How do I choose speakers for an amplifier?

I am currently trying to build myself a nice budget friendly sound system for my bedroom. Right now, I'm trying to get an Onkyo TX-SR304 through eBay. My question is, how do I go about choosing the right speakers for it? Any rules that I should follow? I'm hoping to keep the total cost under $200 for everything if all goes right(I don't mind sacrificing some quality for cost.

Thanks

 

Power.. size and price.. in that order.

Look for used.. they work out always as a good deal, but make sure you can hear them before buying or you may be in for a nasty surprise.. Aim for twice the rms power listed to what your amp (supposedly) throws out RMS. Then it's up to your ears.. go listen to as many sets of speakers as you can. Numbers on paper don't really mean anything apart from how much power you can push into them before they go bang.

 

I've heard that an amplifier could blow speakers, is this true? If so, to avoid this would mean just matching numbers between the speakers and the amplifier?

 

Make sure the amplifiers total RMS output per channel does not exceed the speakers rated maximum RMS handling. Don't hook a set of 50watt RMS speakers to a 100watt RMS amp. The speakers will be ok for a little while, but when you start cranking up the amp. you will ruin your speakers.

As varnull said, go twice the rated RMS of the amp.
Speakers are really a matter of personal taste, What sounds good to me may sound horrible to you.
Listen to as many as you can, before buying, I'm sure you'll find some that will make you happy.
Just stay away from bose.
Good Luck

 

I like Definitive Technologies Speakers


http://www.definitivetech.com/

 

So do I! Wish I could afford some more!

I've got a set of Mythos Gems on GemStands as surrounds and they sound great!

Bad thing for NYCllama is that the stands alone @ $259 a pair blows his budget.

I agree with Icanbe on the bose.

 

I believe Bose is way over priced and cheaply built,and a poor value for the money(but great advertising)
Sorry, but this is my opinion and it may differ from others here at aD.

B - buy

O - other

S - sound

E - equiptment

 

My opinion is the same as your's , they are crap.
I was in Bestbuy the other day picking up some DvDs, saw some poor guy with a salesman looking at the BOSE, over heard the salesman telling him how great they are,all the inovative technology bose uses, wanted to say something, but didn't, proabaly should have though.

 

@Icanbe, I thank you for the vote of confidence !

 

Anytime, well all need a little pat on the back now and then.

P.S. I wish I could afford a pair of Energy Veratis 2.8's , God I love the sound of those speakers.

 

i saw a nice onkyo 7-1 channel home theatre receiver and a synergy f-3 home theatre system speakers by klipsch playing wow some setup.the onkyo tx-sr875 looks like it has every thing 4 hdmi inputs included.

 

That would be a sweet set-up.

Looking at a TX-SR805 myself, just waiting for one to go on sale.

 

e bay doing a sale on repaired one,i bought the speakers and picking up onkyo amp on thursday ,probably spend weekend wiring it all up,oh and u have to buy ur own monster cable and connections.lol

 

Are you picking up the TX-SR875?

 

I have not bought an amp in a coons age. In the olden days the line out puts were fused. You can always put in smaller fuses if the amp has fuses.

You can always fuse your speakers. You just screw/glue a fuse to the back of your speaker. A few munutes and $10 will protect your investment.

 

Inexpensive insurance for a pricey investment. Well stated !

 

yes picked up unit and i also had to buy a sanus tv stand with 2 adjustable shelves because of size of unit it will sit on base along with dvd ram recorder and ext.hard drive,shelf above vcr,panasonic home theatre,cable and sat boxes,sony vaoi pc with blue ray ,and shelf above just enough room for my centre speaker.

 

Actually I came across a funny fact about fuses and their inability to protect speakers which I should share. As they are a current device and speakers are an emf device a direct short in a direct coupled output stage will blow the speech coils about 500ms before the normal slow blow fuse will rupture. Often you will kill speakers and find they have acted as the fused element, the fuse still being fine.. they also drop some volts and get hot.. after a while replacing them improves the sound quality as they get progressively higher resistance through heat cycling upsetting the loading, the output stage biassing and any damping from the zobel network.. The best bet if you have something like an OTL tube amp or the nasty Quad 405 is to fit a decoupling cappy of a suitable rating which will not protect from overload, but will save the speaker in the case of an output transistor short. Bet you wondered what those 2 big blue non polarised cans were for in series with the speakers and a nominal 0v at each end speaker arrangement. Ponder no more.. they protect the speakers from the amplifier voltage rails in the event of an output device short, and also provide some damping of the back EMF... Obviously a class A or AB (1/2/3) output stage will have a significant dc component at the speaker take off point so a cappy is essential. Also the bias on the output stage in true class B needs to be spot on to get the correct nominal 0v, so they are also used to save the hassle of matching output devices and setting them up... cheapskates!

(I know some real weird stuff eh?)

I used to have fun blowing smoke rings from JBL 400 watt 15" bass units on a regular basis. A peavy dc1200 was all, even with 6 drivers making 2400 watts supposedly.. transients ya know, but only ever blew one at a time, plus a drummer with some right foot attitude was a nice recipe.. I think the night I caused some poor soul to need 8 stitches in his eyebrow from a flying kick grill won the "crank it up" challenge. The grill hit him, followed by the aluminium former, remains of coil trailing wires and majority of the cone. Mournblade.. ahhh.. good times.

(oh don't we need an analog audio section... so much to discuss.. so little opportunity to pass this stuff to the next generation)

 

varnull, VERY interesting! My experiance would tend to support what you stated. The new digital recorders do not record that EM pulse. It 'clipps' the tops off sound spikes.

I only had one pair of fused speakers. They had 1.5 KW slow blow fuses. After many years I did remove the fuses because they were effecting the performance and I could not find replacements. Several years after that I had a 'pop' that blew out the speakers. I do not know if the fuses would have prevented the speakers from blowing.

Amazingly, I found a pair of replacements dirt cheap. Circut city must have had them for ages and they were moving to a new store. They took 150 W to get them warmed up. They had nothing in the store that could play them. I got the pair for $100. I never fused them but then I don't play music very loud.

 

Strange rating.. are you sure they weren't some kind of capacitor/resistance/sparkgap arrangement designed to protect the hardware and performers in the event of a lightning strike while used outdoors or something?

I had to fit 1.5KV sparkgaps to every speaker run on my large rig for health and safety reasons before I could use it at outdoor public events.

Fuses are normally rated in mA or A as KW is a measure of absolute power (volts x amps)1.e 1500 volts @ 1 amp (or more likely for speakers 15v @ 100A) = 1.5KW

Most amplifiers have either a fuse internally fitted rated at anywhere between 2.5 and 20A depending on power, or a relay overcurrent setup run from some suitable point in the output stage bias arrangements.
I have seen some strange devices used for protection of speakers over the years, including wire wound resistors which usually ran very hot.