Hi,
I'm a home theater newbie looking to upgrade from my Samsung LCD TV's standard speakers to a full 5.0 or 5.1, so I have been doing a lot of research and a limited amount of listening at local stores. I have always avoided the idea of a home theater because I get migraines at the drop of a hat-or I used to, until I had a hysterectomy in 2008. (It's well-known that women's monthly hormone fluctuations trigger a lot of migraines.)
Now relatively stable, hormonally speaking, I got a new car in 2011 and discovered, to my pleased surprise, that bass frequencies didn't automatically give me a headache, as I had assumed. In fact, listening to cello and harp and some of the deeper wind instruments had a sublimely glorious fullness to them that made me want a home theater system in my home as well.
So here I am, trying to learn as much as I can about speakers systems before taking the plunge. I plan to get bookshelves, not floor towers. I'm on the fence about getting a subwoofer, because even without getting a full-blown migraine, certain frequencies (about 80-100Hz, mid-bass) will still give me an irritated-skin feeling on the back of my neck that is so unpleasant it ruins movie-watching/music-listening.
I also feel as if someone is hitting me on the back of the neck. Eventually, at higher volumes, I do develop headaches. (The man at the local home theater store said I have a sensitivity not to bass, but to percussion, such as drums.) I can listen to cellos or say, a spaceship zooming front to back no problem, but even medium-strength drumming is an immediate irritant. I was even bothered by the bass from the main shopping area outside the Best Buy Magnolia room with the doors closed...
I realize home-trials are the only sure way to know what will and won't bother me, but I don't want to waste a lot of money on return shipping: speakers are heavy!
My room is a 12x14, in an apartment complex so I have the neighbors to think about as well. One nice thing is that my room is already essentially acoustically treated, because it has wall-to-wall carpet, heavy drapes and is lined with bookcases on every foot of wall that isn't a door or window. Plus a twin bed and cloth-covered recliner. Very little reverb/echoes at all.
I plan to use this system 90% for home theater, so I bought a Denon 1713 receiver. I have not been able to try it out, with no speakers (!), but so far I liked the Energy CB 20s and Definitive Technology Studio 55s from Best Buy. I preferred the warmer Energys, but am worried that the higher notes will get lost in my room's deadness. Also, there was just enough punch in the Energys (rated down to 60Hz) to make movie sound effects like explosions noticable but not quite enough to cause me pain (I happened to have a headache the day I went listening). The Energys are rated down to 60Hz.
The DefTech 55s had definite base, but no punch (which was odd, since they were rated for down to 32Hz. The specs say they are not 'bass reflex', so they don't have a port for punchy bass. Yet the smaller Studio 45 bookshelves do and are also rated to 32Hz...) Being brighter, I was thinking I should go for them and use a sub with a delicate touch to fill in the bass.
What are your thoughts/tips? I'd especially appreciate advice from those of you who get migraines, or know someone who does, and what they do about it. Thanks~