Ordered a Denon 4400, now on to the front towers.

[Steelers252006]

Been chatting quite with Danzilla31 on this one, who is freaking AWESOME!!! You guys have seen my previous posts with my funky shaped room, so I’m going to take my time and piece work my system over time but want to work on the front towers now. I’m thinking about the Emotiva T2s, the SVS Ultras, and the Golden Ear Triton Ones. What are others I maybe should be looking at, and how long will I be able to get by without a sub or two (my goal is two integrated) with any combination of those tower speakers with the 4400? Thanks!!

 

[snakeeyes]

@Danzilla31 is one of my favorite posters here as well. Definitely awesome!

 

[snakeeyes]

I have to say, it’s hard to get by without at least one sub. I would go listen to the towers you are considering but start budgeting for the first sub ASAP.

 

[ryanosaur]

Hey man! Glad to hear you chose a more deliberate approach! It will pay off huge in the long run!

...and how long will I be able to get by without a sub or two (my goal is two integrated)...

The answer here is: as long as you'd like. Cryptic? Maybe. *shrugs If you choose good speakers, you will really only be missing out on less than an octave of audible frequencies. If you choose the right speaker, maybe less!
I was very interested in Emotiva, I ultimately chose not to pursue them because I knew I could find better to suit my needs and desires for audio gear. There are some good reviews for them, and people that like them, seem to really like them. That said, I've also seen some talk about turnover in their product line being quick, as in they don't necessarily keep models around for long before killing them off. Maybe they are innovating new gear, which would be good... maybe not.
I have been recommended to listen to Golden Ear a lot. I haven't seen anything bad about them in my research. I have no other experience with them. Krikey though, if you can look at Triton Ones @ 3K a piece, you can look at a lot of speakers!
Of the SVS Ultras, again, no first hand experience, but again, good reviews and seldom have I heard anything of significance that would say NO. I think I also recommended SVS to you for the ease of shopping wih them and their return policy.

Of those three, if you don't consider any others and don't mind rolling the dice on time alone, SVS would give you the easiest opportunity to bring in and audition! You will have to pay to return Emo... Presumably Golden Ear.

PSB Imagine X2T are supposed to be good speakers, and they have a matching center which will fit your HT plans in the long run.

But for bass response with out subs in the short term, you get best from Golden Ear One (13Hz claimed) or Two (16Hz claimed), then SVS Ultra Tower (28Hz). That PSB is 30Hz on the low end.

Good choices there if you ask me.

 

[ryanosaur]

Good choices there if you ask me.

Which is to say, we can pile up more recommendations, rather unnecessarily, if you want!

Curious to know what you decided about your room? As is? Or considering rearranging?

Cheers!

 

[Danzilla31]

I have to say, it’s hard to get by without at least one sub. I would go listen to the towers you are considering but start budgeting for the first sub ASAP.

That's spot on generally unless you can afford speakers that cost as much as your house you're not going to get a true full range tower that can do what a good sub can. I'm speaking generally though some of our members may know some steals out there tho on ceartin speaker lines. But there's none of the top of my head I can think off.

The ultra SVS towers and the triton ones would come close but there still not quiet going to get you there. From the owners and reviewers I spoke to the Emotiva T2's will not get you there. They sound great but for sure need a sub

 

[Danzilla31]

Also true full range towers will not always be ideal because sometimes where your towers need to go and where the bass needs to go to sound best are 2 different parts of the room. But some of those selections should still be fine since your planning on acquiring really good subs to integrate in to the system

 

[Danzilla31]

I spent the afternoon at Bjorn's demoing exhaustively the Klipsch RP8000f RPF7III's I think there called the SVS Primes and I was going to do the golden ears but that demo room was not working I'm going back Wednesday to demo again do a lot of a b comparing once that room is fixed I'll hit you up then and give you my impressions. Since some of those auditions are speakers your looking at

 

[ryanosaur]

Also true full range towers will not always be ideal because sometimes where your towers need to go and where the bass needs to go to sound best are 2 different parts of the room. But some of those selections should still be fine since your planning on acquiring really good subs to integrate in to the system

The benefit of having, at least, close to full range towers, is the ability to run them large and put the subs where they can trully be the most effective. which is not to say one sub wouldn't end up on your front wall, but you can really enjoy the luxury of finding the best acoustic home for the subs! Likewise, for defeating standing waves, the more true LF sources the better!

 

[Steelers252006]

Which is to say, we can pile up more recommendations, rather unnecessarily, if you want!

Curious to know what you decided about your room? As is? Or considering rearranging?

Cheers!

Yes, I absolutely am onboard with rearranging the room, whatever it takes for myblomg-term goals I say. I thought I saw the Triton Ones at 1.799 apiece, might have been a different model I noted there. 3,000 would be a little too rich for my blood. So you’ve heard the T2s or just read about them?

 

[Steelers252006]

I spent the afternoon at Bjorn's demoing exhaustively the Klipsch RP8000f RPF7III's I think there called the SVS Primes and I was going to do the golden ears but that demo room was not working I'm going back Wednesday to demo again do a lot of a b comparing once that room is fixed I'll hit you up then and give you my impressions. Since some of those auditions are speakers your looking at

Man, that sounds great, look forward to hearing from you!!

 

[ryanosaur]

Yes, I absolutely am onboard with rearranging the room, whatever it takes for myblomg-term goals I say. I thought I saw the Triton Ones at 1.799 apiece, might have been a different model I noted there. 3,000 would be a little too rich for my blood. So you’ve heard the T2s or just read about them?

No direct experience with them, i'm afraid. I've heard enough to know I want to give them a whirl just for the sake of it. Comapared to Def Tech, I think everybody recommends GE over DT. My experience with DT wasn't too hot. FWIW.

 

[Steelers252006]

LOL, all I do is read about speaker towers now in my spare time. I admit I still don't understand many of the terms and how all this works, but at least it's not quite like reading Greek now either, you know?

 

[Steelers252006]

No direct experience with them, i'm afraid. I've heard enough to know I want to give them a whirl just for the sake of it. Comapared to Def Tech, I think everybody recommends GE over DT. My experience with DT wasn't too hot. FWIW.

I think I can be a little bit more specific now. So I have an OLED 65C, '17 model, and the sound on it is okay on some channels and all but overall SUCKS. There's one show I've started watching, Man in the High Castle, and I swear I have to keep playing things back as they talk so damn low in that show, and I know my speaker's feeble "speaker set" is doing me no favors. There are time I've turned the TV all the way up to 100, full volume, and couldn't make out the voices. It drives me crazy.

Second, I like to video games some when I have time to, which is rare anymore I'll admit, but I have an X-box One X, and I'd love to hear the games' finer moments with more power. I'd enjoy that. It's actually what got me interested in Atmos in the first place.

Third, for football!! Duh!!

And it'd be great to stream my Spotify into a kick-ass setup and enjoy some good punk rock tunes when I'm in the mood to do so.

Until just recently I had NO IDEA that you could play your speakers LOWER and still hear things crystal clear with the sound having power. I have a two year old, so just blasting them all the time was never an option for my 42 year old and evidently deaf behind. This is a great concept to me!! LOL.

 

[ryanosaur]

LOL, all I do is read about speaker towers now in my spare time. I admit I still don't understand many of the terms and how all this works, but at least it's not quite like reading Greek now either, you know?

Speakers made more sense to me than amps and avrs. I'm still working on learning that stuff. and though I can carry on a slightly coherent conversation, I still don't fully understand how capacitance in an amp affects performance. So when I see people debating that, I sit back and try to learn more!
But you'll get it... well enough that you can make informed decisions, at least!

 

[Danzilla31]

I think I can be a little bit more specific now. So I have an OLED 65C, '17 model, and the sound on it is okay on some channels and all but overall SUCKS. There's one show I've started watching, Man in the High Castle, and I swear I have to keep playing things back as they talk so damn low in that show, and I know my speaker's feeble "speaker set" is doing me no favors. There are time I've turned the TV all the way up to 100, full volume, and couldn't make out the voices. It drives me crazy.

Second, I like to video games some when I have time to, which is rare anymore I'll admit, but I have an X-box One X, and I'd love to hear the games' finer moments with more power. I'd enjoy that. It's actually what got me interested in Atmos in the first place.

Third, for football!! Duh!!

And it'd be great to stream my Spotify into a kick-ass setup and enjoy some good punk rock tunes when I'm in the mood to do so.

Until just recently I had NO IDEA that you could play your speakers LOWER and still hear things crystal clear with the sound having power. I have a two year old, so just blasting them all the time was never an option for my 42 year old and evidently deaf behind. This is a great concept to me!! LOL.

Bro all the terminology a lot of it and concepts were like pig Latin when I first started out but all the feedback information and articles members linked me too helped me to get past the learning curve pretty quickly..... And what I've learned is the more I learn just leaves more things I need to learn! Lol. But that's part of my passion for this the knowledge and experience of all the options out there in our totally kickass hobby just never stops! There's always something knew for me to get into or get excited about

 

[Steelers252006]

Speakers made more sense to me than amps and avrs. I'm still working on learning that stuff. and though I can carry on a slightly coherent conversation, I still don't fully understand how capacitance in an amp affects performance. So when I see people debating that, I sit back and try to learn more!
But you'll get it... well enough that you can make informed decisions, at least!

Yeah, I get it. It's crazy to me that I've been looking and researching without yet having actually LISTENING to anything. You know what I mean?

 

[ryanosaur]

When I bought the marantz and hooked my old HTIB speakers up to it, I was amazed at the immediate improvement in quality that the newer and better processing on the Marantz made. It was especially noticeable in the LFE/Subwoofer... The Onkyo AVR when turned up would create distortion... the kind that causes rattling and garbage sound. With the Marantz, I could drive the sub hotter (turn the gain up) with the Volume up, and not get any of that noise.
Now I have nice speakers connected and its amazing! If you can afford the Triton 2 which are the ones I think more in your range based on that earlier post, I think you'll be pretty happy, based on the things I've heard. There are a lot of other nice speakers in that price range too. But for HT and gaming, your looking for a slightly different feature set than with music. I'm about 80% music.
And I love gaming, and having a good surround system is amazing. There are times I'm looking around me because I hear an ambient bird sound and I think my cats brought in a snack that got loose!
And yes: with good quality and less distortion, the clarity comes through and volume is a gift to use when you want, but noot necessary for normal enjoyment.

 

[Danzilla31]

When I bought the marantz and hooked my old HTIB speakers up to it, I was amazed at the immediate improvement in quality that the newer and better processing on the Marantz made. It was especially noticeable in the LFE/Subwoofer... The Onkyo AVR when turned up would create distortion... the kind that causes rattling and garbage sound. With the Marantz, I could drive the sub hotter (turn the gain up) with the Volume up, and not get any of that noise.
Now I have nice speakers connected and its amazing! If you can afford the Triton 2 which are the ones I think more in your range based on that earlier post, I think you'll be pretty happy, based on the things I've heard. There are a lot of other nice speakers in that price range too. But for HT and gaming, your looking for a slightly different feature set than with music. I'm about 80% music.
And I love gaming, and having a good surround system is amazing. There are times I'm looking around me because I hear an ambient bird sound and I think my cats brought in a snack that got loose!
And yes: with good quality and less distortion, the clarity comes through and volume is a gift to use when you want, but noot necessary for normal enjoyment.

+1 on that when I go and demo today I'm focusing more on the golden ear 2+ and maybe 3+ I think that's more workable for your room and a much better savings for you to shell out more money for subs hardware etc if you choose to go with them

 

[ryanosaur]

Yeah, I get it. It's crazy to me that I've been looking and researching without yet having actually LISTENING to anything. You know what I mean?

I researched for 3-4 months before auditioning speakers. But when you do go out, the knowledge base will serve you well! especially if you are in a specialty store, a salesperson that knows their sh!t will respond to your knowledge in kind!
I think I suggested to you before... read speaker reviews. especially for speakers you are interested in, and cross reference to reviews that they compare to, and the same again. Get a good grasp on how they compare and contrast the sound performance of the speakers so that when you do audition, you can peice together the bigger picture way more successfully.