advice for new system

[wxiao]

I am happy to find this forum today. I know you perhaps have answered many similar questions. But I searched for newbie questions and could not find a case that I can directly use.

I am thinking about upgrading the sound system for my TV room, but my knowledge is quite limited. So your advice is greatly appreciated:

I want to spend about $3000.

1. How should I allocate the money? how much on AVR and how much on speakers?
2. Any particular receivers that you can recommend? What do you think of the Pioneer elite SC-55?
3. Any particular speakers? My knowledge is blank on speakers.

Thanks. Waiting for some great advice ...

 

[shadyJ]

I think an ok general rule is 1/3 for AVR, 1/3 for speakers, and 1/3 for subs, but, of course, alterations should be made for different conditions. For instance, if you have a small room, you won't have to spend as much on a good subwoofer. Also, if the room is acoustically energetic, it would be a good idea to allocate some money for room treatments.

Pioneer is a good receiver brand, other good ones are Harman/Kardon, Denon, Yamaha, Marantz, Onkyo, but there are others. Some good store-bought speaker brands are PSB, B&W, Klipsch, Infinity. Online you should look at Ascend Acoustics, Aperion Audio, EMP Tek, Arx, but there are many others too. The best way to get your moneys worth on subwoofers is to buy them from manufacturer direct companies, and some very good ones are Hsu Research, SVS, Rythmik, Epik Subwoofers, Elemental Designs, and Outlaw Audio.

Let us know your room, display, and what kind of sound you would like, and you can get more specific advice.

 

[wxiao]

I think an ok general rule is 1/3 for AVR, 1/3 for speakers, and 1/3 for subs, but, of course, alterations should be made for different conditions. For instance, if you have a small room, you won't have to spend as much on a good subwoofer. Also, if the room is acoustically energetic, it would be a good idea to allocate some money for room treatments.

Let us know your room, display, and what kind of sound you would like, and you can get more specific advice.

Thanks a lot for the reply. My room size is 20x14. My display is a 60 inch Samsung 1080p 3D LED TV. The system will also be connected to a Playstation 3, mac mini, and an Apple TV.

Some specific advice please. Thanks.

 

[shadyJ]

Your room is not huge, so, unless it has openings to other areas of the house, you won't have to resort to getting a massive subwoofer (although having a massive sub never hurts). Here is a system I think would be good for your budget:
receiver: Onkyo TX-SR-809.... $700
front left/right: EMP Tek E55Ti towers... $800
center: EMP Tek E56Ci center speaker... $450
Surrounds: EMP Tek E5Bi bookshelf speakers..... $250
Subwoofer: Hsu VTF3 mk4... $800

That works out to be roughly $3k, maybe a bit over when shipping is factored in for the speakers. Some other subwoofers worth looking at are the SVS PB12-NSD and Outlaw Audio LFM-1 EX, they are a tad less expensive. Also, an alternative for the surround speakers would be the Infinity Primus p162, they would be a higher performing speaker and cheaper too, personally I would use those over the EMP bookshelf speakers. For speaker wire, just go to Home Depot and get a roll of 14 AWG or 16 AWG speaker cable, do not get Monster cable. For HDMI cable, get that from Monoprice or Bluejeans. Use AM40 Pinpoint bookshelf mounts to mount the surround speakers, trust me on this one.

If you feel that is going over-budget a bit too much, look at Infinity Primus p362 towers for front left/right speakers ($400 shipped), the Primus C350 for center ($200 shipped), and Primus p152 bookshelfs ($150 shipped) for surrounds. While those speakers won't have quite the output capability of the EMP speakers, they are still excellent speakers, and, in my opinion, easily the best speakers at their price point. Those, plus a Hsu VTF15h sub ($1k shipped), will give you a amazing sound system for under your budget.

Of course, there are lots of other great speakers, receivers, and subs, these are just a couple suggestions. This is just how I might lean on $3k, but hopefully some others can chime in with alternate recommendations.

 

[Pyrrho]

Speakers (including subwoofers) make more difference for the sound than anything else. My advice is to spend as little as possible on the receiver, buying a good brand (e.g., Yamaha, Pioneer, Marantz, Denon), and spend all the rest on speakers.

Of course, you will want to make sure you have all the features you need in the receiver, but features do not generally give you better sound.

I was running a $600 receiver with speakers that retailed for over $6k, and it sounded great. I replaced the receiver with one that retails for about $1700, and unless I engage a feature that affects the sound, it sounds the same as the $600 receiver.

On the other hand, with lesser speakers, I would hear a difference, so putting money into speakers makes a lot of sense if you care about actual sound quality.

Now, if my speakers were inefficient or a difficult load, then it might have made a difference in sound, as the new receiver can put out about twice as much power as the old one, but the old one could drive my speakers to levels that I found painful with crystal clarity, so I have no need for the extra power.

In general, if you end up selecting difficult to drive speakers, you will want to go with a separate power amp and a receiver with preamp outputs instead of trying to get a powerful enough receiver to drive them. But if you don't get difficult to drive speakers, paying for extra power is a waste of money.

My advice is to go out into the world and listen to as many brands of speakers, and to as many types of speakers (e.g., ribbons, domes, horns, whatever) as you can stand to listen to. Different people value different things in sound, and so they have wildly different preferences from each other. Some people love horns, and others hate them. I personally tend to like ribbon speakers, but that is irrelevant to you, as what matters for you is whatever produces sound that you like, and you won't know what that is without going out into the world and auditioning a bunch of speakers.

For a subwoofer, there are a number of good brands, but I would go with SVS (and have done so).

 

[GranteedEV]

I like Shady J's recommendations... though I'd get this NAD Refurbished AVR from spearitsound:

NAD T747 Refurbished - Surround Receivers by Spearit Sound

and two pairs of surrounds... PERSONALLY

I also recommend breaking your budget and getting TWO badass subs

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I like Pioneer Elite series, but SC-55 is a bit of a overkill.
With moderately efficient speakers Yamaha A-800 or A-1000 would on my short list unless you require specific features.
Subs are important and your best best for quality&value is to go to Internet Direct brand in most cases - SVS is a bit pricey, but you DO get what you pay for - no BS there. PB12-NSD is a great sub for the money.

Like Pyrro said - speaker tastes vary a lot and one of best high value speakers are not even shown in most stores. Aperion Audio Verus line received highest praises. EMP new E55Ti towers do an great job reproducing as well..

You need to remember the basic fact - 95% of audio quality is determined by speakers and not electronics.

 

[shadyJ]

Some people have had great luck with refurbished, but I haven't, and so I can't recommend refurbished products from personal experience, but I wouldn't discourage anyone from going that route either.

Speaking of two great subs, right now Outlaw has their LFM-1 Plus sub on sale for $499 and free shipping, that is terrific deal, easily the best value in subs right now, in my opinion. You could get two of those beasts for a hair under $1k, and that would be a formidable bass setup.

 

[wxiao]

Thanks all for the great advice! Some questions though:

1. OK now I understand the speakers are the most important things. But there are so many out there, what specifications should I be looking for? I know I could just take shadyJ's list and buy from it, but I am trying to get educated a little here.

2. Some speakers are bulky, some are tiny. I am thinking: I need to match up their styles a little. Or they will look mismatched. How did you guys do it?

Also, I thought Subwoofers just provide the heavy background sound. Never realize they are so important.

 

[GranteedEV]

1. OK now I understand the speakers are the most important things. But there are so many out there, what specifications should I be looking for?

When possible, try to get yourself auditions of speakers which fit the following criteria:

Flat listening window frequency response (measured/averaged 0 degrees to 15 degrees off axis horizontally and vertically) +/- 2db from 200hz to 10khz - so that the speaker isn't adding resonance or altering the tonality. Only a real, minimally smoothed and high resolution graph will show this. In the absense of a good hi res frequency response graph, there might be a decay graph that shows if the speaker has any ill behavior to avoid... we can help you out.

Smoothly tapering off axis frequency response @ 30deg, 45deg, 60deg - not only will this show that side wall reflections aren't adding to the sound. The more the off axis response mirrors the listening window response, the better.

Sensitivity/Impedance/Phase - you probably want at least 87 db sensitivity, and maybe as high as 95db sensitivity, impedance that doesn't go below 3 ohms, and impedance phase that doesn't go above or below 45 degrees unless the impedance is very high at the frequency.

Good Looks - it's gonna be in your home!!

2. Some speakers are bulky, some are tiny. I am thinking: I need to match up their styles a little. Or they will look mismatched. How did you guys do it?

? I don't quite follow your question. My front speakers are pretty slim, but large towers, the e55tis. My surrounds are the wall-mounted e5Bi. Having large towers as surrounds wouldn't be practical. Having small bookshelves as fronts wouldn't be effective.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Thanks all for the great advice! Some questions though:

1. OK now I understand the speakers are the most important things. But there are so many out there, what specifications should I be looking for? I know I could just take shadyJ's list and buy from it, but I am trying to get educated a little here.

2. Some speakers are bulky, some are tiny. I am thinking: I need to match up their styles a little. Or they will look mismatched. How did you guys do it?

Also, I thought Subwoofers just provide the heavy background sound. Never realize they are so important.

1) It's near impossible to choose speakers by specs. Speaker measurements - Graphs could shed some light, but a) only if not right and b) still not showing whole picture

2) No, background sounds are done by your surrounds.
Sub is responsible for all the low frequency sounds - critical for good experience for any action type movie. It will play all the thumps, booms and explosions. Also lower notes from grand piano, tuba, larger drums and few other instruments

 

[wxiao]

? I don't quite follow your question. My front speakers are pretty slim, but large towers, the e55tis. My surrounds are the wall-mounted e5Bi. Having large towers as surrounds wouldn't be practical. Having small bookshelves as fronts wouldn't be effective.

What I meant was that if I get speakers from different companies, wouldn't they look too different? But after reviewing Shadyl's list carefully, I already realized that his recommended speakers mostly come from the same company.

I do have a question about the recommended list. I counted the number of speakers, and there are 6. So you are recommending a 5.1 or 5.2 (two subs) system. I saw a lot of ads about 7.1 or even 9.1. Do you think those are necessary?

 

[timoteo]

Welcome,

With your budget, dont waist your hard earned $ on anything more than 5.2. Unless you had a very large seatin area with different seatin locations, 5.1 or 5.2 can be spectacular.

Keep your 5 speakers of the same brand & same series.

The sub/s are VERY important for a theater to sound great!! So keep a nice portion of your budget allogated to the sub/s. 1 well placed sub will sound better than 2 bad placed subs BUT!!!...2 well placed subs is ideal.

I highly agree with the idea of getting a budget receiver at your price range. $500-$600 will get you everything you need & more. Try looking on Audiogon.com for a good used receiver. (here comes a shameless plug!)...i am selling a perfectly functioning/looking Pioneer ELITE VSX01TXH for $250. Its a few years old but was NEVER abused & has been in my closet for 6months. Works & sounds fantastic. HDMI, HD audio decoding, pre-outs, the works!! Just thought id throw that out at ya

Ive heard great things about the EMPTek speakers!
HSU Research has wonderful sounding bookshelves for $130ea. They sound way better than their price range, serious!!

Get a sub from HSU, SVS, Rythmik or Outlaw! There are others but i cant vouch for them.

Read up on:
Speaker Setup
Speaker Placement
Sub Placement
"The Bass Crawl"
Room Acoustics

Hope this helps!!!

You've now been bittin, welcome to AA!!!

 

[shadyJ]

You will want to keep your front stage (the left/right fronts, and center speaker) all within the same product series, but it isn't as critical with the surround speakers. For the surrounds, I would just go with a good, neutral, direct-radiating bookshelf speaker that is powerful enough. Personally, I am not a fan of the dipole/bipole surround design, there is nothing bipoles/dipoles can do that direct-radiating can't do better, and for less money as well.

 

[wxiao]

This is what I am thinking about right now:

front left/right: Primus p362
center: Primus p350
Surrounds: Primus p162
Subwoofer: LFM-1 plus (Should I buy two?)
receiver: Onkyo TX-NR-809, or Pioneer sc-55 (or sc-35?). There was a suggestion that the sc-55 is an overkill but it is running a huge sale right now.

Budget: about $3000. Room: 20x14.

Please comment/criticize/refine the list. I will wait for a couple of days for comments. Thanks a bunch!

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

This is what I am thinking about right now:

front left/right: Primus p362
center: Primus p350
Surrounds: Primus p162
Subwoofer: LFM-1 plus (Should I buy two?)
receiver: Onkyo TX-NR-809, or Pioneer sc-55 (or sc-35?). There was a suggestion that the sc-55 is an overkill but it is running a huge sale right now.

Budget: about $3000. Room: 20x14.

Please comment/criticize/refine the list. I will wait for a couple of days for comments. Thanks a bunch!

This is a solid 2k system not 3k. We all like primus series for the high value. Same goes for lfm-1 - good budget sub. and again you're over-budgeting on avr, especially primus series are easy to drive.
As I recommended before: a Mid-level AVR should do fine I'd watch for A-800 - it was recently on sale for $300 will very likely to drop to closer to $300 very soon. It's a lot of AVR for very little money
| Decide

$547 for Onkyo TX-NR709 is another good deal:
TX-NR709 - Onkyo 7.2 Channel Black AV Home Theater Receiver at Abt

Outlaw subs are ok, but if you getting only one sub, i'd get the SVS PB12-NSD - you will get what you are paying for.
For dual subs Rythmic FV12 would be my suggestion.

 

[timoteo]

+1 for not spending too much on avr

Getting good subs is much more important!!

The Outlaw is a good sub. Id look into the EX version.

 

[Guinness6]

Thanks all for the great advice! Some questions though:

1. OK now I understand the speakers are the most important things. But there are so many out there, what specifications should I be looking for? I know I could just take shadyJ's list and buy from it, but I am trying to get educated a little here.

2. Some speakers are bulky, some are tiny. I am thinking: I need to match up their styles a little. Or they will look mismatched. How did you guys do it?

Also, I thought Subwoofers just provide the heavy background sound. Never realize they are so important.

1. Really, the most important specification is what sounds best to you. Listen to as many different brands/lines as you can in person and make your decision from there (maybe with some help of online research & your dealer). What do you want - something that looks great in graphs, or something that makes you grin every time you turn it up?

2. Generally speaking you want to match your speakers so the timbre matches. (That being said, once again, I think it really depends on what sounds best to you).

As far as the way speakers look, its also up to you. There are benefits & shortcomings to buying towers and benefits & shortcomings to buying bookshelf units. Some people like the way speakers look (others don't & want them hidden), some people like different-looking speakers (others are happy with a plain black box).

Hope that helps?

 

[wxiao]

1. Really, the most important specification is what sounds best to you. Listen to as many different brands/lines as you can in person and make your decision from there (maybe with some help of online research & your dealer). What do you want - something that looks great in graphs, or something that makes you grin every time you turn it up?

2. Generally speaking you want to match your speakers so the timbre matches. (That being said, once again, I think it really depends on what sounds best to you).

As far as the way speakers look, its also up to you. There are benefits & shortcomings to buying towers and benefits & shortcomings to buying bookshelf units. Some people like the way speakers look (others don't & want them hidden), some people like different-looking speakers (others are happy with a plain black box).

Hope that helps?

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. My problem is I live in upstate New York, and there is really no place where I can actually go and listen to these speakers. I pretty much rely on expert opinions for this purchase.

 

[wxiao]

Since all of you say subwoofers are extremely important, I figured I should relax my budget constraint on this a little. So far people have suggested these:

Rythmic Audio D15-SE
Hsu vtf-15h
Hsu vtf3 mk4
LFM-1 plus

Which one should I go for?