StoleMyOwnCar
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2013
- Messages
- 3,003
Copying this thread over here, too:
So, short story time if you don't mind. A long while ago, I asked about what I should upgrade my "home theater" speakers (at that point only a pair of Paradigm Atom V3's) to. As you can see in the conclusion of that topic, I went with a pair of Mordaunt Short Aviano 2's for about 300$. At that point it didn't really matter anyway because I was living in a condo and didn't get to exercise their full range anyway. Well now I have a home and I have somewhat seriously been building a home theater setup. The MS speakers were fine... but to me they always kind of felt... lacking... in some way. Like I didn't dislike them but I just wasn't really that impressed with them, and at the end of the day I felt like I... wouldn't say I quite wasted the money, but they just weren't my thing, and I felt that though I tried to gloss over it.
Anyway since then I've been buying a lot of speakers that randomly popped up at the thrift store. Currently I've got my 2x Paradigm Atom v3's as rears, 2x MS Aviano 2's as fronts, a random Polk CS100 as my center, and 2x Realistic Minimus 7's just hung onto the walls as secondary surrounds. Subwoofer is a random Mirage PS-10 I patched up. It works fine after I glued it together. Quite a lot of thump. This may sound like a Frankensystem, and it is. Thing is I was for now just looking to fill in all of the slots with mostly cheap thrift store stuff. (The Polk center was like 15 bucks). Other things I've tried were the Design Acoustics PS55 (not bad at all, just lack bass) and Pinnacle AC400 (not bad for a small package).
My receiver is a Denon AVR3806 which I got as a tipoff from another thread in this forum, and I must say that that it's a pretty amazing receiver. Its power output to my MS speakers is nothing short of phenomenal. If anything, that's one of the best decisions I've made, following advice in this forum. It's an amazing piece of kit. Too bad the one I got had a broken headphone amp though, I really wanted to try it out. X_X; Well that Ebay seller got a negative rating needless to say. Thankfully the speaker amps work great.
The TL;DR section below:
Well fast forward to today, I randomly picked up a pair of DCM speakers, which I later found out were the CX-17 by browsing the Audiokarma forums while in the thrift store. For 25 bucks seemed a tad expensive for thrift store fare, but I picked them up anyway, eager to try something new. I hooked them up to the Topping Tp20 MK2 in my bedroom. Well, lo and behold, these DCM's blew me the heck away. They literally sounded better than any other speaker I had ever listened to till that point. And it only got better when hooked up to my receiver. I feel like the MS speakers had their strengths, too but these had amazing separation, amazing directionality, and amazingly accurate bass. I still felt... something just a LITTLE lacking that I couldn't put my finger on, but otherwise they ticked every single box for me. So right now I'm pretty much considering browsing through Craigslist and Ebay and snatching up 2x DCM CX27 (basically the tower version of these with an extra woofer) for about 200$ total for front and back, and then I guess using these CX17's as the sides or just leaving them in my room.
Should I just go ahead and do that or is there something else I could consider? Money's been a tad tight after house purchase, so secondhand and cheaper is preferred. Oh and any advice for a center?
So, short story time if you don't mind. A long while ago, I asked about what I should upgrade my "home theater" speakers (at that point only a pair of Paradigm Atom V3's) to. As you can see in the conclusion of that topic, I went with a pair of Mordaunt Short Aviano 2's for about 300$. At that point it didn't really matter anyway because I was living in a condo and didn't get to exercise their full range anyway. Well now I have a home and I have somewhat seriously been building a home theater setup. The MS speakers were fine... but to me they always kind of felt... lacking... in some way. Like I didn't dislike them but I just wasn't really that impressed with them, and at the end of the day I felt like I... wouldn't say I quite wasted the money, but they just weren't my thing, and I felt that though I tried to gloss over it.
Anyway since then I've been buying a lot of speakers that randomly popped up at the thrift store. Currently I've got my 2x Paradigm Atom v3's as rears, 2x MS Aviano 2's as fronts, a random Polk CS100 as my center, and 2x Realistic Minimus 7's just hung onto the walls as secondary surrounds. Subwoofer is a random Mirage PS-10 I patched up. It works fine after I glued it together. Quite a lot of thump. This may sound like a Frankensystem, and it is. Thing is I was for now just looking to fill in all of the slots with mostly cheap thrift store stuff. (The Polk center was like 15 bucks). Other things I've tried were the Design Acoustics PS55 (not bad at all, just lack bass) and Pinnacle AC400 (not bad for a small package).
My receiver is a Denon AVR3806 which I got as a tipoff from another thread in this forum, and I must say that that it's a pretty amazing receiver. Its power output to my MS speakers is nothing short of phenomenal. If anything, that's one of the best decisions I've made, following advice in this forum. It's an amazing piece of kit. Too bad the one I got had a broken headphone amp though, I really wanted to try it out. X_X; Well that Ebay seller got a negative rating needless to say. Thankfully the speaker amps work great.
The TL;DR section below:
Well fast forward to today, I randomly picked up a pair of DCM speakers, which I later found out were the CX-17 by browsing the Audiokarma forums while in the thrift store. For 25 bucks seemed a tad expensive for thrift store fare, but I picked them up anyway, eager to try something new. I hooked them up to the Topping Tp20 MK2 in my bedroom. Well, lo and behold, these DCM's blew me the heck away. They literally sounded better than any other speaker I had ever listened to till that point. And it only got better when hooked up to my receiver. I feel like the MS speakers had their strengths, too but these had amazing separation, amazing directionality, and amazingly accurate bass. I still felt... something just a LITTLE lacking that I couldn't put my finger on, but otherwise they ticked every single box for me. So right now I'm pretty much considering browsing through Craigslist and Ebay and snatching up 2x DCM CX27 (basically the tower version of these with an extra woofer) for about 200$ total for front and back, and then I guess using these CX17's as the sides or just leaving them in my room.
Should I just go ahead and do that or is there something else I could consider? Money's been a tad tight after house purchase, so secondhand and cheaper is preferred. Oh and any advice for a center?