Almost time to speaker shop........

[muncybob]

Our "game room" will be needing 2 floor standers by the end of the year. Looking for personal experience/suggestions on models that would sufficiently give good low end and fill a room with decent mids while playing music. I do not plan to add a subwoofer. The room is 18 X 30 and the speakers will need to be in the corners of the smaller width wall on either side of a 9' pool table. Walls and 9' ceiling are drywall...except for one wall which will be all wood.... and floor will be wall to wall carpet. I expect that I will probably need to treat the room some how but will cross that bridge when I get to it....looking for suggestions on speakers around $2000. This will be an all music room and probably not at very loud levels, after all you want to be able to carry on a conversation while shooting pool or sitting at the bar! I have some Axioms as rear speakers in the movie room and am happy with them but have not heard the Axiom floor standers and not sure if they can fill this size room on their own????

 

[Nick250]

There a ton of speakers to check out in that price range. I was recently shopping for speakers myself (now waiting until the new Paradigm Studio series come out) and quickly got information overload from all the recomemndations. It turned out that for me, listening in store to all the usual suspects that were sold in my area was the best way to start. Good luck on your search!

Nick

 

[muncybob]

Yep Nick...and I hope info overload is not what I get here. I'm more or less looking for people that have had similar room size to fill with music with only 2 speakers...not really looking for speakers that "ounded good in the store" experience or what sounds good in a 5.1 system. Unfortunatley my choices are limited within reasonable driving distance but I am willing to make a road trip to audition speakers that are suggested here by people in similar room set up or people that are only using a 2 speaker system. As a minimum I'll probably try any online dealer that has a good return policy(like Axiom).

 

[Mort Corey]

If you're considering internet companies, with a good trial period, you might consider Ohm Acoustics. The Mark II 200 will give you solid lows down to 25 with great mids and highs in that sized room.

Mort

 

[audiohead01]

Read the reviews on BG Z-7

These are in my family room and mostly used for music while entertaining. I have enjoyed them immensely, so much that I sell them. Just read the review and see what you. All in all I would look at many reviews from different sources, if you want an idea of cost contact me. good luck, there are a lot of great names out there.

 

[Haoleb]

The Axiom M80's will fill a room that size no problem. Provided you've got the power. The room i have mine in right now is quite large, with vaulted ceilings that go up to 13' or so. Yes it does take an extra click on the volume knob to reach the levels it would in a smaller room but still pretty far away from exceeding the output levels of the speaker. You should have no problems reaching adequete levels with almost any speaker if you only want it as background music. The types of levels I sometimes listen to are up in the 95db range, Cant carry much of a conversation at that level.

 

[billnchristy]

I have a set of Onix 760s in a 16.5 x24 room. They play deep and loud in that room and if you have a good amp I imagine you would have no issues whatsoever.

BTW there is a demo pair in Piano Rosewood (absolutely gorgeous) in the B stock section for 1349. (they have no cosmetic flaws).

 

[Nick250]

Yep Nick...and I hope info overload is not what I get here. I'm more or less looking for people that have had similar room size to fill with music with only 2 speakers...not really looking for speakers that "ounded good in the store" experience or what sounds good in a 5.1 system. Unfortunatley my choices are limited within reasonable driving distance but I am willing to make a road trip to audition speakers that are suggested here by people in similar room set up or people that are only using a 2 speaker system. As a minimum I'll probably try any online dealer that has a good return policy(like Axiom).

I hear you muncybob, all I can say is that going on some auditions really helped me move forward in the speaker selection process (which we know is on hold for the moment). Unfortunately I did not listen to any $2k towers during my auditions so I can't make any specific recomendations other than to say I liked the Boston Acoustic, Paradigm and B&W products I listened to.

Nick

 

[muncybob]

Great responses...thanx!! The power available to these speaker is a question on my mind. I have the Yammy RX-V1400 to which I seem to have misplaced the owners manual...but I want to connect these speakers to the "presence" channels to allow the Yammys zone2 amp to deliver seperate material than the "movie room" which will be running the 5.1 set up. Anybody know how much power I'll get from the "presence" connections in zone2??.............I just founf the owners manual online and it appears that the internal zone2 amp will run these speakers at 110 watts each...seems to be decent power. I have always wanted to audition the Ohm speakers and didn't realize they had a decent return policy....hmmmmmmmmm.

 

[dentman67]

Unless you have really deep pockets and 2 g's is no big deal I really so reason in the world to spend that kinda money on speakers that will not be used for any real critical listening and will be placement chalanged . Treating the room will be a must and is fairly simple and cheap .

JBL tower speakers love to be played loud and will fill that room with ease . This type of speaker would not be my choice for any kinda critical listening but for a room thats desighned for fun and games and is on the large side this type of speaker is very much at home.

It's been a long time since I looked at any JBL's but I'm pretty sure they still $500.00 a pair towers with good size woofers.

Just a little food for thought.

 

[muncybob]

dentman....it's not like I want to spend $2k . I'll gladly depart with as little as possible of my greenbacks!! It's also not really how loud the speakers will play that's on my mind...more like how good they'll sound at lower volumes while carrying on conversations.
With that said, while there will be very little "critical" listening in the game room(but I do not like listening to any music on mediorce speakers) it will be an area that I will listen to music a lot since this is the only part of the house I can crank up a bit of volume and practice some pool shots by myself while the Mrs. is getting some shut eye(works 3rd shift). I'll have to awit until after 10pm to go into the 5.1 room to really shake the walls.

So in short I want to spend as little as possible(with a ceiling of $2k) and have great sounding speakers at low volume that can also sound great at mid volumes. I really just want the best of everything ...but then who doesn't??

 

[dentman67]

Ok I get where your comming from now.

Let me ask you , is there any reason why you dont want to go with a sub ? I really think you would be better off going with a good sub (svs/hsu) to fill that large room . A pair of Paradigm Studio 20's and a sub from one of the mentioned companies would make for one heck of a combo.

 

[muncybob]

No sub due to distance from receiver in the "5.1" room(well over 50')...and, while the game room is not yet finished all the walls and wiring are already in place and I doubt the Mrs. will go for a hole up through the floor to run the cable. Plus I don't think I can run a seperate subwoofer signal to the game room in the event the "5.1" room is being used for some other material at the same time(which very well may happen when friends show up with kids and want to shoot a game of pool while the kids watch a movie). While I mentioned $2k earlier I want to be a frugal as possible due to impending pool table purchase...I just threw out the $2k figure thinking it will cost me that much easily to accomplish the goal here.