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Midrange Speakers

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Posts

  • midgetspymidgetspy Registered User
    RooX wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    L*2*G*X wrote: »
    To further put this into perspective, true midrange speakers cost about that per pair. Once you really get into audio you either re-apply for med school and become a filthy rich heart surgeon, or you build it yourself.

    Having said that it is not for the feint of heart. Once drivers arrive at your place, and after a significant amount of burning in, their characteristics will have changed from what the manufacturer assumed. The room the speakers are in and their placement also influence the sound of the enclosures. You'll then need to tune the enclosure you built, by ear, either by adding pillow stuffing, or by changing components in the crossover cirquit. Tune it by ear.

    If at this point your neighbour has a moderately loud fridge you might end up in a solitary cell, calculating the thiele small parameters of it's barred window when strung with the psychologists' diaphragm.

    There is no sane definition of "midrange" for which a single pair of speakers costs three grand.

    I mean, you can quibble over whether you're talking $300 or $500 or $700 or whatever.

    But not three-fucking-grand.


    guess its all relative when you have speakers that are costing in the 10's of thousands of dollars each out there... I personally think you can get great home theater speakers for under 2000 for a 7 channel set, for proper 2 channel audio, there are some bookshelves in the slightly-under-1000$ (a pair) range i could be ok with, but honestly i havent heard many amazing/great speakers for 2-channel audio for under 1500.00 or so (brand new that is, used gives you at least a 30% reduction in price)

    I have relativly expensive speakers for my 2-channel system, this is after having dozens of other pair in it over the years.. I spent more trying to emulate an amazing speaker than i ended up spending on hte speakers i at one point deemed "too expensive", since buying them, i have been perfectly happy for 6 years. My theater system, is 7.2, total cost on them was less than 1/2 what i payed for my stereo speakers, yet i love them as well, for movies and games.

    Basically, its all in the buyers/listeners eye/ear.

    I've always wondered how .2 systems work - do you just use a splitter or do some receivers have 2 sub outputs?

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Super Moderator, Moderator, ClubPA mod
    midgetspy wrote: »
    RooX wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    L*2*G*X wrote: »
    To further put this into perspective, true midrange speakers cost about that per pair. Once you really get into audio you either re-apply for med school and become a filthy rich heart surgeon, or you build it yourself.

    Having said that it is not for the feint of heart. Once drivers arrive at your place, and after a significant amount of burning in, their characteristics will have changed from what the manufacturer assumed. The room the speakers are in and their placement also influence the sound of the enclosures. You'll then need to tune the enclosure you built, by ear, either by adding pillow stuffing, or by changing components in the crossover cirquit. Tune it by ear.

    If at this point your neighbour has a moderately loud fridge you might end up in a solitary cell, calculating the thiele small parameters of it's barred window when strung with the psychologists' diaphragm.

    There is no sane definition of "midrange" for which a single pair of speakers costs three grand.

    I mean, you can quibble over whether you're talking $300 or $500 or $700 or whatever.

    But not three-fucking-grand.


    guess its all relative when you have speakers that are costing in the 10's of thousands of dollars each out there... I personally think you can get great home theater speakers for under 2000 for a 7 channel set, for proper 2 channel audio, there are some bookshelves in the slightly-under-1000$ (a pair) range i could be ok with, but honestly i havent heard many amazing/great speakers for 2-channel audio for under 1500.00 or so (brand new that is, used gives you at least a 30% reduction in price)

    I have relativly expensive speakers for my 2-channel system, this is after having dozens of other pair in it over the years.. I spent more trying to emulate an amazing speaker than i ended up spending on hte speakers i at one point deemed "too expensive", since buying them, i have been perfectly happy for 6 years. My theater system, is 7.2, total cost on them was less than 1/2 what i payed for my stereo speakers, yet i love them as well, for movies and games.

    Basically, its all in the buyers/listeners eye/ear.

    I've always wondered how .2 systems work - do you just use a splitter or do some receivers have 2 sub outputs?

    As I understand it, you use a splitter.

    I think you may need to set the subs to operate out of phase with one another so they don't cancel out, but I'm not positive.

    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am not!"
    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Super Moderator, Moderator, ClubPA mod
    RooX wrote: »
    guess its all relative when you have speakers that are costing in the 10's of thousands of dollars each out there... I personally think you can get great home theater speakers for under 2000 for a 7 channel set, for proper 2 channel audio, there are some bookshelves in the slightly-under-1000$ (a pair) range i could be ok with, but honestly i havent heard many amazing/great speakers for 2-channel audio for under 1500.00 or so (brand new that is, used gives you at least a 30% reduction in price)

    I have relativly expensive speakers for my 2-channel system, this is after having dozens of other pair in it over the years.. I spent more trying to emulate an amazing speaker than i ended up spending on hte speakers i at one point deemed "too expensive", since buying them, i have been perfectly happy for 6 years. My theater system, is 7.2, total cost on them was less than 1/2 what i payed for my stereo speakers, yet i love them as well, for movies and games.

    Basically, its all in the buyers/listeners eye/ear.

    I suppose it's relative to a point, but I think such definitions should be applicable to the majority of people. There are, loosely speaking, three categories of speaker. There's the low-end stuff that people buy because they either don't care or just need something that works. There's the mid-range stuff for people who want quality and are willing to pay for it, but either aren't rich or not willing to get a second mortgage to cover their A/V rig. And there's the high-end.

    People in the middle category there aren't going to pay over a thousand dollars per speaker. That's just not a reasonable definition.

    Sort of like if someone was asking for an affordable sporty car, you wouldn't recommend an Aston Martin DB7 with the logic that it's considerably cheaper than a Bugatti Veyron.

    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am not!"
    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
  • RooXRooX Registered User
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    RooX wrote: »
    guess its all relative when you have speakers that are costing in the 10's of thousands of dollars each out there... I personally think you can get great home theater speakers for under 2000 for a 7 channel set, for proper 2 channel audio, there are some bookshelves in the slightly-under-1000$ (a pair) range i could be ok with, but honestly i havent heard many amazing/great speakers for 2-channel audio for under 1500.00 or so (brand new that is, used gives you at least a 30% reduction in price)

    I have relativly expensive speakers for my 2-channel system, this is after having dozens of other pair in it over the years.. I spent more trying to emulate an amazing speaker than i ended up spending on hte speakers i at one point deemed "too expensive", since buying them, i have been perfectly happy for 6 years. My theater system, is 7.2, total cost on them was less than 1/2 what i payed for my stereo speakers, yet i love them as well, for movies and games.

    Basically, its all in the buyers/listeners eye/ear.

    I suppose it's relative to a point, but I think such definitions should be applicable to the majority of people. There are, loosely speaking, three categories of speaker. There's the low-end stuff that people buy because they either don't care or just need something that works. There's the mid-range stuff for people who want quality and are willing to pay for it, but either aren't rich or not willing to get a second mortgage to cover their A/V rig. And there's the high-end.

    People in the middle category there aren't going to pay over a thousand dollars per speaker. That's just not a reasonable definition.

    Sort of like if someone was asking for an affordable sporty car, you wouldn't recommend an Aston Martin DB7 with the logic that it's considerably cheaper than a Bugatti Veyron.

    yeah, pretty much correct, although having helped out in a high end stereo store for a few years, you would be surprised what some people ended up walking out the door with, when all they came in for was a "low-cost" $600.00 set of speakers for their den. I almost always found that once someone sits down and takes 5 or 6 hours to really listen to 10+ pairs of speakers, they end up spending far more than they came in thinking they would, not always right away, but eventually the memories of how good it could sound get people thinking of upgrading. This of course mostly applied to the stereo side of things, most theater applications can be pretty damn good for relatively low cost.

    there are a few ways of doing the sub thing, in my case the 2-15" subs are on each side of the theater screen, so both in the same phase, and i just use a homemade splitter.

    Only dead fish swim downstream.
  • EgoEgo Registered User regular
    I've been using the speakers in my TV while waiting for the weather to change enough that I want to dig my logitechs out of my suburban.

    If I started obsessing over speakers the way I obsess over displays, I would be in a lot of trouble. I think I'm going to stay far, far away from high end stereo stores ;).

    Erik
  • L*2*G*XL*2*G*X Registered User regular
    guys, he was talking aussie dollars, so about 1500 euro for the whole setup.

    The audio lovers I know will pay that for a pair of midrange 3 way speakers.

    Why is 750 euros a speaker midrange? 750 euros prolly leaves about 400 euros for the builder to put 3 quality drivers + crossover components into a nice finished enclosure and ship it out. If they are really using quality that's cutting it close.

    People's "wait, what?" comes from the gap between those speakers and the junk you buy for 250 euros a 5.1 kit. That's not low-end, it's junk.

    (The thing about true low-end speakers however, is that they offer less value for money than second hand hight end speakers. Good speakers do last years and years. If you're going to be spending less than 500 euros, I'd cobble together a 5.1 system from second hand speakers, then let your receiver setup figure out the crossovers.)

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Super Moderator, Moderator, ClubPA mod
    You know there's a lot of space between $500 for the entire system and $5000-10000 for the entire system, yes?

    I mean, if you want to define anything less than $1500/speaker as "low-end", that's fine, just keep in mind that 99% of the population will be grossly confused by your definition.

    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am not!"
    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
  • RooXRooX Registered User
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    You know there's a lot of space between $500 for the entire system and $5000-10000 for the entire system, yes?

    I mean, if you want to define anything less than $1500/speaker as "low-end", that's fine, just keep in mind that 99% of the population will be grossly confused by your definition.

    agreed, i think there should be a disclaimer that there is a huge difference in the definition of a low/mid/high end speaker for the general consumer vs audio-enthusiast/nut/freak.

    Only dead fish swim downstream.
  • ScrubletScrublet Registered User regular
    I got real busy and haven't been on much the past couple days, so first thanks for all the additional input. To clarify yes I meant a sane definition of midrange. It is not all relative when there are $10,000/pair speakers out there. We can create some subclasses in "high range" like "ultra-range" but I'm sticking with El Jeffe's definition. I'm thinking I'm going to part together either the Energys or the Paradigms. I'm looking around to see if I can find a store that has both up so I can compare them. I'm still on the fence about the receiver, it seems fine but the issues in the upper models still concerns me. Debating whether or not I should buy more receiver now and save the speakers for a month or two, or get the 606 and replace it further down the line.

    subedii wrote: »
    I hear PC gaming is huge off the coast of Somalia right now.
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Super Moderator, Moderator, ClubPA mod
    I know Paradigm's site has (or used to have) a store locator. If Energy's site has the same, you might be able to find such a store pretty easily.

    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am not!"
    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
  • DjeetDjeet Registered User regular
    Scrublet wrote: »
    I'm thinking I'm going to part together either the Energys or the Paradigms. I'm looking around to see if I can find a store that has both up so I can compare them.

    There seems to be some territoriality w/r/to brands between hi-fi shops (or vice versa). You may have different luck where you are but I couldn't find a place that had both paradigms and energys. To facilitate a side by side test I had to audition each from different stores (when you've chosen something you like I recommend doing this as your listening environment may not be as ideally suited to listening as in the store, what with 1000's of dollars they probably spent on sound-damping materials).

    Can't help you choose in the receiver department, but just because some higher end editions in the same model line have issues doesn't mean the lower end editions will suffer the same fate. There can be considerable differences in the the components used between them. If user-generated reviews are what you're going by I'd only compare apples to apples. I'm considering a new receiver myself, right now the front runner for me is the Marantz 4003, but I've got a hard on for discrete power right now.

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Super Moderator, Moderator, ClubPA mod
    Marantz's are sexy. I almost picked up a 400X awhile back, but it came down to that or my Yamaha, and the remote for the Marantz was god-awful.

    Next time I pick up a receiver, though, it'll likely be a Marantz.

    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am not!"
    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
  • ImprovoloneImprovolone Registered User
    Harmony solves all.

    Voice actor for hire. My time is free if your project is!
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Super Moderator, Moderator, ClubPA mod
    Pretty sure Harmony remotes didn't exist at the time. This would've been 98 or 99.

    And actually, the remotes that came with higher-end Marantz receivers back then pretty much were Harmony-style remotes, with big ol' LCD screens and everything. But this one came with a shitty one.

    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am not!"
    Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
    Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
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