Hi everyone, I've been doing a TON of reading here, on other sites, and Reddit about speaker options. I recently moved and have been re-building my home theater area in the basement (had to create the basement space first!). With that new space came a ton of limitations (size, spacing, etc) and at first I just threw everything together to get it set up... it sounded terrible. I was using the parts of my existing HT from my old house that had a solid HT room (standard rectangular room, finished walls and ceilings, wiring in the walls, etc). As stated, when I put everything together in the new house (it is an OLD house with an odd layout in the basement, and LOTS of hard surfaces due to the limitations of a 1950s home) it sounded horrible. I didn't think much of it but then recently we started to use the room more often and I noticed it was very bad, which is largely from my set-up (or lack).
Fast forward, we added some furniture to the area and I noticed that there was ZERO bass. I investigated and found out that the sub-out on my Yamaha AVR was not working. I created a thread here to diagnose the issue:
Sub out not working - help!
ANYWAY - the point of this thread is to mention that with all the above (odd room, not setting up the HT correctly, the Sub-out not working) it actually got me interested in HT again!
So I've been reading and researching about how to best set this room up, reviewing equipment, etc... My currently set-up is:
Andrew Jones 5 speaker system (gen 1)
Velodyne 12' sub
TCL 65-inch 4k TV
Yamaha RX-v685 AVR
I bought the AJ system a long time ago and its been fine, but I really didn't look in to upgrading it as it sounded fine and I had younger kids... etc... but now in a place where I can try to update the hardware and speakers. I am rolling with the Yammy AVR for a while, even though the sub-out isn't working (I'm using the pre-outs). I am adding Atmos speakers since I am going to re-wire everything, get placements correct and set up the speakers with the Yamaha AVR microphone.
What I'd like to do is start looking around at options for the LCR speakers. I initially was just going to go with a Klipsch RP series LCR, which is still on the table, but given all the hard surfaces I have to deal with maybe I need to look at softer/warmer sounding speakers. PLUS, it feels like everyone online has those copper woofers and I like to be a little different if I can. With my reading I am finding that the Center Channel for the AJ series was the weak link - and I AGREE. (That's what got me doign the research in the first place, the dialogue is almost not audiable/woofy and both my wife and I agree it was very hard to hear). So I started changing placement of the CC to get better dialogue, which worked a bit (took out of the cabinet and put on the top of the cabinet) but that started me thinking about upgrading the CC first and then adding the rest. I want to get a listing of decent options so I can be aware of them when I see sales or crazy good deals online.
The initial list is:
- Klipsch (as mentioned)
- ELAC (although AJ is the designer, which is fine but may be too similar?)
- KEF
- Wharfedale
But, are they other gems that I should look at in the $300 - $600 range (on sale or used) for the CC? I will want to match the speakers eventially, but I'll start with the CC and then add the LR. I want to get into higher quality speakers but not super-expensive (thinking $500 per speaker)
Sorry for the long post - hope it made sense!
