I want to buy all new surround sound for my living room. my room is 14 x 18. I will stick to 5.1 but I am considering a 7.1 receiver so that I can hook up another set of speakers to my outdoor deck.
I have a budget of $3000.00 for the speakers and receiver .I have all the dept stores in my area plus tweeter etc and a place that carries paradigm , klipsch, jbl and polk audio.
we like movies , music and would like to move up to the world of live concerts on dvd in our living room .
I was thinking about getting some orb mod2 for the rear speakers only. Iam open to any suggestions and if there is such a thing as " user friendly" as far as the receiver goes then let me know. thanks chris
For the receiver, check out Outlaw Audio, it is an internet direct market type deal. They make great receivers and amps if you are not averse to internet sales.
I have paired their equipment with Paradigm speakers and I thought they were outstanding. I have since moved on from Paradigm, but I highly recommend their speakers.
Thanks for the reply Berny. I have not heard of outlaw audio so I will check them out.
I went to a high end store today so that I could listen to what was considered to be pristine equipment. I wanted to get a feel for what I had to shoot for even though most everything there was out of my budget.
i was quite disappointed with how unorganized they were.They had alot of nice stuff but it was impossible to listen to what I wanted. I told the guy I wanted to stick to a receiver and that I could not afford separate amp/ tuner.They had a arcam receiver that I was interested in and he told me thats what he would use to demo all the speakers for me. The two different speakers I liked were psb m2 monitors and the usher be 718. They were both nice. The only problem was that when we were done he informed me that they were being driven by a separate amp and tuner. I was out of time and had to leave. As far as the surround goes , they had RBH for center, rear & sub hooked up at all times .They sound great as well.
I might consider spending the money on one of the main speakers but only if i can get a receiver to drive them properly. Is there a receiver out there under $1,500. that can do so.
I plan on researching a lot more before I buy so any other input would be greatly appreciated . chris
I am thinking you may have found the perfect store! I have been looking for years for a place so unorganized that I can set up their stuff on my own!
What I would suggest is start by deciding what speakers you like the best. Concentrating on just one thing at a time can help decrease the confusion factor.
I have a question for anyone that can answer. Keep in mind that I have never had surround sound.
When I listened to a live concert on dvd( 5.1 ) at the store I noticed that most of the sound was coming from the center speaker. The main speakers were the ushers/psb that I kept switching back and forth. I was disappointed that the main speakers were more of a background. Is this normal? The disc was a old queen concert that was remastered to 5.1.
It will make a difference If I decide to purchase 2k or more on main speakers . I assumed that the singers lyrics would be coming from the center speaker and the rest of the band would be cranking out on those nice mains. thoughts?
The dominate speaker of 5.1 (and other) surround systems is definitely the center channel. It is required to handle voices and the sounds that "look" as though they should be coming right from the screen. where your main speakers shine is, obviously, in stereo, while listening to Cd's and other sources.
The best time for me to listen to MY music was when my kids were very young! Now...
Since you are mainly interested in a theater situation then yes, the center speaker is very important and you must spend less of your budget on the mains. It is very likely that you can settle for less expensive mains, get a matching center, some decent rears, and a good solid subwoofer and meet all of your expectations.
Some folks might jump all over me for this but given a budget I would spend more on the speaker system than the receiver and related peripherals.
I had a nice experience at a place called ne hi fi. The salesman seemed to know his stuff . He was not pushy and I felt he really was trying to sell me what would meet my needs.
They carried paradigm and klipsch for speakers. onkyo, denon and harm/karm for receivers. He likes the hk alot. we only listened to the paradigm speakers.
We first listened to the lower end stuff. hk avr 247, paradigm mini monitor speakers with matching surround. all of this would cost me $1,800.00. I thought it sounded very good for the money.
We next listened to a system that included the paradigm sinature speakers s-2. It had a seperate amp and tuner and much higher end surround /sub/center. The sub was paradigms top sub and that itself was 4k. the S2's ,the center, & rear were approx 1k each . This was a easy 10k package. It sound better but in no way was it that much better to my ears then the cheaper package.
The only thing I regret is not getting a chance to hear the klipsch, He never said much about them and I ran out of time. I would also have liked to hear the titan monitor but they were not hooked up at the time and he also pushed me away from them . He felt that If I jumped up to them I might as well go to one of the tower monitors.
I did ask if the s-2 speakers would match up in the cheaper package and replace the mini monitors. he said it would and that the hk receiver would drive them. I did not get a chance to hear them that way.
In a nutshell, I was pretty happy with what $1,800 could have bought me.I had a friend with me who felt the same way.I also liked the salesman. I think he was trustworthy and would help me with all the hook up nightmares that lie ahead.
I still plan on researching / shopping quite a bit more. Thats just my nature.
I finally got around to checking out the outlaw audio website. I was pretty impressed by the reviews of the 1070 receiver. According to there august 2007 newsletter , it seems that they have sold out that model and are replacing it with two others.I could not find the replacements listed.Hopefully they will include hdmi connections.
Iam going to consider there receiver . I take it that this is a reliable company and that they stand behind there products.
I was curious what paradigm speakers you use to have and what are you listening to now? thanks for your time, chris
christopher, you should keep in mind when listening to different speakers and amps, (what do you like) two extremes: klipsch paired with something like yamaha could sound bright and give listening fatigue, I got this in the past with DCM`s and yamaha, second extreme a warm sounding speaker paired with something like NAD could sound muffled from what I have read but have no experience with that extreme, come to think about it I did listen to two systems with NAD and ERA speakers and I thaught they sounded really good, I have H/K 645 running wharfedales which is on the warm side and there is a few recordings that now sound bad to me like boston but there probibly crappy recordings anyways, but my system makes up for it with detailed room filling natural sound and blink 182, corn, stealydan, pinkfloyd, B tribe never souned better.
your room will play a big part in it to, a room with no carpet and hard flat surfaces and then throw in some klipsch speakers and a yamaha reciever and and cranking country pop I will be running out that room shuving woman and children out of the way and holding my ears!!!!! sorry that was one of my nightmears last night, any ways what sounds good or bad in a store could sound bad or good in your home and now im confusing myself so I will just change the subject, I like my wharfys
