Which speaker is a good match for the Denon 4806 and the Denon 3910. I have about 4 grand to spend on a 5.1 system minus the subwoofer. All advice greatly appreciated. Thanks
PK--What are the dimensions of your room? Are your room acoustics lively, well-balanced, or muted? Do you have any speaker preferences, such as front towers and rear bookshelf, all bookshelf, in-wall/bookshelf or in-wall tower, etc.?
There are quite a few good speakers in this price range.
The room dimensions are 20X20 with 15 ft vaulted ceiling. Wooden floors with plasterboard walls. Front towers with a good matched center and some rear bookshelf or wall mounts. 50/50 music surround sound movies. Mix of music from classical to rock. Thanks I hope this helps.
Check out the Onix speaker site. I set up a friend with the Onix Rockets (the 850's)in a surround package and they both sound and look great (and are amazing bargains to boot). They also have the Onix Reference speaker packages which are also great. You can choose either their bookshelf, towers, or dipole speakers for the surrounds. THX specifies dipoles for surrounds, but I prefer regular bookshelf or towers (particularly when listening to music).
Paradigm Reference and Studio series are also excellent.
One good Onix mix would be the RS850 Signature at $1999 with the RS250MKII bookshelf speakers at $599 and the RSC200 at $599 for the center channel. I am sure you get a 10-20% discount for buying the package. You could also get 4 RS850's and the center. Then you won't need speaker stands and you have the same speakers all the way--very seamless sound. Another excellent package is the RS760 towers ($1499/pr) all the way around with the RSCs00 center at $599. They discount the $3600 package to $3,098.
For the self-powered subwoofer the SVS PB12-Plus/2 at $1399 in rosewood is excellent or the new Onix Rocket UFW-12 with R-DES at $1099. The R-DES is equalization for the bass-- R-DES (Rocket Digital EQ System) six band parametric equalizer with PC interface. Equalization for the bass very much improves the performance and smooths out any peaks and valleys, which are almost the rule in any room. One can always buy the R-DES separately and use it with other subwoofers. The SVS model comes with a one-band parametric equalization. Some people with very good systems in a large room use 2 subwoofers to get better bass and smooth out the soundstage and frequency balance. One can get 2 Onix Rocket UFW-12's for $1999.
If one wants to go with Paradigm, go to a dealer and hear their mix that fits your budget. With the Onix you order online and can return them if not satisfied---but they are both beautiful, sound great, and have wonderful spouse approval factor--as people that aren't even music afficianado's think they are gorgeous pieces of furniture:-)
Obviously there are good systems from B&W, Monitor Audio, Gallo, and many others. But I don't think you can get better bang for the buck than Onix and then Paradigm.