I am about to buy speakers without having ever heard them?!

[lsiberian]

Excuse me lsiberian but when you said that you could mod that line of speakers from JBL and make them HI-FI, what are you referring to? you can change the drivers? the crossover? is that line not HI-FI already?

Most cabinets don't have enough bracing, dampening so adding some will help almost any loud speaker assuming you know what you are doing.

HK, JBL, Infinity all use pretty good drivers in lesser boxes. So they are especially helped by modding. Revel is the high-end brand, but beware some lines are re-branded copies of other lines.

 

[Quickley17]

I want to say that WmAx is currently modding some speakers (maybe the ones in the current thread titled WmAx's Speakers?) that started out as stock Infinity speakers. All signs for them point to "epically awesome".

 

[JJMP50]

Most cabinets don't have enough bracing, dampening so adding some will help almost any loud speaker assuming you know what you are doing.

HK, JBL, Infinity all use pretty good drivers in lesser boxes. So they are especially helped by modding. Revel is the high-end brand, but beware some lines are re-branded copies of other lines.

JBL make quite a few lines of speakers. The line that most people are exposed to is the junk the sell at BB. Their lowest line (originally the northridge series but they've gone through a few lately). The Studio L series is comparable to some of the best (mid) stuff out there IMHO. They have several lines up but they very costly. You can's spend as much as 20k on the top of the line HT setup.

 

[WmAx]

It is nonsense that you have to hear a speaker before buying it to be sure you will greatly enjoy it - given very specific circumstances. If you buy the right TRUE neutral(mostly, of course) speaker, one can use a device such as a Behringer DCX2496 and achieve any sound signature that they so prefer. The catch: there are very few speakers that are of sufficient base neutrality for this to work very well - and those that are - tend to be relatively expensive. A knowledgeable person such as myself can recommend speakers that fit the requirements for this to work - as well as specify the precise settings to enter into the processor to effect the desired changes.

Note: regardless of the speaker or it's quality - one must have reasonable room acoustics - otherwise no speaker will sound excellent in a poor acoustic space other than very specialized very effective controlled directionality designs - that have inherent sound quality issues of their own.

-Chris

 

[mibson]

My speaker choice is narrowing down - auditions...

I found some PSB platinum t6 and t8s for a great price, Im guessing these are pretty good speakers but the synchrony one are pretty nice too.

Chris, do you think the platinum t6 are good speakers to make good use of the equalizer you speak of?
Im only concerned about some reports of the "super" tweeter being a bit "harsh", perhaps the synchrony is a better choice for that reason...

Listened to Polks - too much harsh high end
Listened to Klispch - great upper bass, mid range was empty, harsh trebble
Listened to bose - better than I thought but to "spacy"
Listened to Energy(m70) - very nice sound, not enough power for me

Love the PSB options but no stores in Edmonton where I can listen to them, think Im going to get the PSB Platinum T6 (DEMO version)...