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| I've been looking for tower speakers (new, used or refurbished) around the $400-500 range in Europe and I've come up with a list of speakers: *Infinity Alpha 40 or Alpha 50 *Canton LE 109 *Klipsch RF3 II *Magnepan MMG *Polk Audio TRi70 *Jamo E850 or E870 *Acoustic Research AR9 As far as reviews and research I have done, the AR9s are the best quality speakers for the money... and can compete with speakers twice their price. I also heard the Infinity Alpha 50 and Jamo E850 loudspeakers are nice. Since I like bass, I am definately getting a Subwoofer (maybe one day an SVS!). So my main concerns are the Mids and Highs. My room is 18.5 square meters, or 61 square feet, and my music preference is anything from classical music to acuoustic music unplugged and alot of rap and hip-hop... everything basically. And oh yeah, I like CLARITY but I also love it LOUD! So it needs to be able to handle high volume without blowing the speakers! Your opinions are greatly appreciated, Sven p.s. If possible, please back up your information with a reference link and/or a place to buy the speakers at best price and/or your backround or expertise in hi-fi audio (for credibility). Thanks! |
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Anthony | Sven, I am an audio enthusiast from Colorado. If you want good towers in that range go to JandR.com. Look up the JBL S312ii tower speakers, you can get a pair for $540. It's a little over your range but well worth it. If your concern is mid and highs, the poly pros construction of the JBL midrange makes it sound great, and for the highs JBL makes all of there studio series speakers with PURE Titanium tweeters - now those babys add a spectrum to music and media that is often taken for granted. I recently bought these speakers and they are great. I live in a fraternity house so I have some credential to say that with JBL speakers and my Harman Kardon 525 reciever I have the loudest system in the house. The only guy close to me is running a Denon Reciever with Infinity speakers. Infinity and JBL are very comparable, but if you look at specs JBL's seem to be slightly superior. (Make note to look at frequency response and sensitivities). When compared with Infinity JBL almost always has better sensitivity and response. Sensitivity is important since a speaker with 92dB sensitivity (which is JBL S312ii) will sound twice as loud with a certain amount of wattage than a speaker with 89dB sensitivity (which is Infinities common rating). Now since you're in Europe I don't know how easy it will be to get JBL's, but I would suggest to do your best! |
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sven dawg | Thanks Anthony for your help! I've always kinda discarded the idea of JBL... I don't know why. Now I'll be sure to check these babies out. Oh, and thanks for the education on speaker sensitivity. I have another question lingering in my head... if a speaker has lower Ohms... the reciever has to work harder to get the speakers pumpin'. Are lower Ohm speakers good/bad... or does it even matter? I'm about to get the Marantz 7200... they push out 105W x 6. Should I be concerned with low ohm speakers with such a reciever? I've been eyeing a pair of Dynaudio Audience 72's (1 year old on ebay) but supposedly they suck alot of current... All opinions welcome. Sven |
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| On a good reciever/amp lowering the ohm load will increase the power output, meaning that there is less resistance to the power so more juice flows. This also means that distortion increases. For example Denon lists their avr3803 as 110w X 7 at 8 Ohms using a full 20Hz-20Khz at less than .05% Total harmonic distortion. They also list that reciever at 150w X 7 at 6 Ohms using only a 1Khz test tone and with less than .7% THD. That is not necessarily a bad thing and you may not even notice as long as your reciever is not near the minimum recommended power for those speakers. As far as sensitivity is concerned 3 dB louder is not twice as loud but it gives the same result as doubling your power to the speaker. 10 dB more = twice as loud. Bear in mind that the sensitivity rating is given at 1 Watt at 1 meter from the speaker 2 Watts give you 3 dB more. 4 Watts gives you 3 dB more, 8W=3dB more, 16W=3dB more and so on. That means that 10 X the power = twice as loud. So a difference of 10, 20 or even 30 watts may not be that big a deal except that with more demanding speakers or at higher volumes you will find the amp to be more stable. Hope that helps. |
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sven dawg | Thanks Miguel for your help. The speakers I'm looking at (Dynaudio Audience 72) have a sensitivity of 86 dB and an average impedence of 5.3 Ohms. I only want to spend around $500 for a reciever (thus I am only looking at used recievers like the Marantz 7200... more performance for less money) OR should I get a reciever that has the current tech. for DTS EX 6.1 and Neo with enough power to feed the center and rear channels (like a Denon AVR 2802) AND then a 2 channel beefy amp for the fronts (when I can afford it later on)? How much power do I need for such speakers? I've read some reviews that these speakers are VERY power hungry and need a good high powered amp... how good is good and how high is high? Will someone kindly 'hit me' with their Hi-Fi wisdom? |
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| 82dB sens. is very low and you will need lots of power if you want to play loud. The Marantz will at least have enough power or if you can find an avr1082(same as the avr3802-110X7, multi-room/multi-source,DTS-ES, DD-EX, DPLII). Until recently my company had a great deal on the avr1082 which started at $1200 but we closed out at $699. If you can find it at around that price you will have what you need at a steal. The Marantz won't be bad but if you want the newer tech the Denon is great. In either case you can always buy a more powerfull separate amp later if you need to. |
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Sven | About the Denon AVR1082... I have seen them and they look nice... they are like the 3802 but minutely less high tech. The only problem is that I'm in Europe and I haven't seen that model anywhere around here. Plus... you mentioned the Denon AVR1082 at $699... but I found them for $458+shipping in the states (onsale.com) denon/factory refurbished. Currently I'm looking for a good quality, used reciever and/or amp on ebay.de (germany) for cheap. A very nice amp just caught my eye - the Vincent SP 991 Class A. This beauty is a monophonic amplifier with 300 W RMS at 8 ohms or at Class A power it is 1x100 W RMS at 8 ohms. It provides 1x XLR input + 1x Cinch selectable input... having a toroidal 1.500 W transformer, a total capacitance of 120.000 mF for energy storage and 24 power transistors from Toshiba... whatever that means. I need a powererful amp to feed these 2 front speakers (the dynaudio audience 72's with 86 dB and 5.3 ohms average impedence)... so here is the QUESTION: can I >>>SPLIT<<< a mono amp to power both my front left & right speakers? Though this is a nice amp, my main objective is powering these current-hungry dynaudio towers. Will I be able to play them in stereo or pro logic II sound if I use a reciever with pre-outs and this mono amp? And is it worth the hastle of trying to get this amp to feed 2 speakers (if it's even possible) or should I find another amp... a stereo amp? Or should I just look for a powerful reciever? A heavy-duty reciever with all the current tech runs at a hefty price tag... but maybe it's more strategically beneficial (ecenomic-wise) for me if I find a lower power, high tech reciever... enough power to feed my center and surround... and use the pre-out to connect to a powerful stereo (2-channel) amp. Whatcha think? ((I need to buy a hi-fi book so I can educate myself in these matters... I'm completely helpless and just begining my venture in this world of hi-fi audio .)) Thanks p.s. Here's more info on the amp. http://www.thorens.ch/018907930e0853145/018907930e0854a4b/018907930e089d476/index.htm |
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| No Way possible to get stereo out of a mono amp. The info on the link is for a stereo set up so I assume you have access to just one of the amps but you will need 2. 300W is a whole lot of power and if it ws a true 100W class A I would expect it to cost several thousand dollars (Parasound just released the JC1 25W class A or 400W class A/B for $3000 retail). I wouldn't worry about getting a separate amp yet or maybe if you want to spend the extra money look for a Yamaha RXV3300. They just came down in price and I don't know of a more powerfull reciever for the price, 130WX6 |
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Rob | Sven, Do you get "Mission" speakers up there? I have been casually shopping for mid priced stereo speakers for a while and was well impressed with their series 7 floor standers. They review pretty well in the magazines too so check em out you can get them. And while you're on the subject of amps, could you please tell me what "class A" and "class B" mean. |
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| I bought a pair of Monitor Audio S6 about 5 months ago and still am impressed every time I play something I hadn't previously heard played on them. Imaging is great and they sound very natural with all types of music. For the money, hard to go wrong. |
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| Class A Amps (very expensive amps) play cleaner because the sine wave doesn't switch on and off rapidly like class A/B amps(almost everything else including virtually all recievers are class A/B) do to keep from burning up and to be more efficient. But Class A run at full power at all times, get hot and stay hot and are very heavy and expensive. Soon you may start seeing a new kind of amp growing in popularity, class d amps which use the switching to amplify, generate lots of noise that is dealt with in different ways depending on the application and are incredibly light weight. |