Interesting little experiment last night. I took a walk through my local Best Buy and listened to every speaker set they had connected to a source, so both the sets on the main floor and those in Magnolia. So I heard some Def Techs, Martin Logan, B&W's, etc., in addition to the regular offerings on the main floor from Klipsch, Polk, even Sony. I realized that I think my ears have been playing tricks on me cause none of these sounded particularly GREAT, even considering the environment they were in. I came home and cued up the movie Whiplash on Amazon Prime, which if you don't know the film has a very rich jazz score, and of course plenty of drum sounds. These old SVS's reminded me why I got them in the first place as having that almost side by side comparison from returning from the store, they really seemed to sound better than anything I heard in there. The hi-hats and cymbals were crisp and detailed, the kick drum had power and punch and the stand up bass parts in the film made my seat rumble (well that's due to my big SVS sub, tyvm lol). And this is all from a streaming video site with compressed standard Dolby digital 5.1, not even the uncompressed formats found on blu-rays. Voice dialogue from the center channel still sound a little off in parts but I can probably figure out a way to fine tune that better.
I think it's just the difference in running them on a different receiver than before and maybe my ears are still trying to adjust? Maybe I don't really NEED to upgrade right away just give myself more time to become better acquainted with the differences between the Yamaha and my old pioneer..
