Looking for advice on upgrading

D

David Shegda

Audiophyte
I decided to upgrade my audio equipment and am not sure where to start. I currently have the following.
Reciever - pioneer vsx 921. 7.1 receiver but I only use it as 5.1
Sub - klipsch r-10
Speakers are energy, bought as ps500 package for super cheap at 179$ in 2012. Includes 2 floor towers, 2 surrounds and center. The speakers are ok for the price but its hard to hear conversations on movies/tv.

I just ordered a infinity primus 351 center channel, will be here today. After thinking about it I figured I'd be better off asking the forums as I don't know that much about home audio. This will be in a game/computer room and mainly used for movies with some games and music. The room is on the 2nd floor and 15x15 roughly. It could be moved later into a room that's 20x30.

Budget wise I want to get good quality and sound for a decent price. I don't need 1k speaker but if I see value I don't mind spending $1000-$1500 total.

I am leaning towards the infinity primus line as they seem decent. Looking at primus 363 towers, 153 or 163 bookshelfs for rear. Any advice? Different brand? Thanks
 
M

Mark of Cenla

Full Audioholic
I suggest going out and doing some listening. Trust your ears. Infinity makes good speakers, but there may be others out there that you would like better. Peace and goodwill.
 
L

Latent

Full Audioholic
Problems hearing dialog may be fixable by adjusting your sound settings. First try adding 3-6 dB gain on the center channel as this may help. It may sound crazy but I also like to try with center set to none and see how it sounds with your main speakers filling in a virtual center dialog channel.

Even if you do plan to upgrade your speakers I would work to get the best out of your current speakers first so you are prepared and can evaluate the new speakers fairly.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Is the $1500 budget for five speakers or five speakers + sub?
 
D

David Shegda

Audiophyte
Got the infinity hooked up, makes a big difference. A lot bigger then the old one, at least 2x the size. The 1500 would be for everything. Still need 2 fronts, rears. After that a receiver and last the sub. I'm happy with the r 10 right now so might hold off on it.
 
H

herbu

Audioholic Samurai
Got the infinity hooked up, makes a big difference. A lot bigger then the old one, at least 2x the size. The 1500 would be for everything. Still need 2 fronts, rears. After that a receiver and last the sub. I'm happy with the r 10 right now so might hold off on it.
I would suggest this for your rears:
http://philharmonicaudio.com/aa.html

And this for your fronts:
http://philharmonicaudio.com/New Philharmonitor.html

That would bring you pretty close to $1500.
A very good alternative would be 4 of the Affordable Accuracy speakers, and a good sub.
 
D

David Shegda

Audiophyte
I ended up getting primus 363 towers and 163 rears. They were on sale at frys for 97$ and 47$ each...just couldn't pass it up. Thanks for the input. I considered focal, emptek, psb and more towers around $800+. Now ill look at the receiver/sub. I looked at Sony and pioneer vx 90/45 at local stores. There's so much tech on receivers that it gets hard to choose.
 
tyhjaarpa

tyhjaarpa

Audioholic Field Marshall
I bet you will like those primus front/rear/center speakers and they should last you a while. As for receiver, not much of upgrade there sound wise so I would keep that if it has all the features you need. Sub is where you will get biggest upgrade after those speakers. How much you can put towards a sub? When we know your budget we can give some suggestions.
 
D

David Shegda

Audiophyte
Did some research and found out the watts is only rated for single channel or 2 channels together. Not 5 or 7...surprised me to say the least. I don't think the receiver I have is doing the best job. Ill notice it will get quieter sometimes during movies/music.
 
jonnythan

jonnythan

Audioholic Ninja
That Pioneer is a good unit. It's got as much power as any mid-range receiver.
 
L

Latent

Full Audioholic
One thing to remember about multichannel use is that generally not all channels are equal in source sound content. The front three speakers have the vast majority of audio output so most of the available power gets used here and generally only a few watts are used for the surround channels. When their is a demanding rear action scene and the rear speakers are in heavy use then often the front speakers are not as active. Because of this it is very hard to reliably test all channels driven to get a useful figure that means anything as in real life there is no source that will drive all channels high at the same time like this.

Another way to think about this is as follows. Imagine your AVR was rated at 100W into 2 channels but you decided to run 2 front and 2 rear speakers. You start listening to a source which only uses the front 2 channels and crank up the volume to the highest it will go and still sound good and distortion free. lets just say that at this level the SPL is peaking up to 100dB at your couch just from these two speakers running. Next we start listening to a similar source but this time it's multi-channel and while 90% of the time it's just front audio 10% is action scenes and the at that point all 4 speakers are being pushed hard. If it output the same level as it was at 2 channels it would require twice the power and the power supply and capacitors may not have the much in reserve but if it could you would get twice the sound output which is 6dB higher (dB is wierd with every 6 db higher meaning double the ampliture/power) so you would be listening to 106dB at this point. But in reality while the action scene requires you to have all 4 speakers going at that moment to surround you it probably doesn't really need you to get to a higher total volume as really the sound has just moved from front to all around. So it would be better if the source produced half the sound level to front and back (think 50W instead of 100W) and the listener will hear the combined output of all 4 50W speakers and get to the same 100dB SPL. And this is why you don't need vastly more than the 2 channel driven power rating as you only need enough power to full the room and we don't just keep adding speakers and full power amps till our spleen's burst.
 
newsletter

  • RBHsound.com
  • BlueJeansCable.com
  • SVS Sound Subwoofers
  • Experience the Martin Logan Montis
Top