i need help in determaning whats i need for a good loud cheap system

[sam187]

now that i have decided to not buy a home theater in a box there's a few things i need to know if some one can help. when i look for my speakers what should be the minimum requirements for some one looking for a good one that loud how many watts -ohms-what should the senceativity be? should all the speakers be same ? or four the same with a different center?should the back ones be diff power? how about the woofer, what details should i look for in a woofer one that puts out a nice amount of bass. this would be a big help because im still not shure what kind of receiver i will get any info will be very much appreciated. thank you

 

[chadnliz]

Well you have alot of work ahead of you, first if you want loud get efficient speakers....over 90db atleast. Second, atleast 3 speakers need to match and by that I mean at minimum a center that is "Voiced" to match your mains, it isnt going to literally match which can be really difficult to incorporate if the mains are tall towers.
The rears ofcourse in a perfect world should match and it is more important for music than movies viewing but many can and do run rears from others makers for a number of reasons including price, performance and in my case certain features not available from my mains company.
Safe bet is to get 8ohm speakers but 4 ohm will work as long as you make sure your reciever/amp can run stable at that decreased resistance. If you plan to use a sub you would want speakers that atleast are in the 60-70hz bass region and if you go with towers and play what I assume would be rock and pop 30-40hz will pretty much give you full range bass.
Something to think about is placement, if you are going to need to place speakers very close to wall you are not going to want a rear ported speaker.it needs room behind it to breath and give proper bass. Also when you look at speakers power rating remember there is really no such thing as too many watts......sure there is overkill but many see a speaker with say 150w max power and fear adding an amp that goes over 200watts, you are way more prone to blow a speaker by an amp that runs out of power than the opposite.
I would suggest if you are really new to this then ask around about speakers you like and get feedback from us with experience and try try try to listen to them with music you know and enjoy, its a gamble buying speakers unheard.
Ask folks here about speakers and recievers you are loking at as there is a wealth of info to be had here and other websites, feel free to send me an email if you want help, we all started as a NooB at one point and asking around will save you from making mistake most older folks made before the net offered so much instant help.
There is ofcourse much more to this then I can rattle off in short order so again ask lots of question and have some fun! Cheers

 

[holden_stroker]

my idea - again

would be to go into an audio shop and have a listen to all the range they have in there, this will get you a pretty good stand on whats avilable and show you first hand whats out there in your price range.

ideally you should match up all the speakers, ive matched my fronts with the surrounds, but have a yamaha centre - as its pretty much just used for voices in movies - it didnt bother that much. next on the list is a sub, and im not sure where to go with that so im holding off for a litte

ohh and buy a decent receiver to start with and make sure it will do want you want because i thought i had a decent receiver until i found out the following..

-it doesnt support hdmi
-it only has one optical input
-you cant run optical when using component video (you can only use coax with it!!)
-id like to manually set each speaker while still listening to it - which i dont think i can do - i can only use the test tone feature..

umm, thats about it really

didnt realy help you much thinking about it

 

[bandphan]

devote the majority of your budget to speakers. you want to timbre match the lcr( this will provide seemless transition) the surrounds do not have to match the lcr. Once you have a budget im sure you will get a lot of suggestions, but consider placement in the room and speaker size. Speakers with a sensitivity over 91db will be fairly easy to drive.

list some details of the room, and your general thoughts on what you would like along with your BUDGET, and you will get some good ideas to get yourself started

 

[njstev]

see my post in your other thread

 

[rnatalli]

First off, what's the budget for the entire system?

Speakers with a rating of 8 ohms and sensitivity of 90+ don't require a lot of power to get going. Klipsch is a good example. But just because a speaker has those specs, doesn't mean they'll play that loud without distorting. The SVS SBS-01 and RBH TK-5C are a couple of speakers I've heard that play really loud, but they need a good amount of power to do so. Boston Acoustics get up there as well. I believe the soon-to-be-released Yammie 663 should be enough. As an alternative, there's always Cerwin Vega which are fine if you want loud party speakers and don't need much refinement.

Oh, and for strong bass, get a sub from HSU or SVS. No HT should be without a sub.

 

[Exit]

To rough in your system, I would consider the SVS SBS-01 5.1 system for speakers and subwoofer as a basis to beat. The subwoofer has low extension bass response (i.e. to 20 Hz I believe) which is hard to find in a subwoofer in that price range. Then the only decision is getting a receiver to match them. I ran stereo bookshelf speakers with 8" woofers quite fine for many years on 65 Watts/channel RMS, 20 to 20,000,etc. I would think a receiver with that much power should work ok. (Surround sound processors route the bass load to the subwoofer which reduces power demands by the speakers so you really don't need real high power.) I now run my system with about 110 Watts times five channels which seems to be a lot more power than I use. (No such thing as too much power - runs at lower distortion that way.) You should look at the receiver for features you want, such as at least two HDMI inputs and HDMI processing for HD sound if you want the latest technologies. I am happy with Dolby 5.1 for now, but I have not heard HD sound so I can't say whether that feature is a must have or not. Make sure it has at least two optical inputs in any case.

 

[Exit]

To rough in your system, I would consider the SVS SBS-01 5.1 system for speakers and subwoofer as a basis to beat. The subwoofer has low extension bass response (i.e. to 20 Hz I believe) which is hard to find in a subwoofer in that price range. Then the only decision is getting a receiver to match them. I ran stereo bookshelf speakers with 8" woofers quite fine for many years on 65 Watts/channel RMS, 20 to 20,000,etc. I would think a receiver with that much power should work ok. (Surround sound processors route the bass load to the subwoofer which reduces power demands by the speakers so you really don't need real high power.) I now run my system with about 110 Watts times five channels which seems to be a lot more power than I use. (No such thing as too much power - runs at lower distortion that way.) You should look at the receiver for features you want, such as at least two HDMI inputs and HDMI processing for HD sound if you want the latest technologies. I am happy with Dolby 5.1 for now, but I have not heard HD sound so I can't say whether that feature is a must have or not. Make sure it has at least two optical inputs in any case.