Speaker Audition's

[Advent]

Hi All,

Getting ready to purchase some speakers,there are a few brands that I'm interested in,but none of the local b&m's carry all the brands to audition them side by side. After pouring over reviews and reading posts on this forum and others,there seems to be a few factors that can influence the overall sound of the speakers (i.e) receiver/amp,listening rm,source material, etc.

We will be listening to 50/50 split, h/t & music (mostly rock). Even though we will be listening to mostly rock,are there any c.d's (redbook) that anybody can recommend to get a good overall impression of the speakers. We will be starting off with towers for the mains and adding center,sub and surrounds later.

Any tips and/or suggestions?

 

[kay]

Listen to something that you know well and representative of the music you're likely to play. It's more important to listen for acuracy than to something that will wow you but you won't know whether it's how it's supposed to sound or not

 

[RLA]

We will be listening to 50/50 split, h/t & music (mostly rock)

Hi
Source material that contains Feminine vocals, stringed instruments and piano are very good for evaluating loudspeaker performance. If you are into heavy rock and plan to play it back at high SPL levels you should seriously look at the Klipsch reference line they are the king of rock and roll and are very dynamic for Home Theater applications.

Without stereotyping anyone 95% of the clients that I have installed systems for that were into rock preferred the Klipsch over other brands that they auditioned this includes many musicians

Hope this helps

 

[kay]

What other brands are typically good for rock music? (Klipsh is not available around here )

 

[shokhead]

Cerwin Vegas

 

[RLA]

Hello
CV is not like it was back in the 70's and 80's Their build quality and perfromance much resemble the way JBL has gone

 

[MacManNM]

Hi All,

Getting ready to purchase some speakers,there are a few brands that I'm interested in,but none of the local b&m's carry all the brands to audition them side by side. After pouring over reviews and reading posts on this forum and others,there seems to be a few factors that can influence the overall sound of the speakers (i.e) receiver/amp,listening rm,source material, etc.

We will be listening to 50/50 split, h/t & music (mostly rock). Even though we will be listening to mostly rock,are there any c.d's (redbook) that anybody can recommend to get a good overall impression of the speakers. We will be starting off with towers for the mains and adding center,sub and surrounds later.

Any tips and/or suggestions?

How much do you want to spend? What receiver do you own/will buy? How big is the room? Does it have a concrete floor or is ther a basement/crawlspace under it?

 

[shokhead]

Hello
CV is not like it was back in the 70's and 80's Their build quality and perfromance much resemble the way JBL has gone

Is that good or bad? Dont see CV advertizing much.

 

[RLA]

Is that good or bad? Dont see CV advertizing much

Lets just say they are better than JBL's that are worse than BAD

 

[krabapple]

hmm..whihc JBLs do you refer to? JBL/Harman has one of the finest speaker R&D teams in the business behind it these days,, exemplified by Floyd Tool and Sean Olive.

 

[Takeereasy]

They also have one of the finest marketing teams in the business. No one can deny that JBL makes some amazing speakers, but their consumer aimed products chomp the big one IMO. Maybe their Studio stuff (the line above Northridge) is OK, I've never heard it, but the Northridge series is overpriced crap. The whole series. From the crappy N24IIs all the way up to the crappy floorstanding 100's. Yeah, I said it. It looks like all they researched for this speaker line is how to market like Bose. THey are living off past glory and name recognition. This is all my opinion, but I learned the hard stupid way. I owned some JBLs that got nice reviews on the net because I knew the name and didn't know any better.

Cerwin's speakers will blow away the Northridge series JBL's IMO, and are in fact still a good rock speaker. They will never win any awards for tranparancy, but they are very easy to drive, put out the SPLs, and have some thumping bass. You may also want to check out the Bic Acoustech floor standers. They are the cheaper alternative to Klipsch, and you could get them mail ordered pretty cheap I think.

 

[RLA]

Northridge series is overpriced crap. The whole series. From the crappy N24IIs all the way up to the crappy floorstanding 100's. Yeah, I said

Exactly
The bean counters and greed mongers have driven this one very fine loudspeaker manufacture into the garbage dump. The consumer JBL line is no better than the average white van speaker.

Don’t get me wrong I am for capitalism and making profit margins, but JBL should be ashamed to pawn this swap meet garbage off on unsuspecting consumers There I said it too

On the other hand this speaker from JBL is one of the finest speakers I have heard at any price. Hard to beleive it is made by the same company

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

To add to that, HK puts out some real crap for speakers. It's a shame because they make some nice receivers.

I was talking to a guy from Polk today and asked him why Circuit City pulled the RTi line of speakers. Here is his response.

"Circuit City stopped the RTi series because they felt it was not for their target demographic, so went for the Monitor series instead.

Eric
www.polkaudio.com
1-800-377-7655
(410) 358-3600"

They carry the less expensive R, RM, and Monitor series. You'll never see the RTi or LSi series in Circuit City again. They don't move.

Manufacturers want to make a profit just like anyone else. Sometimes the market drives production moreso than a company. Circuit City felt it was not moving the more expensive lines, so they opted for cheaper ones. Just like Best Buy dropped one of the best speakers they've ever carried - the Athena Audition line. It's a shame, because it means the demo days will have to be done in high end audio stores, then purchased on line to avoid paying retail.

 

[TjMV3]

Wharfedales' Evolution 30 and 40 are great with rock music. Their Opus series does a nice job too, but they're a bit more expensive and the wrong combination of CD Player/Pre Amp/ Amp could deliver a bright response and make rock music a bit less pleasant to listen to.

http://www.wharfedale.co.uk/range.php?range_id=2


Odyssey Audio's Lorelei and Nightingale are wonderful with rock music...and just about any other kind of music I can think of. Although, I've never tried Rap, Hip-Hop and so forth. I don't listen to that stuff.

http://www.odysseyaudiosg.com/speaker.htm

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/odyssey/lorelei.html

http://www.audioreview.com/Main+Speaker/Odyssey,Audio,Nightingale/PRD_132984_1594crx.aspx

http://www.odysseyaudio.com/order.html

 

[Tex-amp]

hmm..whihc JBLs do you refer to? JBL/Harman has one of the finest speaker R&D teams in the business behind it these days,, exemplified by Floyd Tool and Sean Olive.

That doesn't mean that the marketing dept doesn't run things. Obviously, the Revel line shows what Harman Industries is capable of.

I bought a pair of JBL E30s on close out. Sounded good at first about five minutes later and was unhooking them for how bad they sounded.


O.P. what is your budget?

 

[20to20K]

Let your ears and wallet decide...

...and maybe your eyes if your wife has a say!

Someone mentioned bringing source material you are most familiar with. That is the best advice anyone can give you. The music you are familiar is best for determining what sounds good to you...not some test disk that the guy in the audio shop tries to wow you with. There are plenty of great sounding rock CD's that you may already have in your collection:

Dire Straights - Love over Gold or Brothers in Arms
Steely Dan - Aja
Floyd - DSOTM, Wish you were here, The Wall
Peter Gabriel - Security
Rush - Moving Pictures
Police - Synchronicity(My least favorite...but best sounding unfortunetely)
Dave Matthews Band - Crash
Blues Traveller - Blues Traveller and Straight Until Morning

The new U2 CD sound really good as well.

Another thing...if possible try and find an audio shop with a liberal return policy. What sounds good to you in his shop...may not sound good in your listening room. Plenty of people have brought speakers home only to find that the acoustic differences between the two resulted in DRAMATICALLY different sound. Then you'r stuck with having to painfully EQ everything (which is just a kludge) or paying for expensive room treatments just to get decent sound. If you notice that the audition room is drastically different than your listening area, try to establish this upfront. If the guy is reasonable he should be cooperative. If not, I'd look for another shop if possible.

Also...HAVE FUN! Auditioning speakers is about as much fun as you can
have in public. Sometimes I do it even when I'm not looking to buy!

That's my 0.02.

 

[shokhead]

And i had someone say do not bring something you have listened to because of something that didnt make any sense to me. I've always took a few cd's of mine with me.