Need help with speaker choices....

M

myriad1973

Audioholic
After months of (long) waiting, I will be in a good position to get a new set of 5 speakers before the summer, but I'm having trouble narrowing down my choices.

What I think I would need would be good general purpose speakers, since I will be using them for movies and music, and the music will vary from heavy metal to pop to progressive rock to classical.

The first consideration I made was TSC, but since they're out of business, I've been researching these models based on what I can afford. I can spend up to $1200 for the fronts, center, and surround (preferably dipole), and I plan on bi-amping:

JBL ES series
Polk Monitor series
Polk RTI Series w/ dipoles
Jamo Concert series w/ dipoles

Unfortunately the only speaker I was able to audition was at Best Buy and that was for the Polk TSI series (same as Monitor). There are no JBL or Jamo dealers in my area.

Any input, including pros and cons, will be helpful
 
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M

markw

Audioholic Overlord
Yeah, but it might not be too helpful.

I'll just throw out a few old chestnuts that, unfortunately, still seem to be true.

First off, be prepared to make compromises. No one speaker can be all things to all people on all music.

When auditioning, don't let them use sub-woofers. Just listen to the speakers.

Just listen to the speakers in in "plain Jane" stereo mode with no DSP enhancement (and no subwoofer!). Yes, I know this will just focus' on the mains but that's where most of the music comes from.

Towards that end, when you DO listen to speakers, use music as your gold standard, not movies. Virtually any speaker that sounds good on music will sound at least as good on movies. The opposite cannot be said.

Since you have varied tastes in music, bring examples that you're familiar with of each and listen carefully. There's no need to get anal about it but do give each genre and each selection a chance.

Once you've got the mains worked out, the center and surrounds should be from the same manufacturer/line and will fall right into line.

Finally, virtually any good sub from virtually any decent manufacturer will blend right in.

Good luck...

P.S If you must do it via the net due to limited local selection, be aware up-front of any exchange policies. Some are better than others. AudioAdvisor has a pretty good one and yes, that's a hint. :rolleyes:
 
J

jostenmeat

Audioholic Spartan
Anybody have any input?
I ran a couple of search function exercises for you. What I did was searched in loudspeaker subforum only, under titles only, for both "$1200" and "$1000". Not all responses are exactly pertinent to your query, as sometimes it's just front 3 for said budget, or sometimes for the subwoofer included too. However, they are all roughly in the same ballpark, especially if willing to forgo dipoles for surrounds, or starting the upgrade with the front three, etc.

$1200, I found 44 responses
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/search.php?searchid=4448387

$1000, there are 49 responses I found
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/search.php?searchid=4448393

Personally, for the bit I've heard, I like Ascend stuff. I just did a package example build for you, $1,118, for 3x 340SE & 2x 170SE.

http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/purchase/advisor.mv#bottom

To be quite honest, I think that just the surrounds in that package are better speakers than what are in 99% of the world's homes. Granted, there isn't a lot of extension with them.

I haven't heard them, but I would definitely consider listening to some Infinity Primus.
 
M

myriad1973

Audioholic
I digged a little deeper and expanded my budget to up to $1600 for the set and narrowed my choices to any of these depending on what I like the best as far as sound goes. However I won't be able to audition all of them, namely the JBL and the Energies:

Polk Monitor 70
Polk TSi500
Polk RTI10
JBL ES90
Klipsch VF-36
Klipsch RF-82
Energy CF-70
Polk RTi A7

I considered the Jamo C607, but the Onkyo won't be able to handle them in bi-amp mode (6 ohms).
 
M

myriad1973

Audioholic
I did it finally! I upgraded! Sounds awesome!
I went for the Polk Audio TSi500, Polk CS10, and Polk FXi A4 switchable bipole/dipole for surround. It's been a looooong wait, finally made the purchase, and I'm glad I did!
 

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