com/docume…Soundstage.pdf

http://www.hometheatermag.com/floorl…ef/index.html#

http://www.definitivetech.com/docume…sST_TAS108.pdf

http://www.definitivetech.com/docume…ter2008_v2.pdf

http://www.definitivetech.com/docume…132_eprint.pdf

etc, etc, etc………..
Here’s a link to more….
http://www.definitivetech.com/Produc…d/default.aspx

DreamCatcher

Just purchased a 58S1 as an early Christmas present for the family, and after calibration and general futzing, have it exactly where we want it. Almost.

Now, the sound doesn’t match the picture (used to have the opposite problem). Currently running an old JBL 5.1 surround setup, with MRV308 fronts, MR25 surrounds, and an MR Center, um, center. Added a Polk PSW111 that I got them to throw in with the TV. Driving it with a Harman Kardon AVR445. The JBLs need to be refoamed for sure, but they’ve limped along this long so I haven’t done it. The results have been resoundingly "meh."

It isn’t terrible, but I have $1000 that I could use to upgrade if I could come up with a setup that compelled me to do so. So please expertly tell me: What can I get in that price range that will wow me?

So far in my searches, I’ve come across Polk’s Monitor series; 70 fronts, 40 surrounds, a CS2 center, and a PSW505 sub for around $800 all in. For some reason I haven’t pulled the trigger on those, though by most accounts, they are great bang for the buck speaks.

Then I came across Boston Acoustics latest home theater offerings (with front towers - I like 2, 2.1 for tunes), but I’m not sure they would be up to the vintage standards that I’ve heard from my father-in-laws old pair. Love those things.

Next up is Premier Acoustic 6 or 8 series home theater set-up; great reviews by most accounts, but I have no practical experience with them. Like the idea of some boutiquey mail order speaks, but not sure if these would be they.

Cambridge Soundworks is another vendor that I have heard in person, but their new lines don’t offer any towers that I could find, and not sure that I’d be happy with the component speaker thing.

I’m not hung up on any of these with the possible exception of the Polks - I keep coming back to those. But I could be talked out of them. Don’t be shy :o.

So help a brother out, and make some suggestions about a system that you’d put together with a budget of ten bills. Or tell me to fix those old JBLs and spend the money on something else. I’m counting on you - and so is the economy!

Hey to everyone in the forum,
(My intro is kinda long, the 2 real questions are at the bottom, so if you don’t want my background you don’t need it)

Although i’m just joining the forum now, i’ve always looked to it for critical, and usually unbiased info about anything audio and video. I wasn’t really bothered about such things as sound and video quality, but a few buddies of mine who did convinced me to upgrade my headphones to a pair of sennheiser cx550 style II headphones,then I understood the meaning of the phrase "wool over my eyes" meant.

So for the past months I’ve been researching anything to do with audio(currently a 2nd year engineering student, and it helps when my tutor is the senior lecturer on digital music effects and signal processing).
Apparently I mentioned to my mom I like the Bose Companion 3 Series 2(This was BEFORE I paid any attention to quality). So I got it for christmas, and now i’m kinda wishing I got socks and vouchers. Not saying I didn’t like them, but little things happened through my listening experience, like the music volume just dropping randomly, certain notes were missing sometimes and they require such specific positioning to sound decent. When they worked they were great, to my ears at least. Even did a frequency test using a few pure tones my tutor sent me, noticed bass was quite loud, mids were truncated and highs were strained. An EQ change fixed most of that( I finally found a use for making an custom EQ), but if I didn’t get it right, they
sounded quite bad.

So I finally got rid of any mp3’s less than 320kbps and decided I was gonna return these speakers. Very adamant to do so, I thought I should find a replacement and break it to my mom so she doesn’t get mad she went out of her way for me. Logitech z2300, Swan M200 and Klipsch promedia 2.1 and M-Audio av 40 came up with great reviews, along side the bose companion 3.
I’m in London so the ProMedia 2.1 aren’t available to me, and the promedia 2.0 are ugly, so ugly I really couldn’t accept them on my desk, no matter how good they sound over the Bose.
When trawling this site, I found so much bose bashing, I kinda felt bad for a friend of mine who is a bose fan(owns bose in ear headphones and 301 bookshelf speakers), since he advised I buy them, although I went over his head to get the sennheiser(which are awesome btw). Then I realized sound is subjective, and he’s customized his sound and setup, so I shouldn’t if he spent good money on it with research and his ears backign him.

I like the bose acoutimass base module, but the tweeters are kinda pissing me off, can’t put into words why. I even got a few friends to go with me to a store to compare the bose and logitech, and they said they prefer the bose clarity over the logitech when using my personal music I brought with me. I kind of agreed, because the logitech’s bass even when reduced was still overpowering, but I couldn’t call it a far test since I don’t live in a crowded department store with tile ceilings and no carpets.

Questions:
I looked around, but couldn’t find specific answers to these questions, so i’m asking them for anyone with experience and patience to help a reasonably experienced noob.

1: Is is possible to hook up a pair of M-Audio AV 40 StudioPhile Speakers as tweeters to a Bose Acoutimass Module from the Bose Companion 3 Series 2 set to handle the highs and mids? And how if so? I’m thinking of buying the m-audio, which are pretty inexpensive as a solution for what i’m missing in my sound.

2: Are there any speakers available in London that completely trump the bose in every way(aside from looks) that I can find to demo?

To end a rather long post with what might be a silly question, what do audiophiles clean their ears with? I mean they spend more money on gear than I spend on tution, so they must have some special brand of electronic automatic tools for the job. Just thinking out loud.

i just got a pair of polk monitor 40s for my bedroom system. these are relatively large bookshelf speakers with no pre-drilled hole for traditional mounting. i currently have nowhere to put them so i’ve been looking at speaker stands, but all stands large enough to accommodate these speakers are very expensive. i then thought, why does something need to be called a speaker stand to function as one? so i did a little exploring and my local ikea has a couple different bar stools that i thought would make decent speaker stands. but i just want to know if there is something i am missing here, that would make this a bad idea? no need to click all the links but they are there if you’re curious, to give you an idea.

here are the ones i am considering:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00044301

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90156285

some shorter options:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70156286

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90135641

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/24286205

extremely cheap:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60118186

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10135659