Near field friendly speakers

[mudrummer99]

I am looking at upgrading my HT receiver within the next couple months, making my current receiver (Yamaha HTR-5840) available for relocation. I'm thinking that I am going to put it in my office/music room. My wife and I are both musicians and love listening to music off the main computer. A lot of my music is ripped as lossless, although a lot of the cd's I have lost over the years were ripped as mp3 before I knew any better. Other associated equipment is a Yamaha DVD player (model 5750) that is just progressive scan but still a great transport and a 19" lcd tv/monitor. My question is that of the name of the tread, what speakers would be acceptable for me to begin looking at for near field listening? My budget will be about 300-500 and preferably something BB/MHT carry due to my employment with them. I do get pretty good accommodations on speakers from work, so just about every bookshelf speaker we carry would fall into that price range. I want to set them on my desk but I'm not opposed to speaker stands if it will help the situation. The room is about 11x13 and we are not loud music listeners. These speakers will be used about 90% for music and 10% for other things like computer games and movies on occasion. I've heard great things about the Vienna Acoustics Haydn Grands, but are just a touch out of my price range (but only a marginal amount). Would it be worth holding out for these or would I be just as happy with another speaker especially considering the listening conditions.

Other factors in the room include several musical instruments (keyboards, guitars, drums, etc.) and very little furniture (one loveseat and a desk w/ chair) Thanks as always for the great feedback from everyone (in advance )

Mike

PS there are no current plans for a sub with the system, so a reasonable frequency range would be nice. If necessary I will consider a smaller sub (I've heard good things about the Outlaw Audio little guys) but that would be down the road a bit (read: after a new tv)

 

[Exit]

You need to think lower bass pedal organ notes and how cool it would be to have a good subwoofer to play them with authority. Just kidding. We all know not much happens below 25 Hz which is about where the subwoofer you mentioned reaches.

 

[MUDSHARK]

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Mackie-HR824-Studio-Monitor?sku=605250V

The Mackie 824 is slightly above your budget but would be perfect for near field listening. The bass is clean and the most neutral speaker in their price range that I have ever heard. The refurbished option would fall in your budget range. If you have a music store near gve them a listen. You will be glad you did.

 

[bandphan]

http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-FOS PM05MKII?SRC=D0407FG0HAMS0000&utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=feed&
fostex makes some nice powered monitors, and http://www.commonsenseaudio.com/fostex.html has speakers as well as drivers and plans

 

[mudrummer99]

Am I gonna be better off getting computer speakers with built in amps or getting a nicer pair of regular speakers and using an extra receiver? I'm cool either way but I figured it would be easier to hook everything to a receiver for the set up. I'm sure we'll want to wire all of our instruments through the speakers as well at some point, so the receiver would just give me more flexibility, but if regular speakers won't work well for this setup, I can deal with it. Thanks for the help again.

Mike

 

[bandphan]

Am I gonna be better off getting computer speakers with built in amps or getting a nicer pair of regular speakers and using an extra receiver? I'm cool either way but I figured it would be easier to hook everything to a receiver for the set up. I'm sure we'll want to wire all of our instruments through the speakers as well at some point, so the receiver would just give me more flexibility, but if regular speakers won't work well for this setup, I can deal with it. Thanks for the help again.

Mike

mike check out the powered monitors in my post.I think you will be happy going the powered route. Look at these sound cards http://www.digigram.com/products/by_category.php?o=getcat&pcat_key=PCSCD&t=Sound+Cards for some great pc intergration

 

[fmw]

I use a pair of Tannoy Reveal recording monitors as my surrounds and they are really very good. Another consideration for you. My actual recording monitors are home made with 8" woofers.

 

[jcPanny]

Speaker brands

What other brands are available with the discount?
In general an $8-900 pair of speakers that you can get on discount will perform better than most other speakers that retail for $3-500.

 

[Seth=L]

Infinity Primus 160 bookshelf speakers are supposed to be pretty good for nearfield from my understanding.

 

[mudrummer99]

What other brands are available with the discount?
In general an $8-900 pair of speakers that you can get on discount will perform better than most other speakers that retail for $3-500.

Anything that BB or Magnolia carries is available to me for a significant discount. Several models from Deftech, Klipsch, Martin Logan, Mirage, Vienna Acoustics, and JBL (and a couple other companies I have already eliminated). It is well circulated that BB employees pay 5% above wholesale cost for all purchases, and with most HT equipment being high margin items, I can definitely get a good quality speaker within my price range, I'm just wondering which ones, if any, perform better in a near field environment since this is the distance that they will be listened to about 50-60% of the time. I can tweak things around and put them up to about 3-4 feet from my main listening position, so maybe it isn't as big a deal as I think it is. Thanks again for all the help.

Mike