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Help Choosing Speakers!!

Discussion in 'Receivers and amplifiers' started by qxklownxq, Apr 18, 2007.

  1. qxklownxq

    qxklownxq Member

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    I am getting so overwhelmed with all of the different speaker options for my home theater!! I have been reading review after review, page after page on speakers... If anybody has any suggestions on what I should do I would I would appreciate it more than you know.

    I have a room that is 26x17 with the tv centered on the far end on the 17ft wall. The tv is a 58 inch Panasonic plasma (th-58px600u) and the receiver I have is a Denon AVR-2807.

    Originally I was thinking about getting only wall mount speakers for convenience, but now I am considering floor, so that I can get more of a full range. I want to make sure that I have speakers that I can crank up for movies and get the full effect of explosions and such, but also be able to listen to some music and hear it the way it was meant to be heard.

    As for timber matching...do all speakers need to be timber matched? or just fronts and center? What exactly is timber matching?

    What about power? The receiver puts out 110w per channel...what's the minimum db I should look for in the speakers? Can fronts be different from center and rears? or should they all be the same?

    The couch sits about 14 feet from the tv, so should I go with a 5.1, or 7.1 because of the lenght of the room and location of the couch? If I go 7.1, should the back and mid be the same?

    As for the sub...I'm leaning towards the Outlaw LFM-1 Plus. Is 350 w enough for a room that size? Any other suggestions?

    Aside from the sub, I don't want to go over 2k - 2.5k max.

    Again, thanks in advance for any help you guys can give me. Let me know if you need any more info.
     
  2. gerry1

    gerry1 Guest

    @qxklownxq...The 2807 is an excellent piece of equipment. There are so many brands of excellent speakers from which to choose. You wrote that you listen to a lot of music so I would stay away from wall mounts or sats because, while some a truly excellent speakers and not "economy speakers" as they once were, they all operate on the same principle: they cut off at the lower frequencies of the mid range and route is to the sub. This is fine for movies but can get a little strange with music. Lets say you're playing classical music .. the musician is playing a viola (lower frequency violin)and its coming from your left channel, as he plays lower, all of a sudden the sound moves from the left channel to the sub. Its like he got up and moved to another location. Its pretty wierd sometimes. Towers are full range as are most bookshelf but bookshelf are weaker in the lowest octaves.

    Timber is very important; all your speakers MUST be timber matched or it can sound terrible. Timber is the "color" of the sound,i.e., my mirages are rather color neutral while polks are very bright. I learnt about color by chance: I wanted some rather pricy stuff so I bought the two mains and center first and borrowed two polks for the rear. Two brands of top of the line speakers which sounded like crap together. The effects go around the room through seperate channels; when one speaker sounds different from the other, the effects aren't a smooth transition from one speaker to the next but sound rather "choppy" for lack of a better term. Say a helicopter is taking off and the effects go from front to rear, it sounds like a totally different helicopter when it hits the rears because the speakers have a different "timber". Its important that all the speakers be matched ... same make and series. Most will have both mains and the surrounds that match them. The only other option is to buys speaker "packages" which are already timber matched. You're really taking your chances if you mix and match brands at random.

    The only exception to the timber rule is the sub as its the very lowest frequencies which are, for the most part, non directional. Your sub is NOT a fourth front speaker. A sub should be seen but not heard even if the volume is up. If you can literally hear the sub working than you either have it improperly set up or its too weak for your system and straining. My favorite subs are Klipsch and Mirage but there are plenty of good ones. 300w should be fine but if you live in a place where you can really crank up the volume, I certainly wouldn't go any lower in the wattage.

    When you start talking top of the line equipment, it becomes a matter of personal taste, not a matter of quality and that truer with speakers than anything else. I would go to a showroom and listen to the speakers though a 2807 or similar Denon and see what you prefer and then do some price hunting. I have Mirages all the way around but my actual favorites are Ohms but they're pricy:

    http://www.ohmacoustics.com/

    Their site has a lot of good info even if you're not buying their speakers and you can post information like you did in this thread and they'll tell you what they think is best. I was really impressed when a friend of mine had decided to buy their larger more expensive line and they wrote back and said they were too large for the room size he gave and that he should consider this other model which was actually quite a lot cheaper. Check them out just for the hell of it.

     
  3. qxklownxq

    qxklownxq Member

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    Thanks Gerry.

    What do you think about floor standing fronts with built in subs/amps? If I do this, should I still get an additional sub?

    The speakers I am considering are Definitive Technology BP7002.

    I really like the way these sound with music, and they are also great with movies.

    They have a built in 12" sub and 300w amp. The matching center also has an 8" sub with 150w amp.

    Should I also look into something similar without built ins?

    I am still going to go and listen to some other speakers later today.
     
  4. gerry1

    gerry1 Guest

    I'm on my way out the door and haven't had time to look at the reviews but the speakers sure seem awesome! Having subs on both mains is a real treat ... I have them as well and don't know how I did without them all this time! But yes, you will need to get a third sub anyway because LFE signals aren't in the signal to the mains; but if you can afford it, by all means get subs with the mains ... it will surprise you how much bass you DON'T hear from the mains even with the best amp and speakers .. that's because lower frequencies take a great deal more amplification than the higher frequencies; subs on the mains take care of that. Funny thing is, most people don't know what they've been missing until they hear the difference. Your Denon speaker set up menu will have two options for the subwoofer ... LFE and Main + LFE; use the LFE if you get the mains with the subs. Naturally, set the mains to "large". If you can, opt for subs with the mains; you WON'T be disappointed.

    Edit: I misinformed you a bit. If you go into the speaker set up menu and turn the subwoofer off, that LFE signal will come through your mains so, technically, you can do without the additional sub and operate only the subs in the mains but the Low Frequency Effects (LFE) won't be quite the same as it woun't have its own dedicated and seperate source.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 19, 2007

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