Whoa! TX-NR809 for $426! Holy cow. BUY IT!
lol
Seriously, I had no idea the 809 was being cleared out for that price! So thank YOU for pointing that out! The 809 has everything the 709 has, and then some. So that's an insanely good deal. Grab it before it's sold out!
I'd never tell someone to buy LESS subwoofer if you're ok with the higher price and physically larger size. If the VTF-3 MK4 really floats your boat, for whatever reason, then by all means!
The VTF-3 MK4 is actually a really great choice for use in a medium sized room now, and then a large room later. It's got a ton of filter and tuning options. So even though it's a physically very large sub, and capable of very very loud output, you can still set it up to work very nicely in a smaller room. It's extremely flexible that way. So it's a great choice. Just be sure you really understand just how big it is! It's a BIG sub. I'd highly recommend you make yourself a cardboard model of it using the dimensions listed on HSU Research's website. You definitely need to be aware of just how much room it takes up!
As for the speakers, it's very tough to put into words how some speakers are "better" than others. Truth be told, the differences start to get pretty small almost right away. It's the reason some people roll their eyes when us audio geeks talk about speakers
To most folks, the differences just aren't big enough for them to really care or think it's worth the money. But I like to only recommend products where there is an obvious difference. Something anyone would notice. And with no need to "prime" the person by telling them what they "should" hear. Just sit down, compare the two speakers, and have an obvious difference between them. To me, if you can't do that, what's the point, really? To us audio nuts, splitting hairs is fine. We'll spend thousands or even tens of thousands for minuscule differences. But I really don't expect "normal" people to do that
The only "bad" speakers are ones that outright fail to produce all of the sounds that are in a recording. And that's actually quite a few speakers out there. Especially cheap speakers. So that's what makes the Pioneer speakers so special. They are cheap. But they are good. They play all the sounds in any recording, and they play them quite accurately. Being able to do that at their price point is really rare!
So as soon as a speaker can reproduce all the sounds in a recording, and do so accurately, it's a "good" speaker. But that doesn't mean there isn't refinement to be had. And that's what more expensive speakers can offer.
Really, once you have all the sounds being reproduced accurately, what you're after now is mostly reducing all the various forms of distortion (and there are many many forms of distortion), and increasing the transient response, which are the starts and stops of notes and sounds. Those starts and stops are really really hard to get perfect. Speakers make sound by moving. And moving objects have inertia. To make a stationary object start moving, you have to apply force. And to stop an object that is already in motion, you have to apply force again. But speakers aren't just stationary or non-stationary. When they're playing, they're constantly shifting. The drivers have to move at different rates, at different amplitudes, and then stop on a dime when the signal calls for it. That takes a tremendous amount of control. And that's what we audio nuts are listening for, and what we're paying big bucks to achieve at ever diminishing returns.
So the Pioneer speakers are good. Astonishingly good for the price. What the Ascend SE speakers do is lower the distortion and increase the transient response. To the laymen, they simply sound "cleaner". It's not like a song will sound totally different on the Ascends vs. the Pioneers. But there's enough of a difference, IMO at least, that even a totally casual listener wouldn't mistake one for the other. That said, the difference and improvement in going from the Pioneers to the Ascends is no where near the same sort of improvement as going from "bad" speakers to the "good" Pioneers. From "bad" to "good" is a gigantic leap. It's why so many of us are so excited about the Pioneer speakers. Going from "good" to "better" isn't the same huge leap at all. It's just a refinement
But the best way I can put it is it's like going from HD cable to Blu-ray. Once you get used to Blu-ray, you can't help but notice the small flaws and imperfections in HD Cable. Now, HD cable already looks good! And the improvement from HD Cable to Blu-ray is no where near as big as going from SD to HD. But Blu-ray looks better than HD Cable. And once you're used to Blu-ray, everything else looks not quite as good by comparison.
That's the sort of difference I'm talking about. You get used to the Ascend SE speakers, and you'd notice the very minor flaws in the Pioneers. But the Pioneers are already good. And for the price, they truly cannot be beat.
You pay even more than the Ascend SE series - like, say, the thrillingly excellent Sierra Towers with the RAAL ribbon tweeter upgrade - and that's like going from Blu-ray to 4K. But you're paying quadruple the price to get there! So that's diminishing returns. Is it worth it? To us audio nuts, yes
But to a lot of people, even going from DVD to Blu-ray isn't something they really notice or care about. Lots of people think DVD is just fine. They certainly wouldn't pay 10x the price to get 4K!
So that's the situation with audio as well. "Good" quality now costs about $125 per speaker with the Pioneer SP-FS52 towers. That's your "DVD" or your HD Cable analogy. Pay a little more than twice as much, and you've got the Ascend CMT-340SE. Those are like Blu-ray. Then go 4x more expensive from there, and you've got the Ascend Sierra towers, which are like 4K in the video analogy.
You're paying exponential more for each improvement, but each improvement is smaller. Worth it? That's up to each individual. But hopefully, if my analogy makes sense, you'll be able to tell where you fall in the spectrum
