Hi. I can't PM people without at least 5 posts, so I thought a self intro would be a good start. I'm Steve, 37, from Northeast TN (USA). Back when I was a teenager and still lived with my parents, I bought a JBL 12" 120-watt subwoofer, a floor demo on closeout from Circuit City. I still use it. When I was younger, I played a bass tester CD, and I swear I could hear resonance down to 16Hz. Below that and it just sounded like machine gun fire. Anyway, I see no reason to upgrade that.
When I was a newlywed, I bought an RCA HTIB, also a display demo closeout, but from Radio Shack this time. Eventually, dialog reproduction pissed me off to the point that I upgraded my center channel to an RCA 65831, a warm and well-spoken box with dual 5" honeycomb fiberglass drivers and a 3x3.5" Linaeum tweeter; a combo that has taken all the abuse I could throw at it and still sound natural at any volume. That was a display demo closeout.
For the past few months my receiver had developed a noisy fan and occasional spontaneous shut off problem. I had been lamenting the lack of HDMI ports and video upscaling for quite a while, so I decided to give the receiver away and pay it forward, while at the same time upgrading myself to a Marantz SR6008 (a refurb from accessories4less). Hooray, tax refund! Here's a brief review of the Marantz: I love it. If I had to choose between giving up either my wife or my new receiver... well, I'd give up my receiver, but I wouldn't be happy about it at all.
At the same time as I was shopping for a receiver, I started noticing things about the color of my sound that hadn't really bothered me before -- mostly the tinny nature of the HTIB satellites I've still been using. So rather than waste the talents of such an excellent receiver on such crappy speakers, my latest quest has been to find a new pair of bookshelves to use as mains. My trustworthy sub already more than covers any gains that might be had from towers, plus space is a major concern. I'll post a picture or two soon. That ought to be good for another post in my 5 post goal, right? Bahaha!
I just demoed a pair of JBL ES20 bookshelfs from Amazon. They failed the audition, so I sent them back. After reading review after review after opinion after sales pitch, I've decided that the sound I want is going to cost a little more money. At the same time, as you can see above, I consider myself a failure if I ever pay full price for something.
So I've got my eye on a couple of choices: a pair of Wharfedale Jade 1 in the classifieds here, and... dare I say it? A pair of closeouts: MB Quart VS05B. Both appear to be very well reviewed, and I'm leaning toward the MB Quarts. (I've had MB Quart speakers in my car and absofreakinglutely loved them. They sounded like butter.) But I either have to wait for pay day, or for someone to whom I've loaned money to pay some back.
Anyway, that's my story. It didn't have any sort of moral. No real ending, not much of a beginning to speak of, and the middle was crap. *shrug* Hi.
