Budgeting for speakers / subs / etc.

[Alamar]

In the somewhat distant future I'm going to be upgrading my current set of speakers / sub / receiver / etc.

I've been reading a lot of reviews of "recommended systems" and it seems like the recommended percentage of the budget spent on a subwoofer [compared to subwoofer + other speakers] is roughly 20-30%.

Would I really be cheating myself if I used too much of my budget for subwoofer(s)? [Say 40%]

NOTE: I'm not a bass-head and intend to level match and eventually calibrate [smooth out FR] any upgrades that I end up with to the best of my limited ability.

 

[jinjuku]

That would be dependent on your budget. Is it $1000 or $10000

I think you can get away with favoring one component in a setup when you have a large budget by virtue that your other components are still going to be relatively nice anyways.

My 0.02 dollars.

 

[no. 5]

Would I really be cheating myself if I used too much of my budget for subwoofer(s)? [Say 40%]

In my opinion, no. A good subwoofer (or, better subwoofers) is very important to good sound, even if you're not a bass head, something that will play cleanly and "quickly", even if it's only to around 30Hz to 40Hz will do a lot.

If you are really into calibrating, you way want to look into a spectrum analyzer (there are some freeware RTA and other acoustic analyzer programs available if you don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a stand alone device).

 

[Adam]

I agree with no. 5 in that 40% isn't too high of a percentage. Those percentages are just guidelines anyway. I recently bought a new sub, and I just calculated the percentage of cost of it compared to the total of speakers plus sub (and accounted for inflation because I bought my speakers in 1998), and the sub cost was...get this...40% of the total. I'm very happy with the new sub and do not think that it's too much for the speakers.

 

[Alamar]

That would be dependent on your budget. Is it $1000 or $10000

I think you can get away with favoring one component in a setup when you have a large budget by virtue that your other components are still going to be relatively nice anyways.

My 0.02 dollars.

"Relatively nice" is a slippery term.

While I'll have to make adjustments for my house, room size, etc. I was considering up to about 1K on a subwoofer [Hsu?] and up to 500 if I felt that I needed it on a mid-bass module [also Hsu].

That's up to 1500$ in my budget allowed for bass.

I'm thinking of having roughly a 2000$ budget for the rest of my speakers. The 2000$ will need to cover 6 side & 1 center speaker.

I'm thinking of getting a primary sub first. If for some reason I decide that I want a mid-bass module I'll get that a little later. I'll save up a while after that and get my other 7 speakers at once.

BTW: No HTiB for me ... I think that I can cobble together a better system on my own.

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As for the final budget numbers I'm a "best bang-for-your-buck" kind of guy so I'm willing to move up or down a little if it means that I'm getting decent quality and a lot for my $.

 

[Johnd]

It sounds like you've worked out the budget ratio. To answer your initial question...no. 40% is not to much to allocate on speakers. In fact, an editorial by Audioholics proposed this very ratio.

 

[Davemcc]

I think your sub/speaker ratio is just fine. Your $1,500 sub budget does put you in range of the SVS PB13-Ultra, the Big Dawg. It's something to look into at least.

 

[Alamar]

I think your sub/speaker ratio is just fine. Your $1,500 sub budget does put you in range of the SVS PB13-Ultra, the Big Dawg. It's something to look into at least.

I'll try to keep that in mind. I'm open to any sub that's clearly better for the same amount of $ ... I have no loyalty beyond value/quality for my $

Are there any reviews of this sub [links] that you could point me to?

FYI: Part of the reason that I was leaning towards the Hsu [to be honest] is that a VTF3-HO or VTF3-HO-Turbo may be plenty for me without even needing to invest the extra $ in a mid-bass module.