I have a bottom of the line system and was wondering whether or not i should upgrade my reciever or my mains (floors) first? any advice is welcome.
J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
Posted on
The classic advice of better dealers over the past three decades has been to start at the front of the system and work your way to the speakers. It comes from the computer industry's idea of "garbage in, garbage out". Try finding a good dealer who can put you on a path to upgrading your system. Big boxes like Best Buy usually are not the place for an upgrade path. They simply move boxes today and don't think about tomorrow. It will not get you the dramatic change that comes from speakers but you will find you are happier with the results in the long run. If you don't agree with that theory go ahead and change your speakers. Just don't come crying to me.
Agree 100% with John. Start at the start. No speaker can improve upon the signal it's being sent, but any good speaker will reveal each and every fault of components preceeding that speaker. Don't forget cables in this heirarchy.
J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Neal - Sorry, I meant to put one of those little faces with a sh*t eatin' grin on the end of that but I thought that might be as misinterepeted as not putting anything. The attitude is from seeing so many requests for help on this forun from people who have purchased something they are unhappy with or have problems with. Also, as a former audio/video salesperson, I know the customer who buys speakers first usually stops there because they think they've changed the most important part and they, admittedly, have made a big change in sound. The client who starts at the front will return to tell you about all the things they are hearing that were never there before and things that were there that are now gone such as noise and distortion. I guess you could call it self serving since I usually sold several items to someone who started at the front and seldom saw the customer who just bought speakers. I thought of it as helping the client get the most from their purchases and the most satisfaction from their music.
J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Check "How you buy and sell audio/video" under the "Amps" section of this forum for more.
I disagree. I too once sold home audio gear. What I learned from that was that "bottom line" systems generally sacrifice speaker quality first to arrive at a low price point. With good speakers at the end of the signal chain, you are better able to see (hear) if other components "upstream" are a true improvement or not. To wit, say you have two receivers with a sutle difference in sound quality. Just a small difference, but enough that you'd choose one over another. With low quality speakers, you might not hear the difference. If you buy the best speakers you can afford, by all means, don't stop there.
jphil
Unregistered guest
Posted on
you always start by buying speakers. And spend all the money you can. You will keep them longer than your receiver. The problem with receiver is the technology change too much...dd, dts, neo6. 7.1...but the speakers are always the same...well almost.
jphil
Unregistered guest
Posted on
you always start by buying speakers. And spend all the money you can. You will keep them longer than your receiver. The problem with receiver is the technology change too much...dd, dts, neo6. 7.1...but the speakers are always the same...well almost.
There is no simple answer. Everything depends on where you are starting from. You say "I have a bottom of the line system and was wondering..." If you could be more specific, there may be people here who can offer an opinion on what to keep, and what to replace. J. Vigne ("Jan", BTW, I think), mauimusicman, and Nathan can all be correct, depending on your existing speakers etc.
Some years ago, when "music centres" were fashionable, it was mostly the case that the speakers supplied were awful and the best possible upgrade was to replace them. I recently connected some old KEF Coda II speakers (marketed in the 1980s, partly aimed at "music centre" upgrades) to one of our children's newish, small, Sharp all-in-one CD/radio/audio-cassette/aux-input players, and heard the improvement straight away. The amp is 2 x 20 W, I think, which is sort of enough for small rooms, and the CD and radio performance were not at all bad. The built-in audio tape player, however, was junk, and better speakers just revealed more clearly what junk it was.