I'm trying to set up a HT/Music 7.1 system, and I have budgeted $3800 for ALL the speakers. I'm not a fanatical audiophile, but I do care about the following in the following order.
(A) Wide sweet spot for several people (most important): I don't want to be imprisoned when solo, I do most of my listening with family and friends anyway, and I'm not interested in "head-in-a-vise" speakers. (I know I sacrifice some imaging--I don't care.)
(B) Forgiving of crappy music recordings: I can't control product quality, we have a lot of crappy stuff that we like, and I'm not interested in "will-expose-all-the-flaws-in-your-source-material" speakers. (I know I sacrifice some resolution and detail--I don't care.)
(C) Able to do movie dialogue well: Else what's the point of HT?
[From to talking to my (non-audiophile) friends, I think I represent a lot of people in terms of preferences and budget.]
After doing some research, here's what I've come up with as possibilities. I think all can be had for at most $3800 (taking into account sales and negotiating).
Definitive Technology: BP7002 mains, lcr 2500 center, BP2X surrounds, pro-monitor 100 rears, no sub.
Mirage: OM-9 mains, OM-2 center, OM-R2 surrounds and rears, Hsu vtf-2 sub.
The Kef and Mirage specifics are a bit tentative, as I have heard that both have new models coming out this year.
Have I missed any manufacturers that meet my priorities? Do you have any pros and cons on the manufacturers/systems listed? Of course, I do plan as much auditioning as possible.
I'm not too familiar with the manufacturers you've listed other than the Mirage, which I found very unimpressive given its price point. For $3800 though you would have to try pretty hard to do badly (other than buying Bose of course).
(A) You will get a wide sweet spot with most speakers EXCEPT for the planar speakers (Magnepans). Specifically ask for speakers that have a wide dispersion tweeter, like the Ascend 340s.
(B) Any quality speaker, and any quality amp or receiver, will NOT be forgiving of crappy recordings---sorry, that's just what you pay for when you buy quality. If you are worried about this then you may want to make sure that your receiver has a lot of music-tweaking capabilities or even a built-in graphic equalizer so that you can mask bad recordings.
(C) About 80% of movie dialogue comes from your center speaker, so just make sure you get the biggest center speaker available in the same brand as your front mains. This is about the only area where I'd agree with the "bigger is better" SUV-buyers' mentality.
Make sure you go with a quality subwoofer like the Hsu VTF-2 that you have listed, REGARDLESS of which speaker brand you choose. Next to your front 3 speakers, the subwoofer is the most important speaker in any HT setup.
Unless you plan on listening to a lot of multichannel music using SACDs or DVD-As, your 4 surround speakers are relatively unimportant and certainly do not need to be matched with your fronts. Personally I would get the best fronts and sub you can afford then go cheap on the surrounds.
The retail speakers I'd encourage you to audition are the Paradigms, these have continued to impress me especially with their quality-to-price ratio.
Is that right on A? I've seen quite a few threads on this and other boards in which people lament narrow sweet spots (on a range of speaker types) in the sense that moving side to side or up and down by a small amount destroys the illusion of a soundstage. I'm not talking about maintaining tonality but the illusion of a soundstage. What I tried to do was gather the speaker suggestions in these threads and narrow down based on my budget. You seem to be suggesting that I'm way off base here. If so, that's important for me to know.
Well I don't claim to have heard every existing speaker on the market, but in my experience if the speakers are of good quality (and your budget should lead you to those), properly placed and sufficiently powered, you should have plenty of wiggle room and not hear a huge degradation in soundstage...especially not with a good center speaker. Stereo listening is a different ballgame.
When you go in to audition speakers (which I'm assuming you will) this should be fairly easy to test out for yourself.
Yes, I see. But I am interested in music as well. For example, Ohm claims a sweet spot 10 feet wide for listeners set back 10 feet from speakers set 10 feet apart:
"Typically, if the Ohm Walsh speakers are 10 feet apart and you are sitting 10 feet back, the Sweet-Sweep will be 10 feet wide! You can test this by having two friends sitting 5 feet on either side of you point out the perceived sources on individual performers. While you do this with different speakers the results will be very revealing."
Of course, there's probably some hype here, but it shows you where I'm coming from.