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SineDave

SineDave

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 9, 2004
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I've been bumming around listening to my Logitech Z-5500's for quite some time now, reading the threads on here and slowly my inihibitions have given way. I've decided it's time to go receiver and separate speakers/sub instead.

First of all this setup will be used primarily for music/movies, only the occasional game if ever. I'm looking to get something that has a great dynamic range and really makes me feel the music as if it was live - I hate that dead sounds cheap speakers put off. Given that I want to spend about 2grand on this system, would anyone be able to point me in the right direction as far as receiver/speaker choices?

I've been looking around locally at a few Denons/Yamahas , and i'm quite sure I could select a decent one, but I'm really not sure where to start as far as speakers go - towers vs bookshelves. I'm obviously willing to spend a fair bit for my first system, but I want to make sure that it's not a lot of money wasted on a system that won't really sound like it's worth what I paid. I've tried some searching, and looked at some of the DYI retailers, though i'm not positive if I can order from Crutchfield/AV123 since i'm Canadian.


Thanks for any responses.
 
Two grand is a lot to spend on a PC audio system. I can't recommend AV123 highly enough. I love their speakers and have a pair of X-LS bookshelves, an X-Sub and a Yamaha RX-V990 for my PC. The sound is just fantastic.

For about $2300, a pair of Strata Minis and a Yamaha RX-V659 would be tough to beat for stunning music and movies.
 
If your using the PC as a source are you running digital out or analog out?
 
Ultimately I plan on using the PC as a source only for my FLAC rips, i'll be using an X-Meridian, but at this point i'm not really sure if I should go digital or analog with the upgraded OPAMPs. The system will also be connected to a NAD CD player and my DVD player, though music listening will be done from the PC/CD player fairly equally.
 
Well, some additional questions before I start making recommendations:

1) How many channels? If you want a 2 channel system just for music you'll be able to get better quality gear than if you want 5.1 for games. Of course you can always get 2 and upgrade later.

2) How attached to the idea of having a receiver are you, or would you be willing to go with modular amps?

3) What kind of space are we talking here? You got room for large towers, or do we need to look at bookshelves?

That'll give me a better idea of what you should be looking at.
 
Thanks for your replies all.

Sycraft:

1. I'd ideally like to get a multichannel system if possible, i'd like surround for movie watching.
2. I'd be very willing to go with modular amps of course, but i suspect i couldn't do surround this way.
3. I have a large living room with space for towers and a sub, no issues there.

I really want to have high fidelity and crisp bass that't not too boomy, music is the primary focus, movies are secondary.
 
I'm saving money for a SVS system. I heard their system at E3 and was very impressed. You should check them out. For $999, I think it is a good deal for high quality bookshelves and an amazing sub.

http://www.svsound.com
 
I'm thinking X-LS series bookshelves/surrounds/center at the moment with a SVS PB12-Plus sub, now i just need to figure out which receiver to get.
 
check out the onkyo 605. It's coming out in the next month and has decoders for the latest codecs in case you ever wanted to hook a bluray/hd dvd player up to it and has hdmi 1.3 sound decoding.
I was in your same situation and went with the onkyo 605 and an av123 speaker setup. None of the parts have arrived yet though so can't tell you how happy I am with it.
 
Ok so some recommendations:

For receivers I'd go with Yamaha HTR series and nothing but. I am extremely impressed with these units. They sound exceptional for the money and the features are great. Also, they can be gotten for rather cheap online. For your situation a HTR-5960 should do a great job. It's got plenty of power, a multi-channel analogue input (which is how you'll need to hook it up to get surround for games) and more features than you'll use. Expect to pay about $330 shipped from an online merchant.

So this leaves around $1600 for the speakers, since we want to leave a bit of overhead for cables and such. This gives you two main options, depending on what you want:

1) A bunch of bookshelf speakers and a nice sub. This will give you the most powerful, deepest bass. The tradeoff is they aren't going to be as good for 2 channel music. You need to cross bookshelf speakers pretty high, at least 80Hz and maybe even 100-120Hz, and though you may not be able to precisely locate bass at that frequency, you'll notice the loss of stereo field.

2) Some nice tower speakers, with a cheaper sub and surrounds. This'll give you the best music experience, and a good movie one, just with the expense of some low bass power. Sub won't have to work as hard since the front speakers will be able to handle more bass on their own, but it won't be as good a sub either.

So, if option one appeals to you, I'd probably go with an all SVS setup. They make great stuff (I use a PC+ 20-39 personally) and they've got systems right in your range. You can get 5 bookshelf speakers for $600, or even for $450 if you buy soon and are willing to take white or silver (they are overstocked on those colours, but not black). That leaves you a grand for the sub. With that, I'd get a PC+ 20-39 cylinder sub or one of their box subs, though they do cost more. That'll give you extremely powerful, deep bass at crushing levels.

There is an intermediate sort of option in the form of the JBL Venue series. They are some good speakers for the money and you can get two towers, a centre and surround for $650 shipped form jr.com which will still leave you plenty for a nice SVS sub.

If you want some good tower speakers, well there's a bunch out there. Personally, I'm real partial to B&W, however I really like Paradigm as well. However, you'll blow almost your entire speaker budget on two nice towers. You could do that and stay 2 channel for awhile and upgrade later, you could also get some cheap surrounds (like some of the cheap Venue series ones) and go 4.0, a good soundcard should have no problems remapping the bass (and for movies the HTR will do it). That'll give you the best system for music, though less so for movies. That's basically what I had for a long time, some B&W 604S3s as fronts, 601S2s as rears, no centre, no sub. Not long ago I bought a centre and sub. It's a nice improvement, but you'd be amazed just how low good 2 channel speakers can go.

At any rate it kinda depends on what you are after. Either the all SVS or JBL + SVS solutions should give you some pretty good sound. In general, you want to stick with the same brand for all your non-sub speakers to give the best imaging, however it doesn't have to be that way.

Also in the upgrade line of thinking you can get the all SVS setup and wait for their tower speakers to come out. Get those, and move the front bookshelves back and have 7.1.

One final thing to note: Please take the time to setup the speakers properly. This will likely mean getting stands or wall mounting. It's kind a waste to spend money like this on a system if you are going to jam all the speakers in to a bad position.
 
First, thank you very much for your responses.

Jared - Thanks for the receiver recommendation, it does look nice.

Sycraft - It definitely seems like option one right now. My only concerns are as follows:
1) How do the SVS bookshelves match up to the X-series from AV123?
2) If I was to go with an SVS box sub would it match well with X-LS bookshelves or would I be better off keeping it all the same brand?
3) As far as your receiver recommendation, my only question relates to 5,7.1 - specifically, can this receiver take optical/coax in and decode DTS/DD signals when I watch DVDs. The final thing i was considering, was whether I should front the cash for a HD-DVD/BluRay audio capable receiver.

Thanks,

Dave
 
I've never heard the X-Series, but I'd guess the SVS speakers are as good or better. SVS really does a good job on their stuff. Also, if you really end up not liking them, you can send them back. You'll have to pay return shipping, but they do take returns.

It's not a concern to match subs to speakers really. The reason to stick with the same brand of speakers is that over the entire audio range, they are likely to have the same characteristics and thus give a smooth sound field. With the sub, well there's only one so that's not a concern. If you get multiple subs, you then usually want to buy them matched. Given the pure awesome of the SVS subs, that's the way I'd go, regardless of speakers.

Only thing to note about SVS subs is that other than the SB12, they are massive. Waaaay bigger than a normal sub you encounter. Just make sure you have space.

The receiver does decoding, wouldn't be a whole lot of use as a home theatre receiver if it didn't. It also can do auto channel calibration, up/downmixing to deal with differing numbers of speakers, special effects, dynamic range compression, and so on.

I'd give the Blu-Ray or HD-DVD receivers a miss on account of cost. If your computer is the source, they can do the audio decoding, and then you just get it via the multi-channel analogue input. If you are really worried about it, I'd probably just get an HDMI receiver. Then the player can just send the sound over that. The HTR-5990 would fit the bill, but run you more like $600.

I'd give the whole HD thing a miss until you are ready to spend the money. Then you can look at receivers that'll handle it. Right now it is rare and thus expensive. Give it a few years and when the players are cheap, the receivers will be too. They'll also likely be improved in other ways so it'll be a worthwhile upgrade.
 
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