New to receivers/subs; advice for proper mates to my Klipsch 5.1 Satellites?

I

Infantwar

n00b
Joined
Jan 2, 2009
Messages
45
Hi folks. Well after several years of excellent service, and right after I purchased a Blu-Ray drive for my PC, my Klipsch 5.1 Ultra subwoofer woofed its last, leaving me with just the speakers to carry on its legacy. I read up on the possible avenues of repair, but I'm taking this as a sign to take my first steps away from "computer speakers" and into the big leagues (though not as big as most of you, I'm sure). Here's the scoop. Skip to last paragraph if brevity's your thing.

From what threads I've looked at, it seems my best bet for now, given the sudden nature of the sub failure, and the time of year (money's tight since I have Christmas presents to buy for the family and girlfriend), is to buy a receiver first, then sub (I'll just have to live without the bass for a bit), and finally upgrade the speakers a ways down the road.

I'd like the receiver to be something I can keep with me for a while to come so I can grow into it as I continue to upgrade. (all I can identify receivers with is my father's which he held on to for AGES) Right now, I'm torn between this Onkyo TX-SR507 from the 'Egg for $280 shipped, and the Onkyo Ht-rc160 from Accessories4Less for $300 shipped. I know one's 5.1 and one's 7.2, but thought the latter for $30 more with the chance to upgrade channels later might be a good deal? If I've read up correctly, both of these are good quality receivers that would offer lots of expansion room for other devices (a 360 and Wii some day) and I think would play nice with the existing speakers from my Klipsch set, though I'm a bit baffled when it comes to matching speakers with other equipment, as well as getting it all connected to my computer's aging Audigy 2 ZS and playing blu-rays. $300 is really as far as I'd like to spend on the receiver part of this adventure.

As for the sub, I'm at a bit of a loss because all I really want is something that will provide similar if not a bit better performance than the one which just died. My room is 12'x18' and the sub did a pretty good job of delivering on movies, music and pc games (GTAIV, FO3, Warhammer 40k: DoW...) without sounding like a boomy mess. If there was one thing it may have lacked, just from a layman's perspective, it would be the ability to go a bit deeper for movies (LotR, Open Range, The Dark Knight, Hot Fuzz...). I live in a four-plex, but my neighbor rumbles the walls more than me, so no issue there, I suppose. :rolleyes:

In summary, I'm asking you aficionados:
Will the Onkyo TX-SR507 or Onkyo Ht-rc160 work with my Klipsch speakers and be a good value for an audio amateur hoping to grow? Budget: $300 to buy now.
What kind of subwoofer would be a reasonable replacement/minor upgrade with regard to lower frequency response (I think this is the right term :confused:) compared to the Ultra 5.1 sub? Budget: $250-450ish to buy post-Christmas.
Bonus question: will any extra cables, or other black magic be required to watch Blu-rays and utilize the new audio formats they tout on my PC?

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated. This is truly new and bizarre territory for me compared to the 'buy one box, open it, plug it all in, and go' scenarios I'm used to. Thanks again for your time and apologies for the novella!
 
The Rc160 is only $20 more, so i would go with that. For a sub, any entry level sub from hsu, svs, or Ed would be SO much better than the klipsh ultra's sub. As for getting Hd audio from your blu ray, you need a soundcard or graphic card (ati 5700 or 5800 series) that can do bit streaming. I would'nt worry about hd audio at this point with your setup. You probably cant even tell hd audio from normal DD or Dts with the Klipsh ultra's tiny speakers. After you replaced those, then you can start looking into HD audio again. my 2 cents.
 
Thanks for the info, especially regarding the HD audio options. I had my doubts about it being a night-and-day difference from Dolby Digital or DTS, and since it'd require an upgrade to either my GPU or sound card, I suppose I'll just cross that bridge when I get to it.

I'm going to bite on the Rc160 today and start looking into subs a little more seriously. I'm not familiar with HSU (a quick search on Amazon brings up all sorts of brands instead like BIC, Dayton and Polk), or Elemental Designs, but I'll do some further forum mining to see what people have to say about entry level subs from them. I've looked around the SVS site in the past, mostly to drool over their cylinder subs, but that would be a bit beyond my budget, I think. It's almost bittersweet to hear how easy it could be to get substantially better sound than what I already thought was pretty damn good. This may be a slippery slope. :D

As for the speakers, I guess I was hoping that since they survived the sub dying, I'd demote two or four of them to just rears and surrounds when I eventually upgrade my fronts/center then go from there. Would such mix-and-matching along the way be harmful to any of the equipment? Thanks again for the advice!
 
I used to have a set of 4.1 Klipsh speakers. You can use them as surround, they are really not that bad for rear duty. For the front, you will need to get bigger speakers so they can go lower ( under 80hz ). Sub needs to crossover at 80hz or under to sound their best. You probably need to set your Klipsh ultra speakers crossover at 150hz to 200hz. Most subs can only go up to 100hz or so on the crossover. You will be missing some 'mids' from 100hz to 150hz. You will be fine for now. With a good sub, it will sound better than before. Then upgrade the LR and Center when you have $$. I went from Klipsh media speakers to Axiom M2 to Ascend Sierra1. From 6.5inch Klipsh sub to 10inches hsu stf2 to 15inches Rythmik F15. Its been a fun journey. Looking forward for my next upgrade :).
 
Good to hear I'll be able to utilize the Klipsch's for a bit as stand-ins until more upgrades can come along in the coming year! I'm looking forward to taking similar steps towards better equipment as you have, though you probably knew a lot more coming out of the gates than I did. It's good to have an excellent base of helpful people like this who won't just talk down to me for being new to the scene though!

I'll have to do a lot more reading to figure out how to properly connect everything to my computer while still being able to get surround to work for games (too used to just matching up the colored cables!). I'll also have to read up on this crossover business since I've never had to deal with anything of the sort, let alone specifically adjust such things. Would I be doing these adjustments via the receiver or just on the back of the sub (I see in some pictures there's simply a dial on the back)? This new territory has me deathly afraid of accidentally breaking something by setting a level incorrectly. :(

Oh, while my finger's on the trigger for that Onkyo 7.2, I just noticed there is no connection dedicated to the sub which my friend says is important, though I'd think I could use the 'assignable coaxial' connection? He pointed me towards some cheaper receivers and while I'm definitely not against spending less money, I don't want to get something I'd regret in the long run.
 
Well disregard what I mentioned about my friend trying to convince me there wasn't a dedicated connection for the sub(s), after a bit of my own looking, I see there are dual sub pre-outs, so I suppose I don't have anything to fear there.
 
Crap, I just got home to see your post and it looks like I missed the boat a little! The two cheaper (but still great, from what [H]'ers have said) subwoofers they sell already sold out! There's still the big beastie tSc T300 which is a 300W with dual 10" drivers (too much for my room potentially making it a waste?). I may just bite on it and get that out of the way at a nice discount as long as it's something that would play nice with my incoming Onkyo (which I think it would) while making my movies and games sound spectacular.

Do you think this would be a worthy purchase with the 40% putting it at $228 shipped? Or would I be better off just waiting on a more reasonable sub instead of this monster and scooping some of their bookshelves instead?

What with picking up the Onkyo already and still having to get Christmas presents for the family, I'll have to reign it in at either the sub OR some front (they seem to have front/center combos too but not a lot of opinions about them) bookshelves.

Thoughts about a proper path to choose? Or is this just a 'pick one and stop fretting' situation?

Either way, thanks for the head's up on the discount!
 
i dont think you can get a better sub for $228. For $350-$400, there's better subs to be had. Its a hard choice to make. A new sub with the klipsch ultra speakers or new bookshelf speakers and no sub. Could you get the sub and just the L and R speakers? you can still use your klipsch for center and surround for now.$228 + $78 is about $300. If i have to choose sub or bookshelf, i will probably go with the sub since you are happy with the klipsch before.
 
I assume you meant the TSB 5.25" bookshelves for $78? I'm literally on my way out the door to work (stupid overnights) so I'm just going to hope the sub and/or speakers are still in stock and the sale is still on at 6AM. If not, I'll just say it wasn't meant to be and better things will come along! Thanks again for all your help!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top