Need speakers

 

Silver Member
Username: Charlesbhs

Dallas, Tx USA

Post Number: 302
Registered: Jan-07
well i need alot of help buying some new speakers for my room.
I only want to use these speakers for listening to music. right now i have in my room two old 3 component box's from kenwood. but i got the boxes for $5 each at a school sale and brought them home. Then i looked on the internet and found partsexpress.com and put these VV speakers in the boxes.

tweeter
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=270-018

Midrange
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=280-115

subwoofer
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=290-083

then i hooked it up to this amp/recieverVVV

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2565072&cp=2032057.2032180 &allCount=23&fbn=Brand%2FSherwood&f=Brand%2F1000288%2F&fbc=1&parentPage=family




now i know he system i had wasnt quality at all but it was just a fun thing to do to learn how all the wiring and ohms and stuff work.

so now i am ready to goto bigger things and im wondering what suggestions i can get. Maybe some good book shelf speakers powered to my reciever and amp and then buy a subwoofer, box and amp and hook it up to the reciever. unless the recieve i have is complete rubbish which then i would upgrade but im hoping to spend maybe $600 max. and if you have something used that still works great that you wanna get rid of like everybody in the car audio threads then plz go ahead and offer a price. my zip code is 75214.. thanks alot
 

Platinum Member
Username: Jan_b_vigne

Dallas, TX

Post Number: 11688
Registered: May-04
.

I've got a few speakers laying around but probably not in the price range you're looking in. Why don't you give Mike Wodek a shot in a PM. You can find him on this thread; https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/home-audio/322396.html
 

Bronze Member
Username: Wiredcon

Phoenix, AZ U.S.A.

Post Number: 38
Registered: Oct-07
C.S- If you are ever interested in old Infinity Reference 2000 series speakers, let me know. you can check my profile to see more details.

Jan- If you have speakers that you don't mind selling to other people, can you tell me what kinds and how much are you asking? Just got curious. I was looking for a pair of speakers, and was gonna decided between Strata Mini and Opera Platea v.2. I was gonna send you a PM, but it seems like you turned off your PM feature.
 

Platinum Member
Username: Jan_b_vigne

Dallas, TX

Post Number: 11689
Registered: May-04
.

Most everything I have around at the moment is a small bookshelf. I'm hanging on to the LS3/5a's. Otherwise, I have some NSM 5S's, Boston Acoustics A40's and KEF Cresta 1's. One of those is being donated to a friend but I don't yet know which. I have some Boston Acoustics A200's with Dynaudio tweeters and a pair of Spica Angelus. I have no boxes for either of those pair and they are both about 50 lbs. each. They really require a local pickup but I will let them go cheap. If any of that interests you, let me know and I'll work a deal.


.
 

Platinum Member
Username: Jan_b_vigne

Dallas, TX

Post Number: 11690
Registered: May-04
.


RR - What you're looking at are better speakers than what I have left over.
 

Gold Member
Username: Artk

Albany, Oregon USA

Post Number: 5550
Registered: Feb-05
Too bad about shipping I'm looking for Boston's....such is life.
 

Bronze Member
Username: Wiredcon

Phoenix, AZ U.S.A.

Post Number: 39
Registered: Oct-07
Jan- Thanks for your reply. It seems like I'm better stick with my original plan then. I was wondering if you have any cables that you don't mind letting go? I actually was going to try "DIY" cables from your previous post(6moonaudio), but it seems like I need to purcahse a quite a bit of materials since they's a minium purchasing requirement on certain parts.

I figured if I can come up with a way to get similar quality cables for the money, that would be great.


Thanks,
Ryan
 

Platinum Member
Username: Jan_b_vigne

Dallas, TX

Post Number: 11691
Registered: May-04
.

My cables have always been a hodge podge of what worked for the particular application. I have a grocery bag full of old interconnect cables and speaker cables I can't even find any longer but not enough of any one kind to make a system. A lot of what I have are cables that I acquired when I was selling and they were bettered by a later generation of cables.


Go to the "accessories" section of the forum and look in the "cables" folder. Art started a thread several months ago about low cost cables that work well. There are plenty of good suggestions there and you'll find the DIY cables I'm presently using. If you can use bare wire connections on your speaker cables, these will run you a few dollars. The IC's are just about as cheap. They are not for every system and certainly not for long runs or high current amplifiers with difficult to drive speakers. I would also caution against using the speaker cables with a SET amplifier that has a very high output impedance unless the speaker load is very stable, i.e. a full range single driver such as a Fostex or a horn loaded system. With anything other than a speaker with a stable impedance curve and a reasonably low output impedance amplifier, you should be using at least an 18 A.W.G. cable. I do prefer thinner (no heavier than a 16 guage speaker cable) rather than thicker cables as I think they sound better; but that's my opinion and you can choose what you prefer. But a few of us have tried the DIY's and find them to work well in our systems when basic requirements are met.

.
 

Gold Member
Username: Nuck

Post Number: 9092
Registered: Dec-04
I am running witches brew IC's with 30g and 24g magnet wire today. They work fine.
While my stuff is not as 'esoteric' as JV's pleasures, the effects are apparant. It's dirt cheap to try as well.
Jan, are you clearing space? I never did hear the Spica's last visit, bad Nuck.

RR, the 6moons speaker runs with WalMart extension cords are a worthwhile 20$ effort.
The magnet wire/RS solder plugs work just fine.

JV, you have said a few times that the thin DIY speaker wire is not for high current applications. MikeW's Mac is high voltage, to be sure, but there has got to be some current running there, as the freaking thing plays SO loud when pushed, even I run for cover.

RR, if you run across a pair of PSB Alpha (the original is labelled The Amazing Alpha) they are well worth a go.These little darlings are among the few that do not demand a high quality/price amp, and do not tax even a modest receiver.
I used a Technics 60w job years ago, and the speakers give a lot of air.

BTW, 'esoteric' is meant as nothing but a compliment.
 

Gold Member
Username: Nuck

Post Number: 9099
Registered: Dec-04
Could you imagine the swap meet that we could all have?
 

Silver Member
Username: Nickelbut10

Post Number: 674
Registered: Jun-07
Jan Vigne- Did not know you had some Boston Acoustic stuff. My store is a full dealer of them. I have their speakers in my car but have never personally heard their home speakers before.
 

Gold Member
Username: Artk

Albany, Oregon USA

Post Number: 5551
Registered: Feb-05
When I find a good pair of A200's they will be the main speaker in my vintage system. Very nice indeed.
 

Bronze Member
Username: Wiredcon

Phoenix, AZ U.S.A.

Post Number: 40
Registered: Oct-07
Jan- I'll look into DIY section again, and see if I can find something. Thanks again.

Nuck- To get the same materials, I need to order couple of items in bulk (6moon DIY), which kinda made me wonder if I'm better off to buy used pairs of speaker cables and ICs. Funny that I just found a pair of Psb alpha (yes, original ones) online for sale. But based on reviews of Psb Alpha B and B1, there were some improvements over the original. Were you talking about money/performance perspective? Or, is there something that I'm missing in comparing this original and those new ones in alpha series?


Art- Are you familair with current line up from BA? Can you make a comment on VR3 speakers from BA?
 

Platinum Member
Username: Jan_b_vigne

Dallas, TX

Post Number: 11693
Registered: May-04
.


"Did not know you had some Boston Acoustic stuff."


I have the A200's and a pair of A40's. The 200's were BA's first speaker when the founding partners left Advent in the mid '70's. The 200's had a sound very reminiscent of Advent but with a 15 year update in thinking and materials. All the East Coast companies of the day were very nepotistic and personnel and materials often were swapped for the betterment of all. As the story goes, in the beginning there was AR. AR begat KLH, who begat Advent, who spawned Boston Acoustics. Along the way many little cousins (who no longer exist) sprung up from the children of the bigger companies. The original Genesis and EPI were East Coast companies that came out of the MIT school of design and served time with the larger companies. Roy Allison worked with Vilchur at AR after Kloss left. And, don't forget, Amar Bose also taught at MIT where Vilchur and Kloss spent their time.


Until BA got their facilities up and running the original few runs of A200's had their woofers finished at the AR plant and Advent and AR had a hand in supplying materials and financial backing. My pair probably fell outside of that original few groups but still had East Coast bass and sound. However, like most East Coast speakers of the time, the woofer surrounds eventually fell apart and the replacements changed the character of the last octave. It's still a sound you don't hear much today but it is not as it came from the factory in 1978.


The A200's were the first speaker to teach me about infinite baffles and really show how boundary loading works. One day I was showing the speakers to a client and I was playing a new Direct to Disc album - the Sheffield Dave Grusin LP - when I suddenly was aware of performers in the room as real entities not just faint images of where the musicians stood when the recording was captured. Of course, it took a very good recording and pretty good gear in front of the speakers to manage that feat. It didn't happen on a regular basis so don't think the BA's were some super speaker. They just did a lot of things right that you usually had to pay more to get. And they really don't hold up that well against today's speakers that cost less on an even dollar to dollar comparison. The original tweeters are very ragged and the mids are cloudy. The bass is still "nice" but more so for the advantages of acoustic suspension enclosures than for it's tone.


But BA designed to a sound back then. I could take the smallest BA, the A40, set it on top of the A200 and switch between the two without hearing an audible shift in sound quality other than bass extension. I could do the same with the KEF Reference line back then or with AR and Advent in their best days. None of those companies are what they were back then and they don't design the way they did back then. That's good and bad but they've all (those that still exist) lost that sense of what makes music sound alive IMO. Too much home theater under the accountant's nose I suspect.





"JV, you have said a few times that the thin DIY speaker wire is not for high current applications. MikeW's Mac is high voltage, to be sure, but there has got to be some current running there, as the freaking thing plays SO loud when pushed, even I run for cover."


MW's speakers are not all that efficient with power but they are, from all I read, a rather easy load on an amplifier. The woofer's one voice coil is controlled by a separate amplifier and the other vc is connected to a driver that has a natural mechanical roll off built into it's top end. The midrange is done the same at its top end and the tweeter is a very simple high pass filter by its nature. (http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/gallo5/ref31_2.html) So, there's not much between the amplifier and drivers to suck up current. It's a rather ingenious way to build a speaker but not very inexpensive to produce. If I remember right, the Gallos have a more or less consistent impedance curve and a fairly benign electrical phase angle which is mostly inductive due to the dynamic driver's voice coil. So, while they like big power amps, they do not require massive current dumping.



No one has jumped into my question on another thread; but the reason amplifier output impedance matters is the very reason I don't suggest super thin speaker cables for some systems. Unless the cables are kept to very short lengths any thin gauge cable will affect the overall impedance of the amp/cable/speaker circuit by adding a resistive component. Even at the lengths MW and I use the cable resistance is going to average one Ohm or higher (but the capacitiance and inductance are minimal). If you begin with an amplifier with a fairly high output impedance and add a speaker with a wavering impedance curve, the overall result will be a wandering frequency response which mirrors the impedance curve. As impedance shifts, so does the frequency response. Using a cable high in resistance - a too thin cable - will only make matters worse. Neither MW's or my amplifier have a too high output impedance and our speakers are reasonably stable loads. So, the cables work in these systems.


I've explained to MW the potential downsides of the cables but, if any really exist in his system, they are covered up nicely by other factors. Since Mike listens mostly to rock and non-classical music, he might not notice some minor frequency deviations should they exist; and, in some ways, they might even be beneficial should the shifts occur at locations that make the music more palatable to Mike.


As far as current goes, the case for cable gauge to match current draw is easy to make. But, as I've stated in other threads, I'm not a fan of more copper than required to make the system work. My tube amps don't produce much current (a few amps at best). At least they do not produce current in the way a lot of people think of "high current" from a solid state amplifier. Not many tube amps do have high current capacity so speaker pairing is usually more important with a tube amp than it generally will be with a direct coupled amplifier. But my Hornets (and the 3/5a's) never require much current. They are more voltage driven than current driven. Therefore, they work well within my system IMO. I would say the same is essentially true of Mike's system though he is running a bit more copper (and silver) gauge than I am and has an amp that can manage more than twice the watts of my tubes. But watts are made up of votage and current and what the speaker draws is what's important. If 20 gauge cable works; why put more cable into the mix? You've heard the results at Mike's house.





Now we're kind of straying from the original topic of the thread.


.
 

Silver Member
Username: Charlesbhs

Dallas, Tx USA

Post Number: 303
Registered: Jan-07
yea i got pretty lost...
 

Platinum Member
Username: Jan_b_vigne

Dallas, TX

Post Number: 11695
Registered: May-04
.


Well, CS, it's like when my native Texan friend gave me directions on how to get from Dallas to Lubbock. She said, "Go to Hwy. 30 and turn left."
 

Gold Member
Username: Exerciseguy

Fort Hamilton, NY United States

Post Number: 1459
Registered: Oct-04
Jan, I shouldn't even ask you this, I should just go ahead and try it, but what the heck.

I went to Radio Shack to pick up some magnet wire to play around with, but I noticed this 24AWG 2-Conductor Solid-Core Intercom Wire http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062655&cp=&sr=1&origkw=in tercom+wire&kw=intercom+wire&parentPage=search .

It would seem better insulated than the enamel coated 30AWG wire, and more durable, but is it thin enough?
 

Gold Member
Username: Nuck

Post Number: 9104
Registered: Dec-04
Cm, you might want to reverse the thinking a bit, and say 'is it thick enough?'
To carry the current of a speaker draw, the conductor need only be just thick enough.

Again, if reading JV's tome correctly, the I and C of the conductor is more beneficial than the overall resistance introduced into the circuit.
And going back further, the reality of conflict is pretty much minimal with mainstream gear(although the trip down memory lane is fun).

My 1972 Pioneer amp might have issues, for example.

The insulation is a bit of a bugaboo in this example, where spray coated wire held in wide isolation of 3-4" is the way I did it as well.
The insulation is of little matter, in fact masking the nature of the conductor, or the ability to notice defects(which do happen).
 

Silver Member
Username: Charlesbhs

Dallas, Tx USA

Post Number: 304
Registered: Jan-07
ok... umm... none of that really helped either?
 

Platinum Member
Username: Jan_b_vigne

Dallas, TX

Post Number: 11696
Registered: May-04
.


We're really hijacking this thread, guys.


CM - Try the cable and listen for what sounds real. I don't favor closely spaced cable legs since this ups the inductance of the cable. Depending on the system this might help or it might hurt. I prefer the enamel coating of the magnet wire since it has virtually no dielectric absorption. But I've never tried the cable you're looking at so I have no idea what it might accomplish.


Take into account what I've described above (and on the other thread) and, if you have questions about what I described above, ask.

.
 

Gold Member
Username: Exerciseguy

Fort Hamilton, NY United States

Post Number: 1460
Registered: Oct-04
Not a hijack, just a detour. Thanks.

...Carry on.
 

Silver Member
Username: Mike3

Wylie, Tx USA

Post Number: 838
Registered: May-06
Hmmm, I read Jan's post a couple of times. I suspect my setup falls under the category of "even a blind pig gets lucky every now and then" as I learned a lot about why what I did works. I will also re-visit the sixmoons thread as my audio acumen is decidedly greater now than when I made my speaker decision.

In reality I had learned enough to know to add the 28 gauge silver wire into my ICs and speaker runs and it paid the dividends I had expected.

This thread has been most informative. Thanks.

Now back to our regular scheduled programming.
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