I am completely a newbie in HT systems. Gladly I have bought a Yamaha RX-v450. Wanted to know if the sony speaker system , SS-550CH center channel , along with the 550 series Tower speakers will go along well. Upon audition at my local best buy I found that the bass was bloomy in these speakers when the bass knob was in max. on the receiver while i was playing Hotel California ( the opening music which has some heavy bass drums ) . Is this a drwaback with the Sony speakers, or was my tuning incorrect. I know there r not many sony lovers out here.
Since my budget is limited for the entire speaker package ( $500 ) , would this be a good combination. I hope when the center channel costs 100 bucks it should be pretty decent.
Any help is appreciated.
Fyi, the salesmen at my local best buy are good for nothing . It was surprising to know that they did not have any basic technical knowledge of the equipments they were supposed to be selling.Speaker sensitivity is the number, above which if u set your volume on your amp. , the sound comes distorted from your speaker.. EVER HEARD OF THIS!!! , as told to me by the salesman. There are other interesting definitions which were told to me.
BestBuy is 90% crap products and crap sales advice.
The only thing Sony still does well is TVs, its low end audio is garbage. Here are some better options:
Hsu Ventriloquist V-12 with STF-1 subwoofer, $500 from hsustore.com
Polk RM6750 5.1, $500 shipped from amazon.com
Athena Micra 5.1, $332 shipped from audioadvisor.com
Best way to go though would be to invest in a great center channel (does at least 60% of the work in HT), best bang-for-your-buck sub, cheap bookshelves you can use for fronts temporarily. Something like this:
Ascend Acoustics CMT-340 center, $310 shipped (ascendacoustics.com)
Dayton 10" sub, $140 shipped (partsexpress.com)
Polk R15 bookshelves, $100 (jandr.com)
Then in a few months when you get some extra cash, move the Polks to surround duty and get a pair of Ascend CBM-170s for $340 shipped. THAT would be an excellent system for the money!
jampot74
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Ed, When you suggest to have the system built using speakers from different brands, do I not stand a chance of making the center and L/R unmatched.
I suggest having the L/R and Center unmatched only as a TEMPORARY solution since you are operating with such a low budget; like I said, as soon as you have the cash to upgrade, you can get either the Ascend 170s or 340s for the L/R and move the Polks to suround duty. My thinking is that it's better to have an "OK" 3.1 setup now, then in a few months when you get the better L/R speakers you'll have a GREAT 5.1 setup. Otherwise if you buy a full 5.1 setup right now in the $500 range you'll ALWAYS have an "OK" 5.1 setup.
The only speakers that need to be brand-matched are the front 3. The surrounds are the absolutely least important speakers because they only do maybe 10% of the work during HT---only if you plan on listening to SACD/DVD-As surround music does it make any sense to match them. And the sub of course does NOT ever need to be brand matched.
The center channel is the #1 speaker in HT and that's why I recommended the Ascend 340c --- it's huge but really brings out the dialogue into your room, I found that I didn't have to turn up the volume as much with them like I did with my old Wharfedale center channel. I even use it when I listen to vocal-dominated music like Norah Jones, because it really does voices so well.
Overall Wharfedales don't impress me at all, their only appeal is price. They have received glowing reviews from only one professional source, over and over again which makes me wonder. Look at buy.com for some good prices on their Diamond series.